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?

This is the third and final photo post… you may want to check out Part One and Part Two of my blog post series on Kicking Horse, Golden BC, and the surrounding areas. The fabulous HD movie of the trip is of course still coming!

We really felt like we were part of a mountain community in Golden. The town is completely nestled in the hills, and they have spectacular views just about every day. Allan and I were pretty much seething with jealousy the entire time we were there. Talk about a sight to wake up to!

We spent our last day there exploring around and found several of these frozen over waterfalls…

We also explored under the river and the bridge until our fingers pretty much froze off…

… and noticed that there were just mountain goats and other wildlife wandering around in broad daylight…

… or they would just hang out in people’s yards at night. We saw this deer family hop over people’s fences, hang out on their lawns for a while, and do a little tour of the neighbourhood. It was awesome.

Our last night we stayed at Copper Horse Lodge, which right in Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, just a 2 minute walk from the gondola. Pretty sweet location! They also have a fine dining restaurant called “Corks” which we ate at a couple times. They have a Twitter account as well.

The Lodge has only 10 rooms, so it really is a boutique hotel. I managed to chat with the owner for a few minutes while I was there and he mentioned that they don’t want to expand at all because they care a lot about giving personal attention to guests. Again, I felt an extreme sense of wanting to open my own B&B or hotel in a mountain resort. Argh. Why am I working in video games again?

Nothing like relaxing in a hot tub after a day of snowboarding.

Again, I was really impressed with our choice of accommodations here in Golden! We really lucked out… everywhere we stayed was awesome, and the people were so friendly. It kind of reminded me of Whistler 10 years ago.

Anyway, our room was HUGE! King bed, couch area, flat screen TV, and lots of places to throw our gear everywhere. The place literally looked like a train wreck after we were done spreading out all our snowboard gear to dry. The big bathroom was a bonus too… mmmmmm jetted tub.

We hiked around the area to shoot some little snowboarding videos. I can’t wait to edit it all together.

After snowboarding we headed to the Local Hero Pub. It’s obvious to me that Golden is awesome. Where else do you have JENGA in the middle of a BAR? Haha!

We met up with our newfound friends, Mike (our guide from Canadian Powder Adventures) and Steve (from Tourism Golden… he helped us find places to rent our backcountry gear). Many tequila and whiskey shots were had…

Then it was off to Corks Restaurant (part of Copper Horse Lodge) for our last dinner in town. They had some really nice drinks and appies… we ordered several cocktails, had a mango shrimp appetizer, shared a carrot ginger coconut soup, and some different types of flatbread. Oh, and I snuck a little photo of the chocolate torte we had for dessert in here.

Yes, we eat a lot. Well, Allan does. We also had to have pizza since pizza is a must after snowboarding. I noticed a LOT of locals were coming into the restaurant and getting pizza and beer as well.

The mains were really the best part though. Allan ordered the lamb which had an orange glaze and a spicy mint sauce… such a nice combination.

I had the tilapia with the seafood and tomato saffron risotto. I LOVE risotto and this one was especially good… saffron is my weakness. The chef, Kalon is from Australia and you can definitely tell where some of his influences are from!

Why are my posts always about food? *sigh* I guess we just like to eat. Well, in the morning we woke up and had amazing eggs benedict served at Corks Restaurant by the couple who manages the place. Such nice people! Relocated from Vancouver… hmmmm… argh!

So alas, we had to say goodbye to beautiful powdery Golden, BC… till next time! We will most definitely be back.

It sure is starting to look like Christmas here in Vancouver with a beautiful dusting of snow on the ground already. Like many of you, Christmas is my favourite holiday and it’s no secret that I love winter (although Fall is still my favourite season).

I’m so incredibly backed up on blog posts that I thought I’d give you a little mini preview of what is coming down the pipes on my blog this holiday season, complete with some seasonal photos!

VANCITYALLIE.COM HOLIDAY SEASON 2009 BLOG POST PREVIEW:

Many cooking and baking related blog posts (Christmas cookies hello!), especially as we get closer and closer to Christmas… including *gasp* a fateful attempt at making homemade croissants…

Winter wonderland photos of Vancouver and around our beautiful province…

A gear and gift guide for snowboarding just in time for last minute Christmas shopping… plus lots of snowboarding posts including our upcoming Sun Peaks and Mount Washington trips.

Family, friends, parties for Christmas and New Year’s related posts…

How Allan and I attempted making a 5-course fine dining meal for both our sets of parents when they met for the very first time…

And of course, our last blog post to highlight our time in Kicking Horse and Golden… plus the HD video of the trip!

Hope everyone is enjoying getting ready for Christmas and the holiday season! I know I am!

Our trip this past weekend to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort and Golden, BC was so much fun! It was our first time to the area, and there was so much to see and do… so bear with me as I separate our trip into a series of blog posts over the next week or so. These are photo posts… I will of course have a big HD snowboard video at the end of all of this

We flew out Thursday night at YVR on WestJet thanks to some buddy passes our friend Emily had given us at the beginning of this year. I’m glad we finally got to use them. We packed everything into our board bags and crossed our fingers that we would pass on the weight scale!

