It’s a gorgeous, sunny day today in Vancouver… and even though it’s been “June-uary” (January+June) here on the West Coast as usual, I’m just about ready for summer and I know it must be around the corner somewhere!

Next Friday we’ll be leaving for our annual surf trip to Tofino for 11 days and we could not be more excited. 11 days of surfing, beach, camping, camp stove cooking, crabbing and exploring. Wohooo!

I’m starting to get in the mood for summer so here are a couple things I love about summer… What do you love about summer?

Surfing.. (Minus the bikini and adding a 5 mm wetsuit in Tofino)

Camping!

Playing on the beach…

Skimboarding!

A trip to Hornby Island…

Making mojitos and summer drinks… not to mention the availability of our favourite rums at the liquor store!

Golfing!

Continuing to learn how to downhill mountain bike…

Mmmm.. summer BBQs…

Hosting patio parties….

Wearing sunglasses!

The sun on my feet…

What do you love about summer?

Are you surprised? Because I am totally… out of my mind… completely shocked and surprised.

Yes, yesterday Allan blindsided me… and proposed to me. I cried my face off. But I said yes!

Watch the video below if you’re interested. We were about to head out grocery shopping when suddenly grabbed me in a big bear hug and told me that he loved me. He then grabbed my arm and pulled me outside onto the patio. To my surprise there was a camera set-up and rolling and Allan brought us to our favourite corner of the patio. He started reading an amazing speech to me that completely blew me away. I was crying the entire time and couldn’t stop crying for about an hour afterwards. He pulled out a gorgeous artisan wooden box that he had purchased (somehow behind my back) while we were in Tofino with my favourite Tofino chocolate and a shell that we had collected together on a beach in Tofino. He asked me if I would marry him and through my tears I said… “Of course!”.

It’s still sinking in that we’re engaged. I seriously cannot believe it.

Believe it or not, the only thing that was NOT a surprise was the ring! Several weeks ago, I found out inadvertently through my mom that Allan had hand-written my dad a formal letter to ask for my hand in marriage a few weeks ago. My dad and Allan went out to dinner where my dad gave Allan his blessing and surprised him by offering an heirloom ring in the family. Since I had already found out about the scheme, Allan showed me the ring and asked me if I loved it. I did… it was everything I had ever wanted in a ring — yellow gold and a beautiful solitaire diamond. I didn’t want to see the ring when it was finished so Allan had picked it up without me.

We always knew that we wanted to be together, but we had discussed not getting engaged for several months. I’m usually good at guessing surprises and figuring things out… but I got completely blindsided on this one! I could not be happier.

We’ve known each other for four years and have been dating for three years, so I’ve known that Allan was the one for me for a long time now… so I shouldn’t be surprised… but I totally am. He means everything to me and he’s the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’m incredibly lucky to have such an amazing man.

We’re extremely happy and just enjoying the moment. We’re not setting any dates in stone yet, but aiming for around September 2011 for the wedding.

We spent the entire evening yesterday breaking the news to our closest family and made sure to tell our closest friends by phone so they didn’t have to find out by Facebook status update. It’s all just a blur right now! Will this turn into a temporary wedding blog? Haha… I guess that remains to be seen…

It’s hard to believe that it has already been three years that Allan and I have been together. Time really does fly when you’re having fun! On Wednesday I spoke a lot about authenticity… and I am so happy that one of the things in my life that is very much authentic and the same online and offline, behind closed doors or in public, is my relationship with Allan.

This long weekend, we’re off to Tofino for some sun, relaxation, time with friends, and of course, much needed surf to celebrate our three year anniversary. It feels like it’s been way too long since we’ve been in the water and I’m looking forward to kick-starting a summer of surfing! We’ll be staying at Ocean Village in Tofino.

When Allan and I first met at work at the very first video game company I worked at, we were friends for nearly a year before we started dating. I pretty much had to bribe him to go out with me… but it worked, and we’ve been together ever since.

I honestly thought we would get bored of each other with the amount of time we spend together. The very three months of dating we were together almost 24/7 and well… three years later, not much has changed. It blows my mind that we’re still not sick of each other.

We have the same interests… we love surfing, snowboarding, cooking, scuba diving, relaxing, golfing, and now, even mountain biking together.

