It’s that time of year again! Time to review 2011 in photos… it was a great year and a busy year, for so many reasons…

January

In January we headed over to Vancouver Island to visit Allan’s mom in Courtenay. One of the highlights included touring a beautiful fruit winery! I also started acquiring a number of accessories in advance of our wedding that year, including well… you know me… shoes.

February

In February we headed up to Apex Mountain (near Penticton) and I spent the weekend supporting Allan at the annual Apex outdoor ice hockey tournament and snowboarding some untouched powder. We also managed to get our wedding invitations out after tons of hard work doing all the illustrations, designs, and calligraphy ourselves.

March

Next we headed up to Kelowna for the annual video game industry ski and snowboard trip at Big White Ski Resort! Much snowboarding, foosballing, and hottubbing ensued. Then it was down to Seattle for the annual work charity ice hockey tournament! That’s me looking dorky in the front!

April

In April one of the most special people to me, my grandmother, passed away. It was a really hard time and I really miss her so much still. I wish she could have been there for our wedding, but I’m glad I was able to tell her all about our plans before she left us. Also that month we headed out to Tofino for a surf trip with two of our fave peeps in the whole world, Liv and Rob.

May

Lots more cooking and baking took place heading into the summer, including making a mascarpone cheesecake from scratch. Then it was up to the local mountains for newbie-ing it up at some downhill mountain biking! I’m still learning how to bike…

June

June was a memorable month as I saw my favourite sports team in the whole world make it to the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was an exciting time and I will never forget the highs and the lows of the playoff run. Here’s hoping for this year! We also went golfing and pitch-and-putting quite a few times in the summer, trying to make the most of Vancouver’s brief summer!

July

The annual surf and camping trip on Canada Day in July was a blast this year, with tons of surfing and friends around… not to mention catching some crabs and roasting them over the campfire. My friend Tara and I also hit up the Backstreet Boys/New Kids on the Block concert with floor seats!

August

In August we hit up my friend Amy’s annual event, dressing up for the horse races at Hastings Race Track. Then it was time to tromp around the city in various outfits for our engagement photos by our amazing photographers, Jonetsu Studios.

September

Allan and I got married in Tofino, BC on September 3, 2011. It was the best day of my life. There was so much lead up to it with a year and a half of planning, tons of crafting, construction, sewing, and insanity. But it was all worth it. I will always treasure my memories from this day and it really was the happiest day for me.

October

From September to October we left on our month-long honeymoon on a whirlwind cruise around Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. There were so many amazing days on our honeymoon, but special mentions go out to surfing in Portugal and dining at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant in London, England.

November

Following our honeymoon it was back to reality and work, but we still managed to find time to surf and snowboard just a week apart!

December

To end of the year we decided to stay home and enjoy our beautiful city and cozy up in the apartment together. We threw a dinner party and decorated our apartment. It was a great way to finish off a fantastic year.

And that’s it!

How was your 2011? What were your highlights?

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I wanted to do a hands-on review of the Blackberry Playbook tablet that I recently purchased. To sum it up: I love it.

I’ll start out by saying that I have been an iPad owner for the past 5 months, and the Playbook has now completely replaced by iPad and I use it much, much more. I’ve owned and used the Playbook for about one month now, and I wanted to make sure I had time to properly use it and experience it before writing my review.

The Blackberry Playbook is a really beautiful device. It is the perfect size, small enough to hold and read comfortably with one hand, but still with a large screen to enjoy videos, browsing, photos and more.

I have read many criticisms of the screen because it does not go all the way to the side of the screen, but after using it for a month and comparing it to the iPad… I actually like it better. When holding the iPad, you tend to accidentally click things on the screen or cover up text by holding the device. The Playbook has a nice “safe” border where you can hold it.

The borders themselves are actually touch-sensitive, so you use them for navigating around the device. For example, to turn on the device or go to the home page, simply swipe with your finger upwards from the bottom border. To multitask, swipe left or right to change programs. You can see in this image that I have the camera on (live!), a game open, and Facebook. I can toggle seamlessly between them just by swiping the left or right border. I love being able to pull down a menu at any time either in a program, or to view settings when on the home screen. I can quickly lock the orientation or access important functions of a program (very similar to the “menu” button on a Blackberry phone). I really prefer this system to the iPad and find it much more intuitive.

By far, my FAVOURITE thing about the Blackberry Playbook is the ease of typing. You can comfortably hold this in your hands and type with both fingers, rather than typing with one finger on the larger screen of an iPad. I took a picture of Allan typing on the Playbook (it’s hard to take a picture of yourself typing!) but you can see he can comfortable reach any letter on the screen with his thumbs. I find my typing speed on the Playbook has almost tripled compared to the iPad.

Of course, being able to view any web page with Flash is a huge bonus. I sorely missed this on the iPad and found I was constantly running to the computer to view certain web pages when I couldn’t see them on the iPad. No longer! Flash is fully functional and awesome in its full glory on the Playbook.

I am a Blackberry phone owner, so for me, this tablet is ideal. It’s less useful if you don’t have a Blackberry phone, but you can still enjoy the many features on the tablet. If you don’t have a Blackberry phone you can’t access the email or calendar functions, although I heard this is coming in an update soon. However, for Blackberry owners, being able to view all your messages and BBMs on the tablet is amazing. I just leave my phone in my purse for the most part now and do a lot of my email reading and writing from the Playbook on the couch.

One of the raddest features is using the Blackberry Bridge Browser. YES! Recently on a trip, Allan and I were frustrated because we couldn’t use the iPad for internet since there was no WiFi and we only had a WiFi iPad. Using the Blackberry Bridge Browser, you can tether it to your Blackberry phone and surf to your heart’s delight… FOR FREE. NO DATA PLAN!

The camera and video are excellent. Crisp images, and 1080p high def video. It also has cameras on both sides so you can easily video chat or take photos of yourself.

It’s thin and I love the rubber backing on the device. It feels bomb proof.

You can see that the Playbook and my phone both fit comfortable inside my very small purse (most of my friends make fun of how small my purse is)… the size is perfect for me. I bring it everywhere!

Summary: Overall, I really love the Blackberry Playbook and I find it is perfect for what I use it for: e-mailing, using social media, browsing the internet, taking photos, traveling, and talking to friends. Although it is light on the apps side of things, I find that for myself, I am not missing any apps as that’s not what I use this tablet for. The size is great, the navigation is extremely intuitive and smart, the device is fast, great form factor and fantastic for typing on. It’s a keeper for me, and I’d highly recommend it, especially for Blackberry phone owners.

Note: I was not paid or asked to do this review in any way. I purchased the Playbook with my own money and wrote the review of my own accord.