It’s that time of year again! Time to review 2011 in photos… it was a great year and a busy year, for so many reasons…

January

In January we headed over to Vancouver Island to visit Allan’s mom in Courtenay. One of the highlights included touring a beautiful fruit winery! I also started acquiring a number of accessories in advance of our wedding that year, including well… you know me… shoes.

February

In February we headed up to Apex Mountain (near Penticton) and I spent the weekend supporting Allan at the annual Apex outdoor ice hockey tournament and snowboarding some untouched powder. We also managed to get our wedding invitations out after tons of hard work doing all the illustrations, designs, and calligraphy ourselves.

March

Next we headed up to Kelowna for the annual video game industry ski and snowboard trip at Big White Ski Resort! Much snowboarding, foosballing, and hottubbing ensued. Then it was down to Seattle for the annual work charity ice hockey tournament! That’s me looking dorky in the front!

April

In April one of the most special people to me, my grandmother, passed away. It was a really hard time and I really miss her so much still. I wish she could have been there for our wedding, but I’m glad I was able to tell her all about our plans before she left us. Also that month we headed out to Tofino for a surf trip with two of our fave peeps in the whole world, Liv and Rob.

May

Lots more cooking and baking took place heading into the summer, including making a mascarpone cheesecake from scratch. Then it was up to the local mountains for newbie-ing it up at some downhill mountain biking! I’m still learning how to bike…

June

June was a memorable month as I saw my favourite sports team in the whole world make it to the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was an exciting time and I will never forget the highs and the lows of the playoff run. Here’s hoping for this year! We also went golfing and pitch-and-putting quite a few times in the summer, trying to make the most of Vancouver’s brief summer!

July

The annual surf and camping trip on Canada Day in July was a blast this year, with tons of surfing and friends around… not to mention catching some crabs and roasting them over the campfire. My friend Tara and I also hit up the Backstreet Boys/New Kids on the Block concert with floor seats!

August

In August we hit up my friend Amy’s annual event, dressing up for the horse races at Hastings Race Track. Then it was time to tromp around the city in various outfits for our engagement photos by our amazing photographers, Jonetsu Studios.

September

Allan and I got married in Tofino, BC on September 3, 2011. It was the best day of my life. There was so much lead up to it with a year and a half of planning, tons of crafting, construction, sewing, and insanity. But it was all worth it. I will always treasure my memories from this day and it really was the happiest day for me.

October

From September to October we left on our month-long honeymoon on a whirlwind cruise around Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. There were so many amazing days on our honeymoon, but special mentions go out to surfing in Portugal and dining at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant in London, England.

November

Following our honeymoon it was back to reality and work, but we still managed to find time to surf and snowboard just a week apart!

December

To end of the year we decided to stay home and enjoy our beautiful city and cozy up in the apartment together. We threw a dinner party and decorated our apartment. It was a great way to finish off a fantastic year.

And that’s it!

How was your 2011? What were your highlights?

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How quickly this year has passed! So quickly, in fact, that I haven’t even had a chance to upload our holiday photos until now. Here’s a quick recap from December and early January over the holidays…

We sent out our “thank you” cards from the wedding about a month after we got back from our honeymoon. (Yes, honeymoon and wedding photos still to come!) I’m really proud of the cards that we made! I basically designed every single thank-you card individually in Photoshop and we printed them off at Moo… so each person who came to our wedding got a different and unique photo collage card of the actual honeymoon gifts they gave us. We also made little mini cards with snapshots from the wedding. Everyone got a mini card of Allan and I, and most people got custom mini cards with themselves in the photos! I think they turned out great and were worth all the time we put into them!

Early December it was time for the annual “Erection Party”* aka annual ugly sweater Christmas party that one of my best friends @amyburrows puts on (*refers to erecting the Christmas tree). It’s always an amazing time and brings in friends from all around BC.

Dressing up as Christmas-y as possible is definitely encouraged.

Allan and I…

Annual group photo…. Grrrrrr!

Then it was off to our work Christmas parties for some drinking and dancing with our coworkers. Mine was at Canvas Lounge and Allan’s was at the Earls in Yaletown… just the same as every year, we have our Christmas parties on the same night which makes it tricky for booting around from one party to the other! We decided to dress up a little this year (Pronovias for me and Hugo Boss for Allan). I have some better pics of the dress from our honeymoon so I’ll make sure I post those up too.

Two more fun social events included my brother taking our whole family to the Nutcracker at Queen Elizabeth Theatre… it called for dressing up in a little fur (Halston Heritage) and a long dress (thanks to Liv for always helping me pick out dresses!). It was also really nice to have my parents out since they never get to go out! The holidays were also a great time to catch up with old friends from high school, in particular getting to see my girlfriends at Kim’s bachelorette!

Then before we knew it, it was already Christmas morning and Allan and I hosted our first ever Christmas morning breakfast at our place. It’s usually at my parents’ home but for the first year ever we decorated and were given a waffle maker as one of our wedding gifts… so it’s been full-steam ahead on throwing breakfast parties in our apartment. Christmas morning breakfast was extra special… we got double-smoked applewood bacon from Oyama on Granville Island and made three sauces: strawberry, blueberry and cinnamon apple from fresh fruit.

Christmas afternoon was spent at my parents’ home and the tree was overloaded this year with our cousins and their kids coming over too.

For stocking stuffers this year I gave out some of my favourite chocolates!

Allan and I also spent a little extra time this year wrapping up our presents extra fancy with papers/bows from Ikea and Paper-ya on Granville Island.

I love love LOVE the homemade cards from one of my friends Lindsay. She makes these cards by hand and the attention to detail is beautiful! My family really appreciated receiving these crafty cards this year!

Allan definitely cleaned up this year with new Bauer hockey skates, a complete Shun Japanese knife set and block, a Shaw Gateway & Portal, a new Bern helmet and a Canucks jersey! I got a new GoPro 2, an Alexander McQueen scarf, a gold necklace from my parents, wine glasses, and much needed new pink slippers!

Christmas dinner and dessert was amazing with tons of turkey, chicken, beef short ribs, tiramisu and some lovely wines. Allan and I also brought along a bottle of port from Portugal that we purchased on our honeymoon.

Here’s our family photo this year! I couldn’t resist wearing a sparkly sequined dress for Christmas. Family love!

Lastly, it was time for New Years. We headed to the Shangri-la this year for an awesome party with a VIP table! It was worth the splurge to have a place to sit down and we all really enjoyed all the champagne and appetizers made by MARKET. It was so fun to spend time with our best buds. Liv, I have some awesome photos of you that are far too hilarious to post

There was lots of dancing and fun to be had. I didn’t get our guys in the photos but they are there too!

The rest of our break we spent baking, cooking and just relaxing. We finished three video games (Assassin’s Creed, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Splinter Cell: Conviction) and I finished reading the entire Millenium series of books by Stieg Larsson “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) novels. I also recently finished the Hunger Game series so I’ve been doing a lot of reading!

Not to mention lots of snowboarding at Cypress, Mount Washington, and Apex Mountain…

All in all, a very good holiday break! Now it’s back to work…

How was your holiday break?