We hang out with each other’s groups of friends together.

We introduce each other to new things.

We travel together.

We have fun together.

We’re not perfect by any means… every relationship has ups and downs, and ours is no different. But we do manage to resolve our disagreements quickly, and try never to go to bed upset. We’ve worked extremely hard on our relationship… we’ve set aside time to work on problems, we’re gone through tough times together, we’ve done exercises, read through relationship books and workbooks, and even made sure to do a few counselling sessions a couple years ago. It’s made a world of difference, and I can honestly say our relationship is very strong, healthy, and happy.

Nothing comes easy, that’s for sure!

What’s I’ve realized most of all (thanks to my friends Kim and Liv), is that it’s a relationship worth fighting for. And when I think about it that way, I know that we have to put time and effort into it to make it work. But it’s worth it. And most good things in life you have to work and fight for.

We’re so compatible in terms of interests, personalities, values, lifestyle, humour, romance, and careers… that I honestly can’t imagine my life with anyone else. I know he’s the one. I can’t even count how many nights we’ve gone to bed laughing so hard that our pillows got wet with tears.

Allan is incredibly creative, smart, kind, generous, hard-working, athletic, and so so funny. I feel so very lucky to be with him. It’s weird to get off work and miss each other so much during the day that when he comes to pick me up, it’s like a big reunion. Every frickin’ day!

So here’s to you Allan…. Happy Three Year Anniversary! I can’t wait to surf with you this anniversary weekend, and have many more surf weekends throughout our lives. I love you.

On the heels of my post about sincerity… I think it is necessary to follow up with a post about authenticity. I feel like authenticity is an extremely underrated quality. What is authenticity to me? It’s about being true to yourself, it’s about having your online persona match up with your offline persona, it’s about being consistent around your friends and about being honest with who you are.

I feel I’ve done a pretty good job in my adult years of staying true to myself. But what I’m realizing I’m not doing a very good job of is being consistent around my friends. Over the past few months I’ve had a few heart-to-heart talks with some of my very close friends about my desire to be more authentic. They’ve all commented on how I seem so “put together” on my blog, but when we talk in person I’m much more open about my feelings, my concerns, and my weaknesses. They’ve also noted about how I act very different one-on-one than I do in large groups.

Let’s tackle the first problem about the online persona. A personal blog is inherently narcissistic. It’s not possible to have a personal blog without it being about you to some degree. I feel like with anyone’s online persona… it is inherently difficult to completely show all sides of you online. To some degree, it’s to protect yourself. The online space is very vulnerable and you never know who could be looking at your website or blog – your coworkers, your future boss, your parents, your relatives… so already it’s not in your best interest to share every part of who you are. I feel like I’ve done a so-so job with this. I’ve posted about my struggles with eczema, weight, money, relationships, and more. But it’s true – my blog is more about my adventures on the west coast and the fun things I am doing.

So how do you reconcile this? Is it even possible?

I can say this honestly though – everything I’ve said on my blog about myself or my life is completely true. At least I can take some pride in that.

The second problem is consistency with my friends. I want to be authentic with them regardless of whether I’m in a group setting or just hanging out with them one-on-one. I think the base-level problem here is that I care a lot about what people think of me. The past few years it’s something I’ve been very aware of, and something that I’ve been struggling not to worry about. When you care about what other people think of you, it causes you to value things that probably shouldn’t be a priority in life. For example, let’s face it, would you buy designer items like bags or shoes if you didn’t care about what people thought of you? In some cases yes, high quality items are a good thing… but you can usually buy high quality items without them coming from a large French or Italian fashion house at 500% markup. It’s a constant struggle I’ve been trying to fight, but I’ve often lost. And the truth is, I’m not quite sure how to fight it.

I know what is most important in my life: Allan, my family, my friends, my career, and my activities. In that order. Everything else should fall underneath that. It’s important that I do things because I want to, not because I want to impress others. Will I still buy designer items, cook fancy meals, go on adventures, do activities and throw parties? Yes. But I need to make sure I am doing those things because I want to, not because of what others will think of me. It’s a very fine line, but I need to try. And I hope in doing so, I can be more authentic to my friends and my readers. I’ve already taken some extreme steps in my life in the past few years to be more authentic, but I need to be better.

