Christmas came early with a visit from Jarrah, Mikey and Andrew. They arrived to Lake Louise amid more minus 30 degree temperatures which I’m sure was a big shock for them.

After a leisurely breakfast on day 1 we braved the cold and took a drive out to the Chateau to walk on the frozen Lake and have a wander through the hotel afterwards (mainly to warm up). The next plan was to go snow shoeing out to Peyto Lake so we all bundled back into the car for what warmth we could before braving the cold again. Andrew and I in the back took turns scraping the ice off the inside of the back windows with an old credit card to watch the white Mountains, snow covered pine forests and frozen lakes we passed on the way.

We go to the car park and strapped in to the snow shoes and went for a play through the forest and deep powdery snow as we walked out to the lookout point for Peyto Lake. This was loads of fun until we got back to the car after taking a little detour through the deep undisturbed snow in search of some adventure and Megan was not dealing with the cold too well. She couldn’t get her snow shoes off and Andrew and I could only get the one-off so the solution was that it went in the boot of the car with her shoe still strapped in and I carried her to the back seat just as she decided to get a calf cramp. Fun times.

Andrew and Jarrah went out to Johnstone Canyon on Saturday and that night was spent with everyone around the fire for burgers and beers and toasted marshmallows. Sunday was spent on the hill with Jarrah getting her snowboard legs back and showing us all how it’s done before we all met in Banff for the night to go out to dinner and exchange secret Santa gifts.

I had to come back and get ready for night shift the next day but the others continued to explore and went out cross country skiing.