So here is the last set of photos from the fantastic Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival up in Whistler Blackcomb… these photos are from the last two days we were there: Friday and Saturday the 23rd and 24th.

On Friday we checked into the “Media and Industry Dream House” that was generously organized by the Whistler Blackcomb PR folks. It was an honour to be invited and we were lucky enough to chill with some fantastic folks: ESPN Sports Editor Mary Fenton and reknowned photographer Mike Yoshida, Snowboard Magazine Editor Chris Owen and Snowboard Canada writer Sarah Tollestrup… Frequency Magazine Editor Colin Wiseman, and Matt/Matt/Jesse from Push.ca. What a blast!

The house itself was pretty swanky! A huge hot tub on the deck, ski in ski out access during the winter, some huge bedrooms and bathrooms…

… and not to mention a follow stocked fridge with tons of Kokanee and everything from breakfast to nacho supplies.

Friday night we headed to the Schick Fashion Exposed Fashion Show at the Whistler Conference Centre.

Wohooo front row seating!

It was a fantastic event with tons of companies like Sitka, Gore-tex, Westbeach, Orage, and a number of other local fashion designers. The band “We Are the City” performed throughout the show which I thought was pretty cool.

My favourite pieces were the apres-ski looks and the lingerie but they did have some very cool outerwear on display too.

Plus we got to meet up with some friends like Mr. Tyler Ingram (HUGE LENS!), Rebecca, John, and John Biehler.

Outside the fashion show was a huge art exhibition with contemporary local artists and ski and snowboard companies.

The next morning we woke up somewhat bright and early to head to Elements for breakfast with the whole gang: Rebecca, me, Keith, Tyler, Shayboarder and friend Carrie, Allan, John Biehler and John Bollwitt.

Of course I had to order the french toast plus extra meat pile. Breakfast was pretty good, but not as good as it has been in the past at Elements. Not sure why.

After breakfast a couple of us hit the slopes, and myself, Allan and Tyler Ingram snowboarded on Blackcomb for a couple hours.

Then we headed over to Whistler to meet up with Shayboarder, Carrie and check out the demo tents.

Allan tried out a Prior board and then we all went out to board for a couple hours together.

It was SO awesome to finally snowboard with Shay again after meeting her last year at the TWSSF. I missed her tons and we stayed in touch via Twitter/blogs/emails etc… but it’s nothing like boarding again together in person! Yay! So much fun… she’s an awesome boarder and definitely an inspiration in the snowboarding blog scene.

Later that night after boarding we went out to Sushi Village for dinner hosted by the awesome Whistler Blackcomb PR team. Thanks Michelle, Amber, Tabetha for having us!

So much fun with so many awesome peeps. Here are our new friends Steph, Tabetha and Tyler. Thanks Steph for being an awesome house mom!

Colin from Frequency Magazine was also having an awesome time, not to mention the stagette next door did too.

Dinner could not have been more fun. The sake margaritas were KILLER.

And to end off the night… we headed to the Grenade Games finale in the Whistler plaza. We got invited up to the Grenade trailer to take photos. It was a bit of a climb in high heeled boots

We got some great photos and met some great people…

… not to mention an awesome view!

Sweet!

Of course, no trip would be complete without some Allan shenanigans…

… so he managed to grab the official “Grenade” for the Grenade Games and yup… set up some snowboard bonks.

Geronimo!!!!!!!!!!

What is catskiing or catboarding you ask?

Well, you load all your gear into the bus…

… then you head up the mountain on a “snowcat”… which is a huge machine with a cab for twelve people that can take you up and down the mountain.

You arrive at the lodge, in the middle of nowhere with gorgeous mountain ranges all around. Yes, you are living and sleeping right at the top of the mountains. Allan and I were very fortunate. I won a contest to go to Mustang Powder (although Allan paid for his full trip)… so we didn’t really know what to expect. It was my first time EVER going catboarding.

The rooms are comfortable with their own private bathrooms… but to be fair, you almost never spend any time in them.

The lodge is soooooo amazing. Vaulted ceilings, all wood beams, and they didn’t use a single nail (apparently it’s some kind of peg system?). There’s enough room for 24 guests there, but since it was the end of the season they only ran one cat… so 12 guests.

The lodge really is in the middle of the mountains.

And there was a HECK of a lot of snow. It had been snowing all week and we got a few feet of fresh powder the day we arrived.

Their terrain is pretty incredible. Allan has gone catboarding before and he said it was the best operation he’s ever been to. The amount of terrain they have above the tree line is breathtaking.