Thanks Emily!

We landed in Calgary an hour later and managed to somehow score a Volvo all-wheel drive despite booking the cheapest possible car with Budget. It worked out well, because having the AWD was really nice (but not necessary) for driving through the mountain passes from Calgary to Golden.

It only took us 2.5 hours to drive from Calgary to Golden… just a little more than it would have taken us to drive from Vancouver to Whistler. I’m really amazed by how accessible Kicking Horse and Golden are. It really is a whole new snowboarding destination that feels like you’re traveling far away… but it’s just a short hop from Vancouver. We arrived at Canyon Ridge Lodge, the B&B/lodge we found which was luckily just off the highway and really easy to get to!

We really lucked out with our accommodations. Kat and Paul (and little Roxy, their daughter) are the nicest people you could meet. I really envy their lifestyle… and maybe one day I’ll set up a bed and breakfast of my own somewhere in a small snowboard or surf destination town.

Their home is AMAZING… Paul actually built it himself. It has vaulted ceilings, exposed timber, and yup… even a hot tub outside. This is the lounge they have… so you can meet other guests or if you book out the whole place you can hang out with your friends here.

This is our room! The bed was super comfortable.

Our own little bathroom… really liked the stone shower walls.

Next time I think we would probably stay in their self-contained suite. It would be nice to have a kitchen and share the suite with a group of friends next time we are in Golden.

In the morning we got our timezones mixed up (Golden is actually on Mountain Time like Calgary, not on Pacific Time like we thought), so we ended up getting a bit of a late start for opening day. YES, it was Kicking Horse Mountain Resort’s Opening Day and there was about 150cm base to play with, and 40 cm of fresh to find!

Seriously, what a cool resort. I honestly didn’t know what to expect going in (except that I had heard a lot about “The Horse”) and that it was a mountain with unique terrain. We pretty much rode blue and black diamonds in pow pretty much all day, and when it got a little tracked out we found the trees and the bowls. The mountain was split pretty much 50/50 skiers and boarders.

The best part though? NO CAT TRACKS! Oh man, for those of you who snowboard… you know how annoying it is to get looped on to those super flat runs made for skiers that you can never seem to get enough speed for? Well, it’s not that Kicking Horse doesn’t have cat tracks… but the mountain is set up so you pretty much never have to run into them. Here I am looking pretty exhausted. Haven’t really gotten my snowboard legs back yet

We had lunch at the Eagle’s Eye restaurant on the top of the gondola.

The layout inside was really nice for a on-mountain lunch stop!

The food was awesome too… after two months of being EXTREMELY strict with myself on an allergy elimination diet I’ve been on, this weekend I decided I was on “vacation” and going to eat whatever! I may be a little biased, but that white wine fettuccine alfredo really hit the spot.

Allan ordered the red curry Thai chicken, which was also delicious.

He also enjoyed his beer.

We spent the rest of the day riding until the gondola closed and our legs had no more in them. First day at Kicking Horse? Pretty darn impressive. You can follow me on Twitter, and also Tourism Golden, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, and Canyon Ridge Lodge.

A great start, to a great trip! More photos coming… and of course the HD video at the end Thanks for reading!

Every year one of our groups of friends organizes a Christmas Party… I’m sure some of you remember pics from last year. The party is technically called the “Erection Party”, to celebrate the erection/raising of the Christmas tree. The premise — everyone wears an ugly Christmas sweater or Christmas getup!

It’s always a lot of fun…

Amy and Kim did an amazing job of decorating their place…

I always enjoy the festive slippers and socks the most!

Christmas isn’t complete without a little tequila and a gift for the gift exchange game!

The gift exchange is always hilarious… as you can “steal” from each other a limited number of times and there is a definite strategy!

Allan wasn’t too happy since he always ends up with the most ridiculous gift every year… this year was no different… you can tell from the smile on his face that he loved his Jonas Brothers make-up gift pack.

I ended up pretty stoked about my red Olympic knit mittens! I actually wanted a pair. Yeah, I ended up wearing them the rest of the night.

The party wouldn’t be complete without several group photos, of course!

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In other news, I am flying out tonight to the Calgary airport where Allan and I will rent a car and drive to Golden, BC. We’ll be snowboarding and sightseeing two days at Kicking Horse Ski Resort for their opening weekend… and possibly even doing some backcountry hiking and boarding with Canadian Powder Adventures! We’ll be staying at the Canyon Ridge Lodge for two nights and the Copper Horse Lodge for a night. Then it’s a mad dash in the morning to drive back through Banff and snowboard at Sunshine Village, and then fly back to Vancouver!

Yeaaaaah… I ended up packing way too much stuff. All you really need is your board, boots, and jacket right?

Phew! It’s going to be a busy weekend. We’ll have lots of photo and videos. Wohooo! Enjoy the weekend everyone!