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

Yes, I FINALLY had a chance last night to edit together the ridiculous amount of footage we had from multiple surf trips to Tofino this summer. Sadly, I didn’t have much footage from the spring and we haven’t started our fall and winter surf trips yet, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to combine all the summer footage into one nice tiny package with a bow on top.

So here we go, HD video footage featuring…

• Several surf trips to Tofino this summer with friends, and by ourselves
• Underwater housing footage (in-ocean shots)
• Long lens surf shots
• GoPro camera footage (camera attached to the board)
• Us reeling in crabs off the dock and cooking them
• A few different timelapses
• Us doing stupid stuff
• Allan, J, Venus, Trev, and myself
• Fantastic music from the Planet Smashers (thanks guys, how could I NOT use your song) …

Click the video above to view. Short vid, about 3 minutes. Safe for work.

It’s about 30 hours of footage rolled into one tiny video. You’ll also notice the underwater housing fogs up… yeah, we accidentally tore the new housing and tried to patch it up with tent glue. Then we used it in the ocean anyway. Well, it leaked. Haha. And uh, I kind of broke my Nikon. Soooooo, now I have to get it fixed.

So stupidity aside, let me know what you think!

Thanks for watching!

In a couple minutes, I will turn 24 years old. For the first time in my life (at least what I can remember of it!), I won’t be having a birthday party with my friends. I’ve decided to go low key this year, and just take some time to have one with my family. I don’t mind getting older… it just means more opportunities and things to look forward to in life! (Not to mention being older can definitely help at work, where age isn’t always a good thing)

For my “birthday weekend”, Allan took me to my favourite place on earth, Tofino… where we got to watch some storms and surf. It was pretty gnarly out there, but we still had a great time. You look forward to the big waves all year… it just sucks when they become a washing machine and don’t clean up nice at all for big wave riding. Nevertheless, we still had a great time being in the ocean and being close to the beach.

Leaf by a tree in Port Albert (by the beer store )

Who ever thought we’d see gas below a dollar in our lifetime?

We checked out Chesterman Beach… but the waves were too small and they weren’t even clean. But at least the view is always pretty!

We stayed at 1431 Cox Bay. What a nice treat away from cold weather camping! It’s always brutal when you get out of the cold ocean and crawl into a cold tent… having a hot bath is a real luxury.

MMmm smoothies. We decided to stay in and cook most of the weekend… for dessert I made kiwi and grape smoothies with yogurt and ice! Definitely refreshing and nice to have by the fire.

On the drive back, we mounted the GoPro camera to the outside of the car to take some footage of my favourite drive in the world. Video coming soon.

It’s a tradition in Port Alberni and surrounding areas to cover Cathedral Grove and the drive to Port Alberni with the pumpkins from Halloween!

There are hundreds of pumpkins and it is really a sight to see the orange pumpkins set amidst the forest backdrop.

This photo was treacherously taken as I sat on the windowsill of a car moving at 120 clicks… and it didn’t even come out great. Oh well

Here’s a video of Allan surfing at Cox Bay with his gorgeous Robert August vintage board. Videos of the drive will be posted shortly.

In other news, the Canucks lost tonight in the shootout. A real shame to see them lose this game, even with Burnaby Joe gone from the lineup for the Avs and the Canucks pretty much at full strength. I would’ve loved to see Wellwood get a bit more of a handle on the puck out there. Also, haha… Canuck favourite (now Senator) Jarkko Ruutu gets suspended for elbowing someone in the face. Classic! Man, I miss Ruutu. Also, Brian Burke stepping down from the Ducks. Big news!

It’s definitely no secret among my group of friends that I like toys. Snowboarding toys, surfing toys, photography toys, computer toys, video games… ah, it never ends.

I just ordered the GoPro Helmet Hero 5 Wide Angle. I already have an underwater housing for a Nikon DSLR and my compact digital camera for videos on the slopes etc, but there’s always such a big gap between when I’m taking photos/videos of others, and when I’m partaking in the actual activity. The GoPro seems like the perfect compromise and addition to my gear. The best thing? It’s waterproof to 100 feet and cold resistant.

Photo Credit: GoProcamera.com

I ordered the Helmet cam version of it, because it’ll come in handy for snowboarding videos. I’ve been a skier my whole life, and so it’s always been easy to take videos of my snowboarding friends. Now that I’m in love with snowboarding, it’s become increasingly difficult to take videos of my friends and even lug around a big DSLR. Not to mention that Helmet Cam should come in handy for the catboarding trip in Feb.

I also bought the suction cup add-on for the GoPro. It’s meant to attach to surfboards and snowboards, and will give that “low to the ground” angle motion shot. They say the suction cup has been tested on staying on airplanes. We’ll see.

It’s a shame the camera won’t show up until after my next Tofino surf session in a week, but I’m sure it’ll get plenty of play before the end of the year. I’ll probably bring out my housing and fins for that weekend instead.

In another realm of “toys”, our living room has finally got a proper upgrade from sitting on the floor for the past two weeks. We got a brand new leather sectional couch, and a new Samsung 40″ TV. We’ve got a couple more pieces coming so I’ll wait for the “full” living room shot till we’re done the makeover.

Man, it’s so easy to have so much fun in Vancouver! Bring on the snow and the waves!

Got any new toys you are excited about?