Yep, you couldn’t wipe the grins off our faces. It was ridiculous.

We were riding in waist and knee deep snow the entire trip. We hooked up the GoPro HD for a few shots by sticking it on a pole to get a better wide angle. Worked pretty well!

The gladed runs were probably my favourite. They have a ton of old growth trees, but also some great runs with new baby trees that were fantastic.

The food. MAN. I did NOT expect this kind of food. It was gourmet meals every day for breakfast and dinner, not to mention a huge lunch spread to make your own.

Meals included chicken with beurre blanc sauce and capers, lamb osso bucco, a huge piece of bison tenderloin, fresh homemade pastry for lemon meringue, cheesecakes, carrot and coconut soup, broccoli cheddar soup, beautiful salads, and fresh blueberry pancakes for breakfast! My only complaint was that they didn’t seem to get the allergy concerns we listed on the admission sheet, so my recommendation is to make sure the kitchen receives your concerns on the very first day.

There’s a lot to do in the lodge too. There’s a full bar with premium liquors, a huuuuuuuuge outdoor hot tub, and a games room with pool and foosball and books.

One of the days I also got to go out on a snowmobile and do a private film shoot with one of their ski stars, Bruno. It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to show you the video footage.

It was great to make new friends in the group, and I hope we all stay in touch.

This is one of my FAVOURITE photos from the whole trip. Check out our lines in the snow. Check out the incredible terrain. Holy crap, yes, that was a LOT of powder this past weekend.

The snowcats were brand new too, so they were super fast and we rarely ever had to wait for the cats to pick us up and bring us up and down the mountains. They have over 30,000 acres of terrain, so there was always a new untouched run to do.

The group we had was fantastic… 11 guests and a couple staff members to guide and help out. I can’t say how awesome the guides were (thanks for helping to carry my camera gear and dig me out on multiple occasions!) and the group was a really fun mix of people who were all friendly, and good skiers and snowboarders! From left to right back to front: Garrett, Roger, Dell, Kieran, Gail, Paula, Allan, Nigel, Ben, Greg, Bruno, Cam, and me. Kieran and Paula are owners and operators of Big Red Cats, so it was neat to see them there too and talk about their operation as well.

Our group had a pretty fast pace and on one of the days we managed to cover 22,000 vertical feet! Yes, that is for ONE day of skiing! It was surreal to look back up at our tracks.

At the end of each day, I felt exactly like this dog. I was exhausted. But I was also very, very happy. By the end of the third day I was actually getting my legs underneath me and I think I’ll be a lot more prepared for next time.

Nick and Ali Holmes-Smith are the owners and operators of Mustang Powder, and they are one of the nicest couples you will ever meet. I gotta say they have a pretty charmed life with their three girls, dogs, catskiing operation for the winter and summer farm with horses for the summer. Crazy, eh? They invited us back for next year and I CAN’T WAIT!

It was the end of the season so the entire group of guests plus all the staff said their goodbyes. It was sad when it was over. It was the best snowboarding trip we’ve ever gone on, and without a doubt we’ll be back next year. Stay tuned for videos!

GROUSE MOUNTAIN LIFT TICKET CONTEST

I am also giving away THREE full-day lift tickets courtesy of Grouse Mountain here in Vancouver, BC. You’ll have to use them before the end of the season, but considering the amount of snow we are getting, you could very well have a powder weekend!

What: Three, full-day lift tickets for Grouse Mountain that must be used before April 30, 2010.
How: Just leave a comment on this blog post and you’ll be entered!
When: I will draw the winner on Saturday, April 10th at 10:00 PM. (So you can use them on Sunday if you want)

Good luck, thanks for reading

Just a quick post here on our last weekend before the Olympics start in Vancouver. We headed up to Apex Mountain (near Penticton, BC) for Allan’s outdoor ice hockey tournament with his team, as well as for snowboarding and fun! There’s so much to explore in BC outside of Vancouver… if you’re in town visiting, I highly recommend you check out other parts of our beautiful province of British Columbia!

Here I am snowboarding in the trees in the powder. We got so lucky with the conditions… it snowed all week and then dropped 15 cm of light fluffy BC interior powder the night before. Yep, we pretty much rode trees in the bowls on the backside of the mountain all day.

It was a beautiful drive up to Apex.

Every morning we woke up there is looked like this… gorgeous blue skies and lots of snow.

