That’s quite a spread of topics eh? Everything but the kitchen sink! I’ve got a couple weeks of activities to catch up on here… so here we go!

The weekend before last we got a chance to go out with some friends to the Marpole Curling Rink for… yes… some curling! It was a blast.

There were only 5 of us, so it was a small group, but I think 6 or 8 people would have been just perfect.

We got a quick introduction from the manager on how to curl, and then we were off on our own to have fun! We all picked it up really quickly and I gotta say… curling is one of the most fun sports I have ever played and I can’t wait until September when the rink opens again so we can get out and shoot some rocks!

After curling was Allan’s championship hockey game… and the Puck Nuts won! Wohooo! After 5 years in the league it was their first win and it was really exciting. I’ve been coming out off and on to the games (although much less lately) and it was a real treat to see the boys finally get a win.

Proud of you guys!

The Friday before last was some of my favourite people coming into town to visit: Alex, Sandy, Niki, and Moritz. Allan and I went out for dinner with them to Lumiere here in Vancouver.

The ambience was amazing. Gorgeous intimate room, great seating and really beautiful lights.

We did the 5 course meal which was delicious. It was meticulously prepared, pretty good flavour combinations and beautiful presentation.

My only complaint was that they ONLY offer prix-fixe meals so there’s not a lot of choice. For this reason alone I probably wouldn’t visit Lumiere more than once a year. Not enough variety.

The best part of the meal was definitely the dessert… soooo soooo good. I had the hot and cold tiramisu (hot chocolate sauce melting the chocolate top mixing with the cold tiramisu in the cup), but I really loved the chocolate fondant that Allan ordered. The fruit pavlova also looked good.

And to cap it off, my favourite part… the warm freshly baked madeleines… oh so good.

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In other news, this weekend I will be heading with my friend Amy to do some press coverage of the Twilight Convention here in Vancouver. We’ll be bringing our cameras and press passes and looking forward to meeting Twilight fans and the stars.

Is anyone else going? Stars appearing are Peter Facinelli (Carlisle), Charlie Bewley (Demetri), Bronson Pelletier (Jared), Kiowa Gordon (Embry), and Jodelle Ferland (Bree). There will be exclusive footage, panel discussions, themed parties, musical performances, competitions, auctions, autographing, merchandising and photo ops!

The lineup looks pretty good if you’re a fan. You can still buy tickets at the Twilight Convention website for only $10 a day.

I am super excited to finally announce that I have been selected as the Club Bud Party Crasher! Wohoooo!

Club Bud is going to be hosting some of the most exclusive parties here in Vancouver during the Olympics so I am very pumped to be able to attend some of them. The other Party Crasher that has been selected is Chris Walts, so you can follow him and follow me on Twitter to get all the updates from the parties when we attend. I also understand that Miss604 is going to be attending some of the parties as well.

The Commodore Ballroom is going to be transformed into Club Bud, so it’s going to be an awesome venue. It’s about 19,000 square feet and they are expecting over 1,000 celebrities and athletes to attend the parties. It’s going to be seriously epic!

Here is the rundown of the Club Bud parties… I am going to be attending some of them… stayed tuned on my blog and Twitter for coverage:

Friday, February 19: The Burton party! This is SUCH a perfect fit for me as you know I’m a huge fan of Burton. They are saying Shaun White might attend!
Saturday, February 20: The NHL party. Chris and I will be attending this one!
Thursday, February 25: The famous Budweiser party. I’ll be at this one! Super excited.
Friday, February 26: Under Armour party… another Chris party!
Saturday, February 27: The Lululemon party… I’m going to this one!

I get to bring a guest to each event… so if you are interested in attending… just hit me up on Twitter or leave a comment on why I should bring you!

In other news, Allan and I got to attend the Team Canada vs. Sweden Women’s Hockey Game at UBC Thunderbird arena.

We had really amazing seats… Row 1 right beside the Canadian player’s bench!

The game was a bit of a blowout, but we had an amazing time cheering on our team and it was impressive to see the skill level of the Canadian team.

We ended up seeing tons of goals.

Meghan Agosta had an incredible game and ended up with a hat trick.

Hayley Wickenheiser is an icon, and I loved getting to see her get a goal and see her lead the team.

Megan Agosta and Jayna Hefford celebrate after a goal.

Donald Sutherland was spotted again at the game.

Here’s the coach going over a play with Agosta. I loved being able to see this!

Wickenheiser and Carla Macleod smile.

Here’s Marie-Philip Poulin giving us a wave and a smile.

Kim St. Pierre watches happily as the clock counts down to zero and Canada wins! Kim St. Pierre shut Sweden out for two periods, and then they let Charline Labonte play a period. Kim was such a sweetie on the bench… she smiled for photos and even made sure she wasn’t blocking our view during the game! Thanks Kim!

Here’s Team Canada celebrating.

This little girl and a couple other kids managed to get some sticks from the players. I thought it was awesome they took the time to throw their sticks over the glass.

Canada ended up winning 13-1. I am really happy that we got to experience women’s hockey at the Olympics and I can’t wait to see them progress throughout the tournament!

Are you looking for my Olympic ticket giveaway? If so, you can find it here, just one post below this one. Also, don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter along with more than 3,000 other friends for Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games coverage and my West Coast tweets of course.

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?

I am excited and proud to welcome the world to Vancouver and Whistler for the 2010 Olympics. It’s a truly magical time, as people come from all over the world, from all over our country and as Vancouverites come together to celebrate sports and the city.

