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 finally had a chance to edit the very mini HD snowboard video from our first day of the season at Whistler. It’s always embarrassing posting videos of yourself from the first day of the season, because… quite frankly… you look silly on video with shaky legs and not-quite-there-yet balance. Nevertheless, please do watch this video and feel free to have a chuckle

My legs are STILL sore from last Sunday. Song from Chixdiggit, filmed entirely hand-held on a Nikon D90 at Whistler Blackcomb. Click the video above!

In other news, I am very happy to say that this blog has come a long way since I started it just over a year ago! It’s been a fun ride, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting bloggers from Vancouver and around the world… exploring new places, sharing my photography and video, and frequently embarrassing myself on my blog.

Bear with me, I’m going to toot my own horn for a paragraph. I can’t help it! I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started the VancityAllie blog (although I’ve been blogging since I was 12 years old)…

In the past year, the blog has really surpassed my expectations and we’ve hit 1,632,517 unique visitors over the past year and 2,466,670 page views! 16 HD videos, over 1400 of my own photos uploaded, and a Twitter account with nearly 3,000 followers! We’ve got great rankings on Google and are averaging 100,000 to 300,000 unique visitors a month depending on content and time of year.

P.S. Did you enter the Westbeach contest below? We already have 114 entries!

Okay, now that that is out of the way…

I’m really excited about some of the trips we have coming up this December and next year. I’ll have lots more on the blog… more videos, more photos and more contests! But don’t worry, I’m still the same old me… clumsy, nerdy, and prone to ramble…

Hope everyone is excited for the Holiday season!

Update (November 30, 2009 10:30 AM PST): I will be doing the draw tonight for the Westbeach outerwear and post the results tomorrow. Stay tuned!

It’s been dumping snow here in BC, and for the past 3 weeks I’ve been DYING to strap on my board and get out there for some snowboarding… but I’ve been sick and low on energy lately. After waiting 3 weeks and just not being able to stand it anymore, Allan and I finally got up to Whistler Blackcomb on Sunday for some FANTASTIC boarding. Although I couldn’t do more than 3-4 hours on the hill, we definitely made the most of it.

It has snowed 259cm in the past week at Whistler, and even though it’s been snowing all the way through the week, we still got an extra 20 cm for our first day of the season yesterday. And it shows.

The runs were ridiculously powdery, even the groomers… although we ended up riding knee-deep untouched powder in the trees all day.

Allan had a great time too… he didn’t get a chance to ride his new board, but he was wearing a perma-grin on his face all day… despite this very sombre-looking gondola shot.

I was stoked on the new Westbeach outerwear this year, although my new white helmet hasn’t come in yet so it looks kind of funny with my green helmet from my old outfit of past years. I rode my new Burton Supreme boots and my new Burton Malolo… and let me just say…

… riding my Malolo in the trees all day let me know that the ‘Lolo was definitely the right choice for me. Oh man.

Here I am in the trees… far, far away!

Did I mention that it was sunny and blue skies for most of the day? We really lucked out! Even the birds came out to play in the snow.

For the readers of VancityAllie.com, I am happy to present a contest to win some brand new spankin’ outwear from a fantastic local company:

WESTBEACH LADY RACER JACKET AND RENDEZVOUS PANTS CONTEST NOVEMBER 2009:

What you are playing for (either for yourself or a friend, girlfriend etc):

• A Westbeach Women’s Lady Racer Jacket Insulted Jacket in the Twilight Zone colour shown in my photos, size Medium
• A Westbeach pair of Women’s Rendezvous Pants in the Breezer colour shown in my photos, size Medium

Total value of the contest: $420.00 CAD

Both the jacket and pants are waterproof, rated to 6,000mm..  and are coated and seam sealed.

What you have to do:

• By Sunday, November 29th at midnight Pacific Standard Time (PST), leave a comment on this blog post
• I will do a random draw (I will video tape this) of anyone who left a comment between today and the contest deadline
• The lucky winner will win the full set of Westbeach Women’s Outerwear, which I will ship to them anywhere in the world.

That’s it! Good luck. By the way… I will have some HD video from yesterday’s snowboarding up, hopefully by Wednesday!

