2012 Year In Review.

The decision I mad several years ago to be happy, and do things that I like to do, was a very good decision!  I am still overwhelmed by the awesomeness that is living.  There are moments during days when my stoke may be diminished a bit, but in general I am so stoked about life!  From the groovy little fish in my tank that I can watch for hours to the waves I was just riding on in the frozen ocean, it's all good man...
So it's a bit late, but I will now recap 2012.  2012 = pretty dang awesome.  The year started in Utah, like they always do, working at Canyons resort.  I can't describe how fun it is to teach kids how to ski everyday!  Those little rippers are so easily stoked, inches of airtime feel like conquering the world to them.  I love their enthusiasm!  The adults taking ski lessons could learn a thing or two from their children.
I changed things up a bit for the spring and summer time.  I went to Maui in May and spent about one month there.  My old house had been taken over by drunken orgies so I moved into the Trooper.  Showered at the beach and slept in the LDS church parking lot.  Did a whole lot of surfing, ate leftover dinner cruise food, and poached the hotel pools a lot.  Terese eventually joined me and we found an actual dwelling as the trooper doesn't quite sleep two as easily as one.  The surfing continued though!  LOVE Maui, seriously, if you don't like your life, move to Maui and figure it out!
After Maui I flew to Australia to teach skiing at a place called Perisher.  I lived in a sweet little Aussie town called Jindabyne.  Summer population of Jindy is about 4,000.  Winter population is around 15,000.  Those extra 11,000 are all ski resort employees from all over the world.  Yeah, it was fun!  I lived with Aussies, Brits, Canucks, and I was the only Yankee.  Watching the olympics got intense!  I never failed to mention the irony of the National Anthem being played in London, every time it happened!  Working at Perisher was wild.  No limit to class groups.  My record was 17 kids in one lesson.  I also had a lesson with 9 four year olds!  That was interesting!  Loved it though.  Australia was always somewhere I wanted to go.  So after 4 months in the middle of nowhere I rented a p.o.s. hippie van converted into a camper and spent two weeks driving the east coast of Oz.  My friends Andy, Chris, and Sophie came along too.  Australia's beaches are the best I've ever been on!  The surf didn't suck either!
 Being so close the Land of the Long White Cloud I couldn't resist hopping a plane to New Zealand!  NZ, yeah I could live there.  SO amazing!  Did the same thing there in another mini van turned camper.  I have more pictures of NZ than anywhere else I've ever been, and none of them do any justice.  You just have to go there!
Since I didn't have to be back in Utah for another month I decided to go the Southeast Asia.  I started in the southern isles of Thailand.  I crossed ride an elephant off my bucket list, did some scuba diving, and drove a moped around like a boss!  I was here alone and that took a few days to get used to.  But it ended up being pretty awesome.  I slowly worked my way north through Thailand and then into Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, which was incredible.  Played with some monkeys and tigers and had a great time!
In the time since I left Jindabyne I kept a rough ledger of my travels, so these stats are approximate, but I traveled on:
9 taxis
6 tuk tuks
7 boats
5 trains
7 planes
2 hippie camper vans
9 mopeds
12 buses
2 bicycles
2 elephants
1 ruber raft
1 bamboo raft
7 subway trains
4 elevated sky trains
and I slept in 20 beds.

I got around pretty well!
Then it was back home in time for Thanksgiving, which was awesome since I had missed the last three.  I started back at Canyons again, this time as a ski school supervisor, which I am on the fence about at the moment.  Still love it, I supervise the 4-6 year old program.  So I literally spend everyday playing with tiny people!  Sometimes they pee, or puke, and someone is always crying, but it's totally worth it to hear them giggling all the way down the hills! 
So that was 2012 in a nutshell.  I did some amazing things, saw some beautiful places, and met some wonderful people.  Kind of a banner year for me!  See if I can out do it in 2013 now!