Christmas 2007

Merry Christmas! We hope you had a great holiday with family and friends. We are back from the Island where we celebrated with the Boyd side of the family for a few days.

As usual, there was tons of food, presents and laughing. I realized why I have no desire to ever move back to Port -- we didn't see the sun shine for the 5 days we were there!

But Katie and I managed to get out for a few walks in the rain and made the most of it. We played and built Lego, board games, spy games with the boys and actually each got a hot stone massage @ our friend's new Spa - -Austin Spa Treatments -- such a relaxing way to start the holidays (Thanks, Sondra!!)

We even found time to pose for a few family pictures.

Katie is at work for a few days to handle the month/year-end chaos that is sure to occur with the new project systems in place.
We hope you had an amazing Christmas, like we did. Feel free to share your favorite Christmas moment in our comment section!

We head to Emerald Lake (below) for our New Year celebrations in a few days -- can't wait!

Iron Chef America - The Preparation

I'm not sure how many of you watch Iron Chef America, but it's a staple in our household. I enjoy it, but Scott is somewhat fanatical about it...and I think he secretly (well, not so secretly)dreams of being an Iron Chef.

Being the supportive wife I am I got Scott to put on his new chefs hat (compliments of my mom's latest cruise) and got things underway with a couple of head shots for his publicity campaign...thanks for the advice on poses Paul!

Here's the shot we sent off to Kitchen Stadium - they would have been crazy to not have Scott appear as a guest Iron Chef!

Chef Boyd-Ar-Dee

Since Scott lacks the formal training that a typical Iron Chef might have, he was asked to stop by Kitchen Stadium and display his superior kitchen skills in person before the formal invitation to appear on the show was given. Needless to say Chef Boyd-Ar-Dee wowed the judges with his authentic cuisine!!!

Being that Scott will be a guest Iron Chef, the officials at Iron Chef America changed the rules slightly...instead of the challenger choosing an Iron Chef to compete against, Chef Boyd-Ar-Dee (the guest Iron Chef) was asked to choose a competitor from the list of capable challengers. After mulling over hundreds of resumes Scott finally settled on Betty Crocker's nephew, Joe Crocker, as his competitor in Kitchen Stadium - as you can imagine, his resume is VERY impressive!!! The date for the match isn't set yet, but the title fight poster is already being worked on...here's a preview

Chef Boyd-Ar-Dee vs. Joe Crocker (Nephew of Betty Crocker)

Stay tuned for more on Scott's match in Kitchen Stadium!!!

Nearing 100 Posts!

Hello! This time of year, everyone does the "year-in-review" type of blog. But we aren't gonna do that -- you can flip thru the months, if you wish to see what we've been up to this year.

Instead, we are going to focus on trying to get more people to comment on the blog! We are almost at 100 blog posts for 2007. We gathered a few dozen strangers, rented a helicopter and took this photo to help celebrate our accomplishment. (ha!) It's an exciting accomplishment that we are happy to share with you, our avid readers. We know you're out there - we just want to hear from you online more often!

So take a few minutes from work, or your Christmas rush and create a simple blog profile that will allow you to leave comments on our site. Share with us some of your favorite moments from 2007 - or something you're looking forward to in 2008.

We're Looking Forward to Hearing From You!

Black Prince Mountain -- Moose Alert!

Today we went snowshoeing @ Black Prince Mountain with eight friends (more on that later) But when we returned to the parking lot, we were surprised to see a Moose!


The Moose was very interested in the salt on the vehicles. She was very meticulous, ensuring she got all the salt off the vehicle. We were lucky that she had already licked our vehicle and had moved on -- thus we were able to leave without issue.


OK - back to the snowshoe fun...


We hit the trail for a couple of hours - had a snack in the valley and enjoyed the amazing views. Then back to our vehicle for the Moose!


There was tons of snow and we couldn't walk all the way around the lake, due to avalance danger. But nonetheless, a wicked day -- and weekend, since we were having fun outside everyday!!


What kinda fun did you get up to this weekend??

Skate Ski Lessons

This morning we went to Canada Olympic Park and had our first Skate Ski Lesson. What a blast! It looks like regular x-country skis, but feels much more natural - especially if you have some experience on hockey skates. We picked Ed up @ 0745am and got our rentals from the University. Made a quick stop for some Timmy Ho Java and headed to the hill.

There were 8 students in the class, including us. Katie was by far the best in the class -- very natural. I started calling her teacher's pet ; )

It was a perfect day to be out for more than 3 hours in the snow -- with temps hovering just below zero, we dressed perfect for the level of activity (until the 2km loop to end the class - sweaty!)