You can follow me on Twitter… and you can also follow Whistler Blackcomb and Westbeach on Twitter as well!

Today’s a photo post. Tomorrow — I shall post the video.

I have been eagerly wanting to ride my new Malolo around, so Saturday we went up to Whistler Blackcomb in an attempt to find some powder. We knew it was going to be hard — there was lots of new snow from the week, but all of it had been poached, and it was 2 days since the last snowfall.

We headed up to Whistler Blackcomb and had a really great, sunny day. We did a few groomer runs to start out… I really liked the feel of my Malolo on the groomers. I would say surprisingly it’s almost better on the groomers than my Feelgood. Must be the taper.

It wasn’t too busy where we were… we took the Glacier Express up… lots of little pockets here and there and really not many people to be seen. And warm enough to get a sunburn! Yeah!

We soon got bored of the groomers and I was itching to get my board on some powder, but there was none to be seen, so we spotted a spot we wanted to hike to and board down. This spot looked like it was still full of the good stuff.

So we started rode up the Jersey Cream chair and rode through some gladed runs (nice stashes to be found in there), and took 7th Heaven up. We hiked about 15 minutes before we saw this little hut. It was a great view throughout the entire hike.

30 minutes later and we still had our work cut out for us. We hiked all the way to the top of that peak and more.

Here I am, 60 minutes later and definitely getting tired. We stopped lots to take photos and videos but I was definitely huffing and puffing.

A look back from where we came. Yup.. all the way from that distant chairlift. We really didn’t do anything special compared to Tawcan and his friends but it was far for me!

Finally we got to the spot where we could drop in. The ride was short for the amount of hiking, only about 10-15 seconds… but it was glorious. My Malolo just glided over the snow… I barely had to lean back… so easy to make those powder turns. Ahhhhhh.

So I wanted to make sure my board was right for me, and I’m glad we went out of our way to try that little experiment. I’m completely in love with my Malolo for just about every mountain experience. My Burton Malolo review was successful. I was riding clouds all day… it’s perfect for me.

Video to come soon!

It is really gorgeous here in Vancouver. A little fresh snow, a little sun, and a Monday morning with people bustling about thinking about what they are going to accomplish for the day.

We have a great view from our offices here in Gastown. It’s so refreshing to be able to see the ocean and the mountains at all times while working. It makes me feel a little bit more at peace at work, and a whole lot less antsy than I’ve been in the past while sitting inside during a beautiful day like today.

Although, I will admit… I kinda wish I was up on the mountains snowboarding right now!

It was really nice to have a “real” weekend for once this past weekend. No trips, no moving, and getting lots done. Two parties on Friday… one, My friend Anna always throws an amazing one… a “Dance Dance Shiny Party” where my friends dressed up in shiny clothing with aluminum foil accessories, at a house party. It was awesome. After, was a friend’s birthday who was visiting from out of town. Amy made Bailey’s cheesecake for all her friends which was just incredible. I’ll see if anyone took a photo of it so I can post it here.

We cleaned the old apartment all day on Saturday, which was definitely a chore… but nice to get out of the way. And Sunday we installed shelves for the new shoe closet (YES! My very own shoe closet!)… and spent a lot of time at construction stores and home furnishings

/furniture stores looking at various furniture and design possibilities.

My computer has been having a couple small issues with my external hard drive, so I haven’t had a chance to get the moving photos or snowboarding trip photos off of it, so I’ll try and get that working again this week.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time drawing out floor plan layouts, and picking colour palettes and themes for each room in the new place. I know I want a West Coast feel with hints of bright colours here and there, nature and the outdoors (beach, ocean, forest), personal photographs, and some unique furniture and art pieces. Nothing too expensive though, of course. I will be writing a post either tomorrow or the day after with some of the themes and designs I am thinking about… would love to hear your feedback!

And of course, a housewarming party with all our friends in June or July once we get it all tied together! Can’t wait. I’ve already got an idea for a martini I want to make for the party, and we’ll get the keg and barbecue going again too of course (for those of you who have been to my housewarming parties before).

In the meantime, I hope everyone is able to enjoy the snow and the sunshine somehow! I’m feeling very hopeful about the future, and I hope you are too