I know that I’ve been sincere: doing things when I say I’m going to, really meaning something when I say it, inviting people out to do things only when I really want to do those things with them, and being friends with people that I really care about and want to be friends with. I’m also weeding people out of my life that are bad friends or have bad influences on my life. Being surrounded by good people who encourage you, have positive influences on your life and help take the stress out of your life is important. But being more authentic is the next step for me personally.

So here we go! In my first big steps towards being authentic, I’m going to lay out my strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has a good and a bad side, and no one is perfect! I think it’s crazy when people message me and tell me they think I lead the “perfect life”… let me tell you, no one has a perfect life!

My strengths: Loving in my relationship, loyal to my close friends, self-aware, creativity, ambitious with my career, good at organizing things, getting things done, haggling, perseverance, multitasking, social, somewhat athletic/sporty, generous, willing to take a chance, trustworthy, faithful, honest, and fun.

My weaknesses: Absolutely terrible with my money, extremely impatient, lazy at home (like to watch TV when I’m home), worry too much about what others think of me, no self-control with food, thinking too much inside my head, getting stressed out, buying things I can’t afford, speaking my mind before thinking, messy, short with my temper around strangers, shy around strangers, picky about many things, and different around groups than individuals.

I’m going to continue to work on my weaknesses, and especially work on being even more authentic in my life.

So there you go!

And here are my questions to you…

Is it even possible to reconcile an online persona with an offline persona?

Do you feel like authenticity is important? If so, how have you incorporated it into your life?

Scroll down to see the yoga contest – I’m giving away THIRTY DAYS (one month!) of free yoga.

I thought I’d spend a little bit of time today honouring about some really amazing people in my life. Some really amazing women. They are friends, mentors, colleagues, classmates… and they are all women that I look up to. I spend way too much time on this blog talking about myself, and not thanking or talking enough about the people that made me who I am today.

KIM S – I don’t know where I would be without Kim. Kim has been my best friend since we were 7 years old and happened to live on the same street. My dad and I went over to welcome them to the neighbourhood with a purple balloon with Kim’s name on it, and well, I guess we just went from there.

Kim is an incredible women and a great friend. Kim is the same age as me, and at 25 she has already opened her first business – a hot yoga studio. What I most admire about Kim is that she had a dream and she made it happen. She’s been in love with yoga ever since it changed her life and her arthritis in her back, doing years of training as a yoga student and then years of training as a yoga instructor. She took it all on herself: finding and leasing the property, drawing up the business plans, managing the contractors to do the renovations, handling the marketing, hiring of new employees and launching the business. It’s now a thriving successful hot yoga studio (Moksha Yoga Vancouver).

Kim has also been an inspiration to me as an athlete. In high school we played competitively on the junior and senior basketball teams for several years together… she always encouraged me to play hard and practice more. Kim went on to play varsity basketball at McGill. She’s one of the best athletes I know – her determination and never-give-up attitude sparks any team she plays on.

More importantly, I can honestly say that Kim has had the single most impact on who I am as a person toady. Several years ago I sat down with her and she opened my eyes to the kind of person I was, and the kind of person I should be. I changed my outlook on life because of her and I wanted to become a better person. I can never thank Kim enough for inspiring me to make change in my life… and I know my friends, Allan, my parents, and even my career have benefited from her advice to me. She has always been able to give me practical advice and tell me the hard truth about myself. She is always there when I need her. Thank you Kim. I know we’ll be lifelong friends.

CHRISTIE G – Christie and I have been best friends since she moved to Canada from England in the middle of elementary school. With her wacky British fashions and her quirky sense of humour, I knew I wanted to be friends with her when she first walked into the school. Christie has always moved around, from Hong Kong to England to France… but no matter how many years or even days she is in Vancouver, we resume our friendship right where it left off and stayed in touch.

Christie is another one of my friends who has been able to follow their dreams… she knew she wanted to be involved in the fashion world and pursued those interests throughout high school university, and in her first few jobs. She did modeling in London and Hong Kong. She started out as a purchaser at a prominent department stores in London (Browns, Matches), and then her career exploded as she worked at the high fashion house of Mulberry, and now… premier fashion website Net-A-Porter.com. I couldn’t be more impressed with her ability to go after what she wants and get it. I’m pretty sure in a few years she’ll have her own fashion house or something.