For all the bad press that the Olympics has received recently and even since the bid, I still think that this is an amazing opportunity for our city and I think it’s going to do for us what Expo ’86 did.  Although I have heard grumbling, the majority of the people I talk to wear broad smiles on their faces when they mention the Olympics. I can sense it’s starting to reach a fever pitch as people snap up tickets, make plans for parties and start to wear festive Olympic merchandise.

Myself, I could NOT be more excited about the Games. Although I did not get any tickets in any of the lotteries, I have purchased a number of tickets because I really feel that this is a once in a lifetime experience, and I don’t think I will ever get to experience an international event, or any Olympics for that matter as I can in my own home city. So, buckle your seat belts… here we go, it’s coming and it’s going to be AWESOME! Many of you have asked me what my plans are for the Olympics and so I thought I’d lay out our itinerary so far…

Thursday, February 11th: We have our dinner reservations at the Holland Heineken House and we’ll be checking out the venue and partying afterwards!

Sunday, February 14th: Attending the Valentine’s Day event at the House of Switzerland. Unfortunately we couldn’t make the media event for this Friday’s grand opening (definitely go see it if you can!), so we got our media passes for Valentine’s Day instead, and it’s going to be a sweet (har har) day of chocolate tasting, Lindt, chocolate competitions and more!

Tuesday, February 16th: We are watching the Canadian Men’s Hockey team play Norway at Canada Hockey Place (GM Place). We got pretty decent seats in the lower bowl so hopefully we’ll be able to see some great hits and the players up close and personal. I am most excited about this game… I didn’t want to let the Olympics pass me by without seeing our men play for our country! I’m pretty much frothing at the mouth to go and cheer on Luongo, Crosby, and our boys.

Wednesday, February 17th: We’ll be watching the Canadian Women’s Hockey team play Sweden at UBC Thunderbird Arena! Wohooo! We managed to score Row 1 tickets Centre Ice in the lower bowl, so we will be right beside the player’s bench. I’m extremely stoked to see the women play. This was Allan’s Valentine’s Day present… I mean, what red blooded male wouldn’t want to see the Canadian Women play the Swedish Women right?

Monday, February 22nd: We’ll be watching the CAN-USA Men’s Curling game (among other countries) with a couple of friends, and then we will be heading over to the Molson Canada Hockey House to watch the Canadian Women’s Semifinals, checking out the Triple Gold Club Celebration and partying it up all night.

Wohooo! And we’ll be all decked out in our Olympic gear for sure. And now for the contest…

2010 VANCOUVER OLYMPICS TICKET GIVEAWAY AND CONTEST

What you are playing for: 2 tickets to the Men’s Canada-USA Curling game on Monday, February 22nd from 9 AM to noon (same one we are going to). Also playing at the same time is France and Norway, Germany and China, and Switzerland and Sweden. These tickets are currently selling for over $300 so it’s a really sweet prize!
Seats: Category A tickets, Section 201 Row 11 Seats 5-6
Rules: You can be from anywhere in the world, but you must be available to go to this game. You will not be able to sell these tickets as I will be meeting the winners in person before the event since we are also going to this event. You may take whoever you like as your guest!
What you have to do: Simply leave a comment on this blog post before Wednesday, February 10th 2010 at 10:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST).

That’s it, good luck!

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada this past weekend. I hope everyone had a good one!

My long weekend was filled with Canucks hockey, a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and time with the family, and of course… more furniture sanding, painting, and refinishing.

Thanks to the awesome people at Canucks Hockey Blog (Hi JJ and Mozy!), Allan and I won tickets to the Canucks Open Practice this past Saturday. Now, tickets were free anyway, but they scored us awesome seats in Row 1 right beside the players’ bench!

It was great to see all the fans come out to support the team… and also great to see all the families and kids there. It’s a great event that everyone can afford to go to, and the team put on an exciting performance.

The practice was filled with various drills and scrimmages, and lots of goofing around from the players. I especially enjoyed the showboating during the shootout at the end of the practice. We had an awesome time and it got us all pumped for the game on Sunday night (which the Canucks won in an awesome shootout of course… must have been all that shootout practice … right?).

The rest of Saturday and Sunday was spent mostly hunting for furniture, and sanding and painting. It’s amazing how much time it takes. We’ve spent dozens of hours already on just our dressers.

I spent Sunday afternoon cooking in the kitchen with my mom… and I think we put together a pretty nice spread! My dad did the turkey, which is (in my opinion) the best… he makes an amazing overnight brine for the turkey with fresh herbs from the garden… and of course it is cooked all day in the oven until it is fall apart tender.

We also had Kansas City ribs (no pre-made sauces, only fresh herbs and tomato sauce made from tomatoes from the garden, and oranges), avocado and beet salad, home made Ciabatta bread, roasted potatoes with carrots and blue potatoes from the garden, a vegetable tian with parmesan and bread crumbs, sparkling grape juice punch made from homegrown grapes, and some homemade chocolate crème brûlée from dessert.

Judging from the amount of food on Allan’s plate I think it turned out pretty good!

Monday was spent hunting for furniture, and finally completing the last coats of lacquer finish on the dresser. Here’s a shot of our setup in my parent’s garage. I will have before and after photos for you when all the bedroom furniture is done. We still have the bed to do!

Although I try to remember what I am thankful for every day at some point during yoga or prayer, Thanksgiving is always a good time to formalize it. So, here is what I am thankful for…

- Allan… my wonderful partner who means everything to me in this world! Thank you for always making me laugh and that we never get bored of spending time with each other.
- My amazing parents and my little brother… my whole family who I’m so grateful to be so close to.
- Our beautiful city and province where we can do all the activities we love to do
- Friends, for always being there for me
- My job and my coworkers
- A healthy body and mind!

What are you thankful for? What did you do this past weekend?