Whistler Volleyball Tourney

What a stellar weekend.

We headed north to whistler for a tourney this weekend with our volleyball team. Its hard to believe it was our first time to Whistler since moving to BC, but since we opted out of snowboarding last winter in order to save more money...this was our first trip up in several years. We hitched a ride with one of Jen's coworkers since the bus is still in the shop. Another weekend that we were supposed to be driving but had to find another way to our destination... I'd really like to stop adding to that list.

Our team rocks. After last year we didn't think we would be lucky enough to have a team this year, much less to have a team of people we truly love to play with and hang out with. We met up with Anca quickly after getting dropped off in the village and after throwing our bags in the room headed out for a quick drink before losing the sun. We ended up at the Garibaldi Lift Company Bar&Grill, which is seated perfectly at the base of the mountain. Nothing like enjoying a beverage while watching hard core mountain bikers fly over jumps as they careen toward the bottom in full body armor.

Turns out the special of the day was served in cocktail buckets. Bucket of beers maybe, but i have to admit this was new to us. Luckily, we aren't ones to turn down a novelty cocktail. Any cocktail really, but it was funny how taken we were with the novelty of this idea. Should we ever have the pleasure of opening a bar...i can almost certainly assure you that something will be served out of a bucket.

Matt and Travis arrived later that evening and we hung out with a large group of the Urban Rec crazies at the pre-party. Jen and i finally decided to head back to the condo and get some much needed rest before the games in the morning. This crowd makes us feel old.

The tourney was a great time. Beautiful location on the grounds of a school outside the village, with mountain vistas in every direction. Also didn't hurt that we had the most beautiful sunny skies we could have hoped. Given location, this tournament was on grass instead of our typical sand, and with coed reverse 4's rules. We didn't know what that meant, but after some quick instruction and sketches we all caught up. Essentially the net is lowered to women's height and a few rules are reversed to give women more power in the game. The rules really change very little, but ensure we were playing a bit too much in our heads for the first few games and it took us a while to hit a rhythm. We also seemed to get seeded well higher than we might have hoped so the games were pretty lopsided (not in our favor) most of the day. A couple of the other teams were doing little more than running drills on us, but it was a great chance for us to get practice digging spikes from power hitters.

Jen got some nice sunbathing time in later in the day since many of the games unraveled a bit depending on how many drinks the teams had throughout the course of the day. Tanya and her friends on "Team Horny" seemed to be among the leaders in that category. Sunbathing also gave jen a chance to grab a few action shots with our new camera. The one below looks great, until I tell the story of how I blocked his spike with my face. Twice.

We were all spent after the tourney, but recovered nicely thanks to the condo hot tub, and an amazing meal pulled together by Travis, who as it turns out has mad grilling skills in addition to his volleyball abilities. Thanks again Trav.

And, in case you wonder where Karma goes on these weekends away (or at least those with 4 legged restrictions)... She heads to Janice the dogsitter, doglover and dog-exhauster. Karma always comes home more tired than we possibly know how to make her and we often wonder if she even realized we were gone. A few days of running the beach and forest with Janice and the dogs in full pack mentality assures that she will sleep for days.

Janice is also great at updating us with the best photos and videos from our time away. Below was the best from her latest outing.