Christie and I have been through a lot of tears and laughter, and she’s probably influenced my “coming of age” more than anyone. From teaching me about boys, how to kiss, school dances, men’s magazines, and all sorts of other hilarious experiences… she and I have been through some pretty funny times. But she’s always been someone I can call or talk to about my problems and she’ll always give me practical advice. So thank you Christie, for all your advice and for all the laughs.

NIKI T – Niki is someone I met in university, whom I always looked up to. We’re not best friends, but I’ve always seen her as a close friend, and sensed that we could grow into really great friends one day. I think more than anything I’ve always seen her as a role model, and I think she’s a great person to talk about in this post because she’s quite inspirational.

Niki and I first got to know each other in university when working on a business project with a few other classmates in our first two years of school. We all got quite close over the process, with long nights, fights, and the stress of making it to the championships of the business competition and doing many, many presentations. We both got into business school after that and ended up in the same class “section” (you stay in your section for almost all your classes for the first year). We ended up on many projects together, were on the same inner tube water polo team, and spent a couple summers together at her cabin and went on many double dates.

Her father is actually an extremely famous author, and despite having access to what I’ll loosely call “fame and fortune” (that’s a terrible way to put it, sorry Niki), she’s one of the most down to earth people I know. She works her butt off and does not take anything for granted. And ridiculously modest. Niki is the kind of woman that is going to end up as Prime Minister of Canada… I know it’s a potential aspiration for her, and I know if she ever decides to go for it that she’ll be able to do it. She speaks with confidence, makes friends effortlessly, has great fashion sense, is incredibly perceptive, and has a great sense of humour. She’s also very, very smart.

Niki got hired out of university as a consultant for Accenture. This is a very tough position to get and she’s already managed to make a big impact even at a company of that size. On a leave from Accenture, Niki is now working as an Associate Director of the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. Yes, she is 26 years old and is an Associate Director. CRAZY! Niki lives and works in Geneva with her boyfriend, Moritz who is also a very good friend of mine. Throughout my adult years, Niki and Moritz have always been wonderful friends and I’ve loved going on double dates with them. Niki is also a fashionista, an accomplished singer (she tried out for Canadian Idol, and has a band in Toronto), is an avid skier and surfer, and is always up for new adventures. Oh yeah, and she hob nobs with people like Stephen Harper.

Despite the fact that we’ve never lived in the same city, I think we’ve stayed close friends and I’m looking forward to our relationship growing. What I value most about our relationship is that she’s always up for anything, and she’s always someone I can count on when she gives her word that she’s going to do something. If we lived in the same city, I think we’d probably do a lot of snowboarding and surfing together and probably be really great friends. Thank you Niki — I’ve learned a lot from you about confidence, being yourself, and being down to earth.

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In honour of these wonderful women, I’m doing a fantastic giveaway on my blog to Kim’s studio, Moksha Yoga Vancouver which is an amazing hot yoga studio here in Vancouver.

MOKSHA YOGA VANCOUVER YOGA GIVEAWAY CONTEST

About the Studio: Moksha Yoga Vancouver is a hot yoga studio that Kim personally manages to make sure that it is run with integrity, energy, responsibility towards the environment, and kindness. She even teaches. She’s got some great instructors and classes and also a charity volunteer program that really gives back to the community. It’s located in Jericho Village at 4th and Alma and is one of the few dedicated hot yoga studios in Vancouver. They offer beginner-friendly classes that practice on a bamboo floor with infra-red heat panels at 38 degrees. Some classes are offered by donation and student rates too. Oh yeah — and if you go for their morning classes you get freshly baked muffins and scones. Yum! You can follow them on Twitter here.

What you’re playing for: A 30-day (one month) all access yoga pass to MYV.. enough yoga to get you all fit for the summer!
What you have to do: Leave a comment on this blog post by Sunday, May 9th at 10:00 PM PST, and then check back on Monday to see who won.

Good luck, and thanks for reading!

Update: May 10th, 2010: Congratulations to Comment #4… Nolwenn! I’ve drawn you as the random winner for the contest for one free month of yoga courtesy of Moksha Yoga Vancouver!