We learned to love it and with time, it became a tradition we would take a week off here and there through out the long Canadian winter season.

Being self employed, we had a choice of actual length and time period. About half way through January we would long for the Ontario slopes, sometimes we would venture into cold Quebec to try our skiing feet on the slopes of Tremblant, St. Anne or majectic Masiff.

When February came around usualy about the second week of the month, we would be packing again to travel down south, to warm up the cold bones on the beach somewhere.

Our lives were not always like that. About 6 years ago, we realized that things must change, and we are responsible for changing them...

We were both born in Poland and were used to wet, winter cold. When we first came to Cold Canada, we were preprogrammed to thinking that Canadian Winters were for staying indoors. After living in beautiful Greece for most of that year, and landing at Pearson at the end of January in the middle of a blizzard, we were convinced that the above was indeed true. Then, couple of years later our kids were born and again we stayed indoors for their sake.

Finally one year we got ourselves some good quality, warm winter clothing and stepped outside just for fun. The walks in the forest and down to the frozen Lake Simcoe followed. We were hooked. That was long before our first day on the ski slopes.

Soon the ventures to the trails behind the house were not enough, we wanted more. Since the winter in Canada, would drag on for months and months, by middle of February, just like most Canadians we were ready to leave the city and escape the madness of winter traffic and filth of mountains of dirty snow on the streets.

So just like thousands of other tired Canadians, we would pack the bags and live the city if only for a week or two. After years of winter travel to the warmer parts of our globe, we finally decided to explore places in our own country, better yet, in our own province. Facing the packed airports and potentially dangerous to our health, destinations in Cuba or Dominican Republic, where it was always good to have the pink stuff with you, we wanted to try something different.

We wanted to try a winter vacation closer to home. Our annual travel to ski resorts in Quebec left us exhausted after each lengthy drives in treacherous conditions. Was there a better solution?

Now that was a challenge. After all, booking a vacation in Mexico would usually take couple of days, including the time needed to research the destinations and a resort. How much time would it take me to gather information needed to make a wise, educated choice about our winter family vacation.

The internet, being the best place to research almost anything those days, was my first stop. I found thousands of pages relating to winter travel, not too many of them, however gave me specific information about winter travel in Ontario. The hunt took hours, and I felt lost and overwhelmed and as uninformed as when I started.

Slowly the idea was born to build a web site that would gather, update and present information about winter vacations in Ontario specifically. The initial thought of it was intriguing and scary...

How could I build a website?
How would I start? Where would I began? I was a wife and business partner of the hardwood flooring business owner. I run the business and handled all the accounting and bookkeeping. I had an educational background in creative photography, and for last couple of years I was fully engaged in homeschooling my two boys. My free time, when I could find any, was spend in the sewing workroom, where I designed and made custom window treatments (my passion) for family and friends. I had no technical or to be more specific, computer abilities whatsoever.

So the concept of building my own website was so overwhelming that I almost gave it up, before I even started. Spending hours on the net, looking for information on web page building, again, I found thousands of good and bad sites. I was looking for a miracle. I knew nothing about what I needed and yet, somehow I hoped that when I find the right program, I will know.