hooray for snow! (when it's not in your driveway)

it's a snowboarders' paradise around these parts. here are some recent pix and videos from whistler-blackcomb and big white, in kelowna.

blackcomb....

big white...visiting aunt sandy, uncle george, and cousin dave (and muffy)

saturday morning sunrise view from the fam's place in westbank, bc...

powderday

lots o' rain in van city = lots o' snow in the mountains...

a very west coast christmas

it’s a lazy boxing day today. i’m feeling a bit too timid to venture out into the vancouver boxing day shopping crowds. more like lazy actually. chris is definitely too polite to push around others for a sake of a good deal. i on the other hand will do just about anything to get a discounted sweater from the gap.

this has been a year of many firsts for chris and i, one being, our first christmas away from home and the east coast. knowing that I might be hard to be so far away from everyone, we’ve tried to keep ourselves busy with a lot of the same things we’d do at home and some other fun things which we’d never get the chance to experience. last week we trekked again to whistler-blackcomb and had an awesome day boarding in the mountains. the skies cleared just long enough for us to finally get a picture of the mamouth peaks around us.

christmas cookies. the idea of them sounds so good. so fun. until you start making them. and then you realize how much of a pain in the ass the process is and wonder how each year you dupe yourself into doing it all over again. we made snowflakes. a martha stewart sugar cookie recipe. i am obsessed with her and her domestic godliness. i think they turned out wonderfully and we only lost about 6 months of lives achieving cookie perfection.

martha would be proud

christmas eve. yazbek tradition calls for a big seafood spread and a flurry of nieces and nephews working hard to contain themselves before the big present opening, which usually lasts a mere 10 minutes. it’s chaos. but a good chaos that we sadly missed this year. chris and i did something very different this year – dinner and a show – it’s a wonderful life. change is always good.

some shots of christmas eve day in van city...

christmas eve before all of the events

just because i love my new dress here is this picture

here’s a christmas first for us – dumpster diving. chris gave me a starbucks gift card. i noticed it missing this morning and went into sheer panic realizing how many hours of chai latte enjoyment were suddenly lost. i scoured the apartment. nothing. it was gone. this brought back a frenzy of horrible memories. it was christmas eve 1989. i was 12 years old. i got a NKOTB poster which sadly made its way into the fireplace during cleanup. i feared the same thing happened, but this time, the dumpster might have been the culprit. i woke up chris. he understood the importance of this mission. we went downstairs to the room where the trash and recycling are kept. not one of our shining moments, agreed. but, just below the surface of the recycling pile was…my starbucks card! in our own little pathetic way, we had saved christmas.

a re-creation...

christmas day brunch

west coast livin'

2 months in and life is dang good here on the west coast. some highlights...

work: things got busy for chris quick, but early reports suggest that he's well-liked and a hard worker. he has a spectacular view of the mountains from his 5-star office building, which includes a "kitchen attendant", state of the art technical "stuff", and treats-day friday. things started off slow for me, but have picked up considerably. i'm working in 4 areas of the hospital, seeing a wide range of kids and teens with varying problems. although i have my own office, i have to step outside to take in the view, which is never disappointing, even on the rainiest of days.

play: chris has nearly lost his mind mountain biking on the famed north shore. i can't even begin to explain the tricks he and the others are doing on these trails.



we both have apres work ski passes for cypress mountain, 1 of the 3 local mountains 30 minutes away and my new snowboard is rearin' to go!

view of vancouver from the base of cypress mountain


windsurfing has been weak to say the least, but this was apparently expected. not to worry, though. chris is making up for it with a trip to maui next week....we both bike to work everyday and i've found a tacky gym in the neigbourhood with lululemon-clad ladies and their personal trainers. does shopping count as play? i think so. the shopping is nothing short of amazing.

my former mountain bike, "citified" with fenders and bike lights...


it rains ALMOST EVERYDAY, but that doesn't mean that one's style has to suffer...here is my solution for all of the rain

although we've had lots of fun exploring the city, we've had the chance to make some day trips as well...

pictures from squamish, bc...



pictures from the sunshine coast (gibson, bc), home of the beachcombers!!


the ferry ride home from the sunshine coast....

day 21 - george, washington to vancouver, bc!!! (453 km)

The homestretch. I was so anxious to get to Van but Chris seemed more leisurely about it, wanting to stop into outlet malls in Seattle etc. I know what you’re thinking – Aimée didn’t want to shop?! But this is the truth. I just wanted to Git ‘R Done after 3 weeks on the road.

The first sight of a “Vancouver, BC” sign warranted a high 5 to each other. We were so close. We arrived in Van late afternoon and we were met at the apartment by our landlord. It’s just like the pictures :)

We feel so fortunate to have made this trip with no major pitfalls along the way. We had 21 days of sunshine and it was a once in a lifetime adventure, well worth all the driving, which, if you’re interested, added a mere 8279 km to the odometer!

We hope to update this blog periodically about our life here in Van, but don’t expect daily posts like we’ve been providing ;)

Hope to see you out west for a visit!

A&C

ps: it’s raining in Van today…go figure

day 20 - hood river, oregon to george, washington (310 km)

We left Hood River and a great 6 days of relaxation behind to seek out our last adventure on this whirlwind tour. We had heard from a friend about a place called the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington (yes, the town is called George in the state of Washington – how clever).

The Gorge Amphitheatre is a 20,000 seat concert venue located above the Columbia River Gorge and is considered one of the premier and most scenic concert locations in North America and the world. When we looked up the venue on the internet a few weeks before the start of our trip, we were blown away by the images AND the fact that the Dave Matthews Band would be performing the labour day long weekend, just around the time when we’d be ending our trip and heading north to Vancouver. We were sold.

The drive to George saw us heading inland into the Washington desert. It was very reminiscent of the landscape in Nevada and Colorado with the white, mountainous landscape, followed by corn fields, reminiscent of Nebraska and Iowa. It felt twilight zonish, as if we were retracing our original steps and heading backwards!

The concert. What can we say about Dave? Dave rocks! The concert was like an out-of-body experience. I kept saying to Chris, “I can’t believe I’m here!” Surrounded by the breathtaking scenery coupled with listening to the songs of such a rockin’ band was the most perfect way imaginable to celebrate the near-end of our journey.

One last day of sailing in Hood River

A pro windsurfer doing tricks, making all the amateurs look bad


Oregon wine - check out the brand AND name of the wine - so fitting for Chris!

The Gorge Amphitheater (above & below)

We were 44 rows from the stage! but these pix don't show that.

The parking lot at the Gorge Amphitheatre (look way into the distance!)


The Gorge in Washington