The snow was fantastic. (Yep, I’m actually in this picture although very, very far away)

I loved watching the boys play outdoor hockey. We don’t really ever get to see that in Vancouver, and it’s such a part of our Canadian heritage and culture! Definitely got me even MORE stoked for the Olympics if that is even possible.

We made breakfast a few mornings… lots of sustenance for the day! Can’t live without BACON!

We left a little surprise on a friend’s car.

Here’s the boys’ hockey team. They lost two games but won their last one, and they definitely played hard (although drunk). So much fun to watch… I love these guys!

View from my office window above. What can you expect from my blog in the upcoming weeks? Well, lots of Olympic coverage… definitely from the games/events/pavilions I am attending (see below) and tons of photos and HD video. I’ll be all decked out cheering Canada on as loud as I can, and I’ll be wearing my Canadian pride on my sleeve (and well, my face with tattoos).

GO CANADA GO!

P.S. I’m currently deciding what I should do… should I buy myself a ticket to the Men’s Gold Medal Hockey game? Each ticket is now over $2,200 and it’s a big expenditure… argh… help! What would you do?

Here we all are heading up on the bus… sold out again this year! 56 peeps.

Friends on the chairlift… Crista, Trevor, Allan, Greg, and Mozy.

Here I am on the chairlift looking all covered up. It was a bit chilly.

We had a big get-together on Saturday night after boarding… about 80% of the bus showed up which was pretty good! Lots of fun to have everyone together and have some drinks. You can see Rielly (thejerk) in the background here. He got some hilarious footage which I will edit into our video.

Many drinking games were played that night…

And I think we all had a great time!

There was also tequila…

… and then we headed out our “usual” bar there, Snowshoe Sam’s. It’s always a great time, and like every year, I ended up playing on the foosball table half the night.

The walk back from the bar is never a pretty one.

Allan somehow managed to find Christmas lights and he tied some randoms up. Haha.

Hanging out on the chairlift…

The snow was really great at Big White even though we didn’t have a dump of fresh snow. It’s so cold and dry up there that it stays really nice.

Crista looking cute!

Me and Trev vs. the dog. Not sure what it was doing up there!

We got some great video footage from the two days at Big White… we found tons of natural jumps and jibs… here’s a little teaser for the video… check out that awesome tree jib!

More to come soon. Thanks for reading!

First up, this is my contest entry for the Cat Skiing at Mustang Powder Contest. I’ve never been catskiing or catboarding before, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out!

The contest asks for a blog post, but I also thought I’d include a video just for fun. It’s a little silly, it was filmed and edited late at night in the midst of chaos. Still, I think I’d be a great candidate to win the contest and I’ve put together some reasons why ( in text, just in case):

- I am extremely passionate about snowboarding and I’m constantly on the hunt for deep, fresh powder lines
- I’d love to take high quality photographs and videos of the catboarding experience; I’ve got a ton of equipment such as a DSLR with fisheye and telephoto, an HD video camcorder/DSLR, and a helmet mounted or board mounted GoPro HD camera which can help capture the experience
- I’m always on the lookout for new adventures!
- I have my AST-1 avalanche certificate so I know some of the basic safety principles for the trip
- I love road trips!
- I’d love to post about the experience on my blog and Twitter

Cross your fingers for me, friends!

ALSO, I thought this would be as good a place as any to post the winner of the contest I held for the Volcom Snowboard jacket!

Congratulations to the winner. Again, please excuse the silliness, as this was even later in the night. Winner, please e-mail me at allie@vancityallie.com. If I do not hear from the winner within 2 weeks I will do a re-draw.

Thanks to everyone for entering!

This past Saturday, Allan and I headed up to Whistler Blackcomb for a gorgeous, sunny blue bird day of snowboarding fresh powder. It was quite busy up there, but we still managed to find our stashes of powder.

We also brought along our new GoPro HD Hero helmet camera to capture some of the action. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you know that we had the regular GoPro camera before. I can say that the HD is a real nice upgrade. Much clearer photos and videos! Hopefully I’ll be able to edit the videos into a little movie soon.

Here I am wearing my new Volcom jacket and pants (both Gore-tex)… I’m loving how the wide angle really captures everything!

Powder spraying up on the sides.

Riding down one of the bowls on Blackcomb.

Even Allan got into the fun of it and attached it to his helmet for a while.

