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Skiing Whistler! March 7, 2010

Filed under: Canada — Kelocity @ 3:24 pm
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I haven’t skiied in a couple of years, but after years of lessons in Aspen, I thought I’d be ready to conquer Whistler… We rented some nice skies and headed up the lifts.

We just kept going up and up and up! We literally were above the clouds at the top! And it was snowy and hard to see!

 
Some fun highlights throughout the day:
-Skiing a Glacier!!! (It was fresh powder among cliffs of rock, truly beautiful). 
-Falling off the T-Bar at the Glacier. HAHAHA Irving was laughing at me!
-Crying at the top because I didn’t think I could make it down. HAHAHA I think my boots were initially too tight, and the powder was deep. And with the Whiteout conditions, it was really hard to see.  
 
But ultimately, it was an amazing day. I started sticking to solely green trails, because the blues really should have been blacks anywhere else. 


A quick rest stop at the top of the mountain:

A few years ago, they put in a “Peak to Peak” gondola connecting Blackcomb to Whistler mountain at the top. It was amazing. The whole thing is a mile long, and there are only 4 support poles holding it up!




How cool is this picture? (Click to enlarge, it’s worth it!) We in the clouds!

On the other side, we saw the famous Inukshuk Statue! (Did you see it on TV during the Olympics?!)


 
On the way back on the Peak to Peak, we got the “Glass Bottom Gondola!” But it was too foggy out to really see much, but  still pretty cool.
 

I wish I got a picture, but one of the trails we took was a “5k”! It was 3.1 miles long! And it was just a gentle decline, almost flat actually. But it took FOREVER! At least it was beautiful!

By the end, I was just exhausted. Since we were staying in a “Ski In/Ski Out” hotel, I waited on the mountain and Irving skied down and returned my skies for me. What a guy. HA! I sat in the snow and waited while he hiked back up. HAHA

 

Whistler Village!!

Filed under: Canada — Kelocity @ 2:27 pm
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We LOVE Whistler!




Here’s a replica of the torch!

The village was hopping with all the nations. I particularly loved the Swiss House… that thing was made out of chocolate!

How funny is this! That’s Janie and Irving!

I fell in love with these Ice Wine Truffles!
The sliding center was kind of hidden in between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountain valley, but we hiked up a trail to try to see some of it.



We weren’t able to see any of the track, but we did see the Bobsleighs all crated up ready to get shipped to their home countries. I thought this was so neat!

This was one of the bobsleighs!! We were so close to it!

We were really sad to see this Memorial for Nodar Kumaritashvil (The luge slider who died during a training run before the Olympics).

One day, we walked about 5 miles from Whistler Village to Creekside Village. It was a gorgeous walk around some frozen lakes to get there.

So much better than taking the bus there.

It was cold though. Good thing we had our mittens!
  
Creekside is where most of the alpine events take place.

 


Whooo Hoo!! Athletes Village!


At Creekside, we took the chairlift up to the finish line of the Downhill Ski events. So cool!!!


It was so weird to get off the chairlift without skies on. haha

These were the grandstands for the crowds watching the skiiers finish!

This is the finish line where all the skiers came in!


 
We thought this was funny. The sign says "Snow Tools".

And then we rode the chairlift back down! (Those are Irving’s gloves and shoes. haha)

Our hotel was the home to "Camp Norway". The Norway support team was there. We thought that was pretty cool. 

We made sure to show our American Spirit in our room…. so our room went from this:

To this! PERFECT!

We TOTALLY lucked out. Our hotel was slopeside on Blackcomb Mountain. This is the view from our room… you can see the chair lifts! (Click to enlarge!)
 

We literally had to walk DOWN the ski slopes to get to the village. The road wasn’t really an option. haha It was awesome!


The village is great during the day, but really comes to life at night! They had these awesome "Fire and Ice" shows at night where snowboarders and skiers jump through a ring of fire. So fun!



Check out that moon coming up over the mountain! Those lights on the mountain are snow cats grooming the trails!

Good night!

 

The Road to Vancouver/Whistler

Filed under: Canada — Kelocity @ 12:49 pm
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On Friday, we woke up in Los Angeles, had breakfast in Seattle, lunch in Vancouver and dinner in Whistler! It was a long, but beautiful gorgeous day.

We met up with some of Janie’s family in Seattle and had breakfast at a cute diner called Endolyne. It used to be an old train stop that was at "The End of the Line". Get it? I wish I had pictures, it was a cute place.

As we got on the road, I got my first glimpse of the Seattle Needle as we whizzed by!

We were really excited once we got closer to the Canadian border. We started to see signs for the Olympics!


We stopped for an hour in Vancouver to explore some of the Olympic areas. Obviously first on our list was the Cauldron. It was fairly easy to find (follow the crowds!) Even in the rain, it was beautiful and impressive.

Hi Jake!

We love all the gorgeous blue/lime logos that were everywhere!



We battled the crowds to get a glimpse! 



We even found a bobsleigh to try out! HAHA



The highway from Vancouver to Whistler was closed to the public. You had to have a special permit to be able to drive up to Whistler. Good thing we had one! We felt special. 🙂

 
Next stop….Whistler!

 

Olympic Party! February 13, 2010

Filed under: Friends — Kelocity @ 8:24 pm
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Last night we celebrated the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in style with an Olympic-themed party! We had a “cultural potluck” to celebrate all the countries! Everyone brought a dish from a different country and it was DELICIOUS! We have some talented chefs in our circle of friends, thanks guys! (More on the food later).

But first, we were SUPER excited about our totally awesome American decorations we found at the 99 cent store. SCORE! Check it out!





Even in the bathroom!!


And check out the AWESOME olympic rings I made. Pretty good, huh?
 

Irving and I got into the mood by wearing some of our “medals”!


((A little piece of Irving trivia: He ran the Las Vegas 1/2 Marathon in 2006 because I signed him up without telling him. haha!

We had about 13 people in our place! I think that was a record for us! Hopefully everyone was comfortable.

We got these cute chocolate coins from World Market. They had different coins from around the world. Some of them also had picture of different cities. They were fun!


Like I was saying, we had some AMAZING food! Everyone had to make a name tag for the country of their dish. 🙂

Here’s a sampling! 

Chips and Salsa = Mexico

Armenian Pizza (served with Lemon!) = Armenia
 Pizza = Italy

Christina brought over Dumplings! = China


Chili = Chile HAHAHA (We were pretty proud of that one!)
 

Cornish Vegetable Pastries = England

Baked Brie = France

Hummus, Pita, Tzatziki, Olives = Greece


A Heineken Keg = The Netherlands! HAHA

Baked Eggplant with Goat Cheese/Tomato Sauce = Spain

Red Velvet Whoppie Pies! = Canada or Switzerland (For Red/White Colors!)

Then we watched the Opening Ceremonies! All 4.5 hours of it. For the most part, I thought the show was great. 

We were a little confused about the costume choice of this act… but still pretty cool.

We ended the night with a shot out of the “Ice Shot Glasses” we got for our wedding. (Yes, my husband put frozen shot glasses on our registry. haha)

Everyone keeps saying that the Vancouver Olympic Ceremony wasn’t anything close to Beijing. I understand what they mean, but I’m really happy with the way Vancouver did them. They aren’t proving a point to the world like Beijing was. The world already likes Vancouver, they don’t need an overly expensive spectacle to prove that. I think it was smart and cute. Although I was disappointed they didn’t have any Cirque du Soleil stuff (considering it originated in Montreal).

Thanks to all our friends who came over! Hope you had as much fun as we did!! GO USA!!!!

 

 
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