Happy Holidays to everyone!

It's hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone, but it's been a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed the holiday season. In Ottawa we got in the spirit by cutting down our own Christmas tree and decorating our house for the Rideau Club's Christmas party. The tree was a little thin in a few areas, but it really brightened up the house and helped set the mood. The party was a huge success, with some great music by the RCC Band (Angus Mortimer, Rob Samulack and Nick Deek), along with a great christmas carol sing a long. The food was also great, special thanks to Cameron and Brian for their delicious dish, we will make sure to return the favour!
Once exams were over and, more importantly, we had over a million fans in Rock Band, it was home for the holidays! It was a bit of an adventure getting home, with an over booked train and a cancelled flight, but it all worked out in the end and I made it just in time for one of my family Christmas parties.
A few days before the big show, Burloak had it's annual Awards Night/Christmas Party, which was a lot of fun. It was the 50th anniversary of the Mohawk Canoe Club (one of the two clubs that formed Burloak in 1989), so there was some extra need for celebration, including a new trophy named after Mohawk for best crew boat of the year. Another need for celebration was four new recipients of Life-time Memberships at the club. They were Jim Reardon, Adam van Koeverden and both of my parents, Scott and Connie Lee Oldershaw. All are very worthy of the recognition, and I think they were all pretty surprised by the honour. A huge crowd came out for the party and it was great to see everyone! It made me realize again just how great our club is, not just because of the success of our athletes, but because of the great community of people that are involved with it.
The rest of my holidays has been spent doing various things, pretty low key and taking it easy. I've been a bit lazy with training, and have been packing back quite a bit of turkey and chocolate, but I'm looking forward to stepping it up in the new year. I'm also looking forward to getting back to Ottawa for some good skiing and hopefully a fun new years party! After that it will be off to Mt. St. Anne for a ski camp until school starts again on the 5th. I hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays as much as I have, and here's wishing everyone a very happy and exciting new year! Thanks for reading, keep your paddle in the water.

Greetings to all!

Well, winter has arrived in full and I am loving it. There is a good amount of snow and skiing season has begun in earnest. My first time out was an amazing day, there was so much snow everything was covered in white. It made for some breathtaking views and Gab, Corey and I agreed that it was quite reminiscent of Narnia. It was fitting then that after about five minutes of skiing we came across a beaver right at the side of the trail. He was busy at work getting some sticks and taking them down to a small lake. All around the trail there were at least a dozen trees that he had cut down, it was really cool. He didn't talk to us unfortunately, but that's probably because he was busy with his renovations, or perhaps he was just scared of the White Witch. It's funny that on our bike in the Gatineaus this fall we saw a bear, and on our first ski we saw a beaver. YA NATURE! It was a great skiing session as well. The snow was slow so it was really challenging to keep going, but I loved every minute of it. Skiing is such a great full body workout and a perfect way to cross-train for paddling. I haven't pushed myself like that all fall, and while it reminded me that I'm a little out of shape, it also felt great and made me want to do a lot more.

I was back out a few days later with Angus, Morty and Jamie, the latter two being recently arrived from Florida and getting a nice contrast in training temperatures. We were a little late getting out so we ended up going down the steepest, most challenging hill in the Park when it was dark. That was a little sketchy, and called for some serious snow plowing, but we all made it down alright. I'm looking forward to putting a lot of skiing kms this winter in the Gatineau Park and hopefully do some trips further up the Fleuve St Laurent, especially now that classes are over.

That's right, schooooool's out for winter! I still have some exams, but they shouldn't be too hard and I have lots of time to study for them. Well at least I did have lots of time to study, but now that Gab bought Rock Band 2 that time has been seriously cut down. It's hard to study and tour the world with a rock band, but it will be worth it if the Red Dragons make it big someday!



Plus, rocking out is a good way to stay warm, which was important over the weekend when we ran out of oil for our furnace. It got a little chilly and really made it feel like winter. I slept in the living room beside the fireplace so that I didn't die during the night. It worked. We are all hooked up with oil again though, but I'm still enjoying the whole Winter/Christmas vibe. Fires, nice cooked meals, wine, hot chocolate, throwing snowballs, tackling the jerk that hit you in the face with a snowball when you weren't looking and shoving snow in their face, christmas lights, cutting down our own tree in the woods, people getting stuck in our driveway... All great images that make me really enjoy winter.

Of course there is one vehicle that never gets stuck, and that is the mighty Cobalt! Gab's new car is like a race car and a luxury vehicle all in one. Thanks to Formule Pontiac-Buick-GMC Trois-Rivieres for hooking him up with it, it gets us where we want to go in style. Check out the picture below.

Alright, that's all for now, thanks for reading and keep your paddle in the water.