This weekend was ridiculously chaotic… we went to the horse races on Saturday, then off to photograph a friend’s wedding in Whistler, and Sunday was our engagement party at my parents’ house. I’ve got a huge photo backlog but hopefully I can get some up over the next couple weeks.

The Horse Races is an annual event that Allan and his friends have been doing for several years. This year was my second (you can see last year’s horse races post here)… and it is always an amazing time.

The best part of the annual Horse Races is getting to go to Hastings Racecourse and dress up! Big hats, pearls, and your Sunday Best is a must! Here I am with my huge hat!

Of course, betting and cheering for your horse is all part of it!

Here’s a great shot of our accessories and the racing sheet, taken by Sheena!

Every year I take profile pictures of everyone who goes, so bear with me… this is gonna be a huge photo post! Here’s Venus…

Allan…

me…

Amy…

Crista…

Kim…

Sheena…

Claudia…

Przemek…

Trev…

Chad…

J…

Max…

The boys and their moustaches…

Crista and Trev…

Sheena and J…

Allan and I…

The group!

And the BEST part of the horse races… the MASCOT RACE! We bet on the mascots

It’s always freakin’ hilarious.

This past weekend was fantastic! I am finally starting to feel like myself again. We went snowboarding at Cypress, saw Alice in Wonderland, did a ton of house cleaning, and booked up all our Greenpoint campsites for the entire year early this morning at 7 AM for surfing in Tofino this summer. I think I pretty much kicked my cold too, FINALLY.

Cypress was amazing. It was turn after turn in deep powder.

It was a little foggy, so we rode trees all day. Felt so good to get back in the snow again.

In other news, the costume design by Colleen Atwood in Alice and Wonderland is absolutely incredible.

I quickly decided that I am going to be sewing a dress from the movie for Halloween this year. The question is… which one?

The dresses are rich, lavish with tons of layering and detail. This “Alice Red Court” dress is stunning.

As much as I love the Red Court dress, I think the one I absolutely have to sew is either this “Blue Scrap” dress…

… or this off the shoulder piece. I can’t decide! They are both beautiful. Can’t wait till they release proper stills for the movie.

Believe it or not, I’m actually no stranger to sewing my own dresses and clothes. It’s true, they aren’t to the level of Colleen Atwood’s designs, but they were still fun projects to work on and wear!

I sewed this layered casual shirt and bow for a New Year’s house party one year.

Here’s a silk draped dress that I made in 10th grade in high school.

Yes, there were some fashion faux-pas that I unfortunately made in university for formals. Haha. But hey, I still sewed it!

But probably the most challenging project I’ve ever done was my graduation dress for the end of high school. We had no money to buy a proper grad dress, so I scrimped and saved and put together the dress of my dreams!

It took several months to sew all the tulle layers underneath the dress and drape all the satin.

It turned out though! And it held together for the event as well, which I was crossing my fingers for.

I still have it, and I am so glad that I did.

So, I’m really looking forward to getting back into sewing and putting together an “Alice” dress for Halloween… the only question is… which one?