holidays in the great white north

due to my sister's work schedule, we did the whole gift thing early this year - which was fine, since that meant that we covered my birthday one week prior as well. to celebrate my last Monday being 30, I got to eat real bagels and lox, and my parents got me a new camera, which I "desperately" needed (this is, of course, relative - my old camera still functions, however since the lens cap hasn't opened or closed on its own in over 3 years, the lens is most definitely scratched and photos have been getting duller as a consequence - also, relatively - no one "desperately" needs a new camera, seriously there are far more important things in life than material goods... but I digress)

ok, where was I? right, so we did the last Monday of my being 30, and also, so far, we have country skied and eaten.

my dad bakes bread, excellently, and is also renowned for cutting enormously thick slabs of it - this is a fairly good representation of the following: dad, thick slab of freshly baked bread, and sister

a couple of streets away from where my parents live is a park that has a decent loop around it for x country skiing, it's very convenient, except that dog walkers seem to be taking advantage of the somewhat flattened ski tracks, using them as trails, consequently destroying the tracks, and also (joy of joys) leaving us frozen turds to ski over... anyway, here's mom skiing

here's me standing and posing with a stupid grin on skis

greatest thing about the new camera? (ok besides that the lens cap opens and closes and the lens isn't all scratched up) there's a ridiculous function that allows you to swap colours. this also allows you to take photos of people and make them look like zombies without photoshop! I have a very bad feeling that I will be taking a lot of absolutely terrible photos for the humour of them

one of several oddities inherited from my dad's parents, this wooden horse is apparently dressed like santa this year (actually, I'm here so rarely that I can't be sure it isn't ALWAYS dressed like santa), mostly I was just messing with my new camera and thought it looked crazy rabid from this angle

me messing around with my new camera, the best part of this tree is the 2 birds on top, which are so incredibly old, and no longer have either beaks or tails - those birds rule!

the very red looking moon during the total lunar eclipse (at -10 degrees C) on the solstice, pretty awesome despite the numbness - this is my dad's photo, my frozen fingers and shivering prevented me getting a single photo that wasn't blurry