It was great to spend time with Big Ed doing something we all love. We went for lunch @ one of our favorite biking cafes (Cadence) afterwards and the soup scored rave reviews from Ed.

Big smiles = big time fun and good memories. Tomorrow we are headed out with a group of friends to do some snowshoeing on Black Prince Trail. We'll take some photos and share the fun.

Oh - tonight the two of us tried out a German Restaurant in Bragg Creek. Amazing food & a great atmosphere -- wood fire burning, candles and a waiter with a wicked German accent! Did we mention the food was outstanding?! If you like Schnitzel and Spatzel (and if you can't make it to Port Alberni's Little Bavarian) we now know the next best thing!

A Beautiful Day on Telephone Loop

As to not lose our minds on our bike trainers (and because we love the outdoors so much), Scott and I have decided to add a little diversity to our workout schedule. This week we decided on a hike of one of our favorite bike trails – Telephone Loop. The trail is a 15km loop (despite what the sign says) in which you climb about 1500 feet. The time on the sign is just about right since it took us 4 hours and 5 minutes to complete.

It was an absolutely beautiful day! The sun was shining, it was warm, and I had the best company I could have asked for!!! The only thing we might have changed was the fact that we didn't bring the snowshoes and poles with us...the first and last 2 km were just fine without them, but the 10-11km in the middle of our hike were pretty snowy. All the better for our conditioning I suppose!!!

Another added bonus for the day was getting to use our Garmins again! It was pretty fun to get a running commentary of our progress including time, distance, average speed, elevation, altitude and heart rate. Here's a graph of the elevation profile.

Next weekends adventure will be cross country skiing with my Dad! We've all enrolled in the Intro to Skate Skiing put on by the University of Calgary Outdoor Centre. We all have a little experience with traditional cross country skiing so it only seemed natural to take it to the next level - we can't wait!

Stay tuned for the update next weekend!

Zoo Lights

Tonight we went for dinner and then headed to the Zoo to experience their Zoo Lights. We went a few years ago together & had tons of fun -- this year was no exception!

It's cold in Calgary, so the tour was only an hour long - but we saw a great selection of lighted displays and walked off our dinner.

The photo to the left is Scott trying to get some dessert...Watch out gingerbread man!!




Katie poses near the tunnel of love!
Mom & Baby Giraffe.
We also had to laugh at the groups of "cool kids" who came out in -18 degree weather without their jackets...haha

Zoom Zoom!

So guess what we bought today?! Some new snowshoe poles...oh and a new car to put them in!! (hee-hee!)

Katie gets a car allowance for her new position in January - so we figured we'd take advantage of it and get a new vehicle for her. Her '98 Cavalier has served her well over the years, but she is looking forward to driving her '08 Mazda 3 Sport next week. The picture is the exact vehicle we purchased - colour/features.

Plus she was pretty excited to make her 'first purchase' under her name of Katie Boyd -- isn't she cute?! All went well with the 'negotiating' -- we had the #1 Mazda Canada Sales Person of 2007 assisting us. With our purchase he has sold 251 vehicles this year (yikes - almost a car for every working day!) So we're sure he'll thank us when he gets his award this year - ha!

Katie's first addition to the vehicle -- remote car starter. Ah, you have to love Calgary winters.

Until next time...Zoom Zoom!

Training Update

Just in case you are wondering if the Christmas Hustle has been interfering with the training the answer is no. It's the Christmas cookies. The Christmas potlucks. The Christmas chocolate, etc..etc... Hahaha!

In all seriousness training continues to go well. Just last night we did a good ride on our trainer. Our regular warm-up, then 50 minutes in heart rate zone 4, followed by our standard cool down. Being in HR Zone 4 basically means that your pushing yourself between 80-90% of your capacity. Both of us noticed our lactic acid threshold had improved as we rode the entire 50 minutes at the threshold.

Next week is the start of our new routine, as we move from conditioning to base training (basically more riding or longer rides!) Check out our graphs from last night. The red line is Heart Rate and the orange line is cadence.

Hope you're enjoying the training updates. And more importantly, we hope you're enjoying your Christmas treats, as much as we have been! Until next time, Keep pedalling!

Deck The Halls

Today was our Tree Trimming Open House! What an awesome time to get together with friends and family in Calgary.

We came up with a great system to keep track of everyone's drinks. All the elves were very happy campers! Not much tree decorating got accomplished -- but we did get some beautiful tree ornaments today from friends -- thanks!!

It was a very cold day, but the party quickly turned into a kitchen party and things warmed up nicely. Add a few kids opening some gifts, a couple puppies, people playing the drums in the basements and you have a recipe for a great time.