We recently returned from a one-month holiday to Portugal, Spain, and Tunisia. It was everything we hoped for and a whole lot more! Our time in Portugal was spent along the coast. We stayed in four different towns and encountered the most amazing beaches, fun markets, awesome outdoor cafes and bars, quaint cobblestone streets, and really fast drivers. In Barcelona we stayed right off of La Rambla and were a block away from the best market ever! Here we spent time on a nude beach (unknowingly), swam in the Mediterranean, drank sangria, and explored Gaudi’s masterpieces. I think Barcelona is the true city