Las Vegas

 After finishing up a huge year with Bass Pro Shops, Bryan and I chose to celebrate with a week trip down to Las Vegas- Sin City. We found a really good package deal on-line which took care of flights, transfers and saw us staying in a gorgeous hotel at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip - Mandalay Bay.  We loved every second of Las Vegas with the casinos, shows, the shopping and the night lights.  We were even fortunate enough to share our first night with Kaz and Aaron who gave us a quick rookie tour of Vegas and Freemont street, and on the second night Jonny met us from San Francisco.  We enjoyed the odd flutter at the casinos (one in every hotel with gogo-girls and $1 drinks) our float went up and down very quickly and luckily we came out fairly even at the end of the week. We spent most of our time during the day walking the strip and covered quite a few miles without realising it due to the sheer size of the big hotels and casinos.
The shows were fantastic, we were lucky enough to go to: 'Vegas' The Show in Planet Hollywood, Cirq De Solei: Ka in MGM Grande, and Tournament of Kings at Excalibur.
Every hotel had its own theme- with Paris and the Eiffel Tower, the Venetian - complete with canals inside, etc.
We loved our time in Vegas, we took home lots of great memories and a full suitcase of new clothes.

View from our room

New York New York

Us taking in the night lights

Eiffel Tower at Paris

Aaron, Kaz and Kirsten in front of the Bellagio

Designer shops, Kirsten's favourite place

Kirsten in front of MGM Grande

Bellagio with Ceasars Palace in the background

Jonny literally drinking in the sights

Happy couple

Kirsten & I downtown in Old Las Vegas, The ceiling along the whole street was a giant TV

Excalibers, where we had one of our dinner/shows

Our hotel: Mandalay Bay

Getting reading to hit the town

Who's the sweetest of them all?

Kirsten at the M&M shop

Us on a bridge over a canal in the Venitian

The canal at under the Venitian

Typical look of most of the Casinos down the strip

Main lobby of the Vanetian

Kirsten enjoying a night out at the designer stores

Kirsten & I on top of our Hotel in Nightclub

Vegas at night, the view from the Nightclub at the Mandalay Bay

Kirsten & Bryan's Farewell Party

We decided to through a little farewell party for ourselves just before leaving Bass Pro. All our close friends and work colleagues turned up and we proceeded to get rather 'beached'. I managed to burn our sliders so bad they made great hockey pucks, Kirsten somehow made a whole bottle of Baileys disappear, we all became experts at playing the didgeridoo, and Brad somehow managed to end up with just his union suit on!?! It was a hell of a great time and we really appreciated every ones good wishes. Lets just say everyone was a little green at work the next day...

Graham & Brad

Jimmy on the Didgeridoo

 Me showing them how its done

Super Brad!

Who's a sexy thang!

Graham is definately showing signs of being "Beached" here.

Some of the hunting boys: Graham, James, me & Garth

Kirsten trying her hand at photography

Calgary Hitman Hockey Game

Our friend Leanne was kind enough to score Kirsten & I some free tickets to a Calgary Hitman Ice Hockey match. It was such a fast paced game, these boys can skate! We had a great time, thanks alot Leanne.

 Two players facing off for the puck.

 The team maskot

A good scrap we got to watch, love it!

Day at the range with Kirsten

Graham Stinson took Kirsten & I to the Rosebud Range again for some plinking. It was a little different this time with 2 feet of snow on the ground and cold. It wasn't too bad though especially with once we cranked the fire in the clubhouse. We all had a great time shooting a variety of Graham's rifles, Kirsten particularly loved shooting his Russian SKS. It was the first time I pushed my new Browning X-Bolt on the long range silhouettes out to 550 yards and it worked a charm.

 Me holding the H&K SL8 .223rem

 Kirsten shooting the H&K SL8

 Graham trying out my Browning

 Me shooting Graham's .257 Weatherby Magnum

 Kirsten with the SKS

My new Tahr rifle, look out Southern Alps

Hunting in Canada

For the last few months I have been heading into the Foothills of Western Alberta looking for Mule deer & Whitetail deer. The first few hunts were unsuccessful but we learnt heaps about the terrain and habits of the local deer population. After that it seemed we were finding deer everywhere, if only the little buggers would stay still. It was great seeing all sorts of animals and sign, from cougar prints and black bear scat, to wolves howling right behind us.
The day I got my whitetail buck was a crisp autumn morning with almost no breeze but a solid frost. The hunting party was: Glenn Puschner (my boss), Graham Wickens, and myself. We were in a small cutline where we had seen deer previously and just missed them again that morning. We were standing at an intersection between two other cutlines deviously planning an ambush for the little buggers when Graham calmly said to look behind us, when we did there was a little buck 200 yards away quietly grazing. I took a knee, rested my sights on the front brisket and let one rip!....I had my first Canadian deer!
The rest of the day was spent stalking up onto other deer with a few close calls but no luck.

Me stalking a cutline

My new cannon

Very happy hunter

The crew: Graham, Glenn, myself

Looking for more deer

Glenn on the lookout

We went back to the same spot 10 days later to find Graham his first deer, and we did! but this time it was -39.5 degrees with wind chill and lots of snow on the ground.

 Graham and his chubby bubby

Looking for another doe to cram in the back of Rangi

Braving the weather and cold wasn't easy

Overnight Trip to Jasper with Jax & Joel

On Phil's last weekend with us we headed back into the Rockies. After a not so quick stop in to pick up Jax and Joel the five of us were packed into Rangi and heading north through the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. Once again we were stopping every 15min for spectacular photo opportunities.
We finally arrive in Jasper just before dark and settled into our rather nice accomodation at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. We enjoyed a cosy evening eating gormet pizza and beer with Elk roaming around outside.
Sunday we packed up and headed south on Hwy93 and home for some well needed sleep.

 Lake Louise

 Peyto Lake

 Me and my darling

 The boys

Jax & Joel

One of the passes on hwy93

Columbia Icefields

Big Elk

Road to Jasper

Rocky Mountain Billy Goat

Rocky Mountain Goats

Athabasca Falls

View from our cabin at Jasper