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.

Part One of our journey to Kicking Horse Mountain and Golden, BC is posted up and now we’re onto Part Two of Three!

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……