Amber and I have had a wonderful Christmas so far, other than some stomach cramps AD is feeling today. No more popcorn with butter for her, it happens every time. We arrived in Jasper Thursday night and were exhausted from some white-knuckle driving. I'm used to it but Amber seemed a little tense; she's not used to driving at night and throw in some icy roads and big semi's and she was pretty nervous. We had a little wine at the apartment in Jasper just to unwind (a little too much for me) but woke up feeling okay. I had to work on Friday so AD spent the day walking/running Harley, it was brutally cold -30+ but he always has fun no matter what the weather. I finished up work and felt a little stir crazy so I took him out for an hour run on some of the awesome trails around town. He was having a ball but when he's off-leash he tends to do his own thing and I spend half the time calling out for him and trying to get him to come back. It was a spectacular run though, we climbed for 30 minutes and got to the top of a lookout overseeing the entire town and an incredible mountain view. I didn't realize how cold it was because when I got home the tip of my big toe had some serious frost bite. It's still a little numb but there shouldn't be any long term damage.
The rest of the weekend we had a fantastic time exploring some of the x-country ski trails and thoroughly wore out Harley. He was in his glory, off-leash and running from side to side, in the woods, out of the woods, running with us, looking for other animals to terrorize. The only time we really had any trouble was when we saw some other skiers with a dog that he had to go bug. We know he's only wanting to play with them but he's SO ROUGH that other dogs get a little scared when he's around. We'll learn to socialize him with other dogs, it's just going to take a little time.
Tuesday we made the trip to Calgary to spend Christmas with my family this year. It was nice to see everyone and spend a little time in our old home town. My family hasn't changed, they are still as happy as ever (the exception being my niece Natasha, she's 14 and just a little hellion). Christi (my sister) says she is going for counselling to try work through some of her issues. We spent some time with Emma (my other niece) and Jake (my little 14 month nephew), he's really strong and is running around getting into everything! So cute though. It was a great Christmas and made me realize that as much as I can get caught up in training, racing, working and travelling, the most important thing in the world to me is my little family. Getting Harley has really made me think of our little household as a "family" and I've made a lot of new-year's goals but the most important one is to make sure Amber and Harley know how much I love them everyday.
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