You’ll notice most of the shots are from the back of my board… we used the suction cup that we normally use for surfing to attach it to the back of the board… but be warned… sometimes it falls off in the deeper powder and you really have to keep an eye on it, or tether it to your board

All in all, a really fun day… and really nice to get back onto the mountain for some boarding. And, I thought this would be a great time to give away a BRAND NEW Women’s Volcom Snowboard Jacket on the blog! It’s the same jacket I am wearing in the photos above, but of course brand new with tags. All you have to do is leave a comment below, and I’ll pull a random winner on Sunday evening. If you remember my last contest, we gave away a snowboard outfit. Here’s the winner Rosy, who sent me a photo of her in all her new gear!

2010 Volcom GORE-TEX Satellite Snowboard Jacket Contest:
Sponsored by Volcom

Prize: 2010 Volcom Satellite Nimbus Women’s Snowboard Jacket in Bluebird, Size Medium
Value: $500 CAD
What you have to do: By Sunday, January 24th before 10:00 PM PST… just leave a comment on this blog post!
Who can enter: Anyone! You can enter for yourself, or for a friend, significant other etc etc…
Details: I will draw a random winner Sunday night, and I will ship the prize to the lucky winner anywhere in the world!

About the jacket: Yup, it’s totally GORE-TEX so awesome waterproofing. It’s got the works… fully taped seams, pant-to-jacket zips, Recco® avalanche system, Riri® waterproof zippers, a hood, a chin guard, vents, a powder skirt, a goggle pocket and audio pockets. My two favourite features? The built-in face mask and the Lycra hand gaitors to keep your hands warm in your gloves (you can see these in one of the photos above over my hands). Plus… I love the liner pattern!

That’s it! Good luck to everyone

We really felt like we were part of a mountain community in Golden. The town is completely nestled in the hills, and they have spectacular views just about every day. Allan and I were pretty much seething with jealousy the entire time we were there. Talk about a sight to wake up to!

We spent our last day there exploring around and found several of these frozen over waterfalls…

We also explored under the river and the bridge until our fingers pretty much froze off…

… and noticed that there were just mountain goats and other wildlife wandering around in broad daylight…

… or they would just hang out in people’s yards at night. We saw this deer family hop over people’s fences, hang out on their lawns for a while, and do a little tour of the neighbourhood. It was awesome.

Our last night we stayed at Copper Horse Lodge, which right in Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, just a 2 minute walk from the gondola. Pretty sweet location! They also have a fine dining restaurant called “Corks” which we ate at a couple times. They have a Twitter account as well.

The Lodge has only 10 rooms, so it really is a boutique hotel. I managed to chat with the owner for a few minutes while I was there and he mentioned that they don’t want to expand at all because they care a lot about giving personal attention to guests. Again, I felt an extreme sense of wanting to open my own B&B or hotel in a mountain resort. Argh. Why am I working in video games again?

Nothing like relaxing in a hot tub after a day of snowboarding.

Again, I was really impressed with our choice of accommodations here in Golden! We really lucked out… everywhere we stayed was awesome, and the people were so friendly. It kind of reminded me of Whistler 10 years ago.

Anyway, our room was HUGE! King bed, couch area, flat screen TV, and lots of places to throw our gear everywhere. The place literally looked like a train wreck after we were done spreading out all our snowboard gear to dry. The big bathroom was a bonus too… mmmmmm jetted tub.

We hiked around the area to shoot some little snowboarding videos. I can’t wait to edit it all together.

After snowboarding we headed to the Local Hero Pub. It’s obvious to me that Golden is awesome. Where else do you have JENGA in the middle of a BAR? Haha!

We met up with our newfound friends, Mike (our guide from Canadian Powder Adventures) and Steve (from Tourism Golden… he helped us find places to rent our backcountry gear). Many tequila and whiskey shots were had…

Then it was off to Corks Restaurant (part of Copper Horse Lodge) for our last dinner in town. They had some really nice drinks and appies… we ordered several cocktails, had a mango shrimp appetizer, shared a carrot ginger coconut soup, and some different types of flatbread. Oh, and I snuck a little photo of the chocolate torte we had for dessert in here.

Yes, we eat a lot. Well, Allan does. We also had to have pizza since pizza is a must after snowboarding. I noticed a LOT of locals were coming into the restaurant and getting pizza and beer as well.

The mains were really the best part though. Allan ordered the lamb which had an orange glaze and a spicy mint sauce… such a nice combination.

I had the tilapia with the seafood and tomato saffron risotto. I LOVE risotto and this one was especially good… saffron is my weakness. The chef, Kalon is from Australia and you can definitely tell where some of his influences are from!

Why are my posts always about food? *sigh* I guess we just like to eat. Well, in the morning we woke up and had amazing eggs benedict served at Corks Restaurant by the couple who manages the place. Such nice people! Relocated from Vancouver… hmmmm… argh!

So alas, we had to say goodbye to beautiful powdery Golden, BC… till next time! We will most definitely be back.

After a day of boarding at Kicking Horse, we headed down the mountain for a delicious dinner experience at Cedar House Restaurant.

The restaurant is tucked away in a residential area in Golden, BC just outside of downtown… and it’s one of those places that you would only really find if you heard about it from the locals. It really is a secret spot! I also noticed that they have chalets for rent beside the restaurant, so although I didn’t get to check them out, it seems like a neat place to stay as well.

We also got to meet our guide Mike, from Canadian Powder Adventures who was going to take us hiking/ski touring into the Kicking Horse back country the next day. That guy could really sing and play! On an interesting side note, I’ve noticed that a lot of people in Golden seem to be multi-talented. Everyone does a couple different jobs and helps each other out with different businesses. It really is a cool and diverse community. Allan is still trying to convince me to move there.

They bill themselves as “Fresh Grown Rocky Mountain Cuisine”, and they aren’t kidding! They actually grow most of the vegetables consumed in the restaurant in an organic garden they have planted outside. Everything is organic, and is locally sourced. This crab bisque was really good.

The free-range chicken looked pretty amazing…

I tried the halibut myself and it was awesome… tasted very fresh and rich.

Of course, the real highlight of the dinner for me was the freakin’ incredible toffee bread pudding! Now, to be honest I’ve never had bread pudding before, so I didn’t know what to expect… but it was soooooooooo good. I may have to try and find this somewhere in Vancouver now. Any recommendations?

Also, the cocktails were good. I ordered a cosmo. And is not at all the reason why we had a late start the next morning.

The next morning (well, I should say early afternoon… we slept in a little), we met our guide Mike at the top of the gondola on Kicking Horse mountain. We snowboarded a bit down one run, made it up a chair, snowboarded along the ridge and found ourselves riding down some fresh powder leftovers (I couldn’t believe it wasn’t all skied out) in the “Fuse bowl” just off the side of the resort.

The back country near the resort at Kicking Horse is AMAZING. It’s all so accessible and it all funnels down back onto the bottom of the resort so you can either take the gondola back up or easily get to where you parked your car. So many people ski tour around here it is crazy… and I can see why.

We rented our back country gear like our backpacks, shovels, probes, and beacons from Avalanche Safety Solutions in Golden, and we got our snowshoes and poles from 180 Mountain Sports in town. We even got to try out a Snowpulse Airbag backpack… which we will of course save for our awesome HD snowboard video coming up

Here I am with Mike, our fantastic guide from Canadian Powder Adventures. I honestly didn’t even know that you could hire someone to take you into the back country for a day trip… and when we met Mike in the restaurant it just seemed like a great idea. I am SO glad we did. He was so patient with us (even though I am totally out of shape and was super slow), and taught us a lot about avalanche safety as we went along on the tour. Allan and I are really new to the back country stuff… we did out AST-1 avalanche training course last year, but this is the first time we’ve really been out in the backcountry when it hasn’t been a course.

The snow was just perfect. Really stable, super soft but yet firm enough to hike on, and of course… we had a blue sky day… can’t ask for much more than that!

The views were just beautiful off the top of the ridge. I was amazed how much accessible backcountry there was… we didn’t come across anyone during our hike and we rarely saw other people’s lines.

Yeah, it took me a little longer than it should have to hike, plus we got a late start… so we did get to see the start of a beautiful sunset

Here is our trail from the gondola to where we rode down. Mike says it would take him 40 minutes to do it… it took us 2 and a half hours. Haha! I couldn’t believe how far we went though.. Mike really chose a great trail.

Here I am at the bottom of Kicking Horse, super tired and exhausted! Haha! It was a perfect day though, and I really can’t wait to show you guys all the video footage we got! Saving the best for last for sure……

We flew out Thursday night at YVR on WestJet thanks to some buddy passes our friend Emily had given us at the beginning of this year. I’m glad we finally got to use them. We packed everything into our board bags and crossed our fingers that we would pass on the weight scale!

Thanks Emily!

We landed in Calgary an hour later and managed to somehow score a Volvo all-wheel drive despite booking the cheapest possible car with Budget. It worked out well, because having the AWD was really nice (but not necessary) for driving through the mountain passes from Calgary to Golden.

It only took us 2.5 hours to drive from Calgary to Golden… just a little more than it would have taken us to drive from Vancouver to Whistler. I’m really amazed by how accessible Kicking Horse and Golden are. It really is a whole new snowboarding destination that feels like you’re traveling far away… but it’s just a short hop from Vancouver. We arrived at Canyon Ridge Lodge, the B&B/lodge we found which was luckily just off the highway and really easy to get to!

We really lucked out with our accommodations. Kat and Paul (and little Roxy, their daughter) are the nicest people you could meet. I really envy their lifestyle… and maybe one day I’ll set up a bed and breakfast of my own somewhere in a small snowboard or surf destination town.

Their home is AMAZING… Paul actually built it himself. It has vaulted ceilings, exposed timber, and yup… even a hot tub outside. This is the lounge they have… so you can meet other guests or if you book out the whole place you can hang out with your friends here.

This is our room! The bed was super comfortable.

Our own little bathroom… really liked the stone shower walls.

Next time I think we would probably stay in their self-contained suite. It would be nice to have a kitchen and share the suite with a group of friends next time we are in Golden.

In the morning we got our timezones mixed up (Golden is actually on Mountain Time like Calgary, not on Pacific Time like we thought), so we ended up getting a bit of a late start for opening day. YES, it was Kicking Horse Mountain Resort‘s Opening Day and there was about 150cm base to play with, and 40 cm of fresh to find!

Seriously, what a cool resort. I honestly didn’t know what to expect going in (except that I had heard a lot about “The Horse”) and that it was a mountain with unique terrain. We pretty much rode blue and black diamonds in pow pretty much all day, and when it got a little tracked out we found the trees and the bowls. The mountain was split pretty much 50/50 skiers and boarders.

The best part though? NO CAT TRACKS! Oh man, for those of you who snowboard… you know how annoying it is to get looped on to those super flat runs made for skiers that you can never seem to get enough speed for? Well, it’s not that Kicking Horse doesn’t have cat tracks… but the mountain is set up so you pretty much never have to run into them. Here I am looking pretty exhausted. Haven’t really gotten my snowboard legs back yet

We had lunch at the Eagle’s Eye restaurant on the top of the gondola.

The layout inside was really nice for a on-mountain lunch stop!

The food was awesome too… after two months of being EXTREMELY strict with myself on an allergy elimination diet I’ve been on, this weekend I decided I was on “vacation” and going to eat whatever! I may be a little biased, but that white wine fettuccine alfredo really hit the spot.

Allan ordered the red curry Thai chicken, which was also delicious.

He also enjoyed his beer.

We spent the rest of the day riding until the gondola closed and our legs had no more in them. First day at Kicking Horse? Pretty darn impressive. You can follow me on Twitter, and also Tourism Golden, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, and Canyon Ridge Lodge.

A great start, to a great trip! More photos coming… and of course the HD video at the end Thanks for reading!

It’s always a lot of fun…

Amy and Kim did an amazing job of decorating their place…

I always enjoy the festive slippers and socks the most!

Christmas isn’t complete without a little tequila and a gift for the gift exchange game!

The gift exchange is always hilarious… as you can “steal” from each other a limited number of times and there is a definite strategy!

Allan wasn’t too happy since he always ends up with the most ridiculous gift every year… this year was no different… you can tell from the smile on his face that he loved his Jonas Brothers make-up gift pack.

I ended up pretty stoked about my red Olympic knit mittens! I actually wanted a pair. Yeah, I ended up wearing them the rest of the night.

The party wouldn’t be complete without several group photos, of course!

——-

In other news, I am flying out tonight to the Calgary airport where Allan and I will rent a car and drive to Golden, BC. We’ll be snowboarding and sightseeing two days at Kicking Horse Ski Resort for their opening weekend… and possibly even doing some backcountry hiking and boarding with Canadian Powder Adventures! We’ll be staying at the Canyon Ridge Lodge for two nights and the Copper Horse Lodge for a night. Then it’s a mad dash in the morning to drive back through Banff and snowboard at Sunshine Village, and then fly back to Vancouver!

Yeaaaaah… I ended up packing way too much stuff. All you really need is your board, boots, and jacket right?

Phew! It’s going to be a busy weekend. We’ll have lots of photo and videos. Wohooo! Enjoy the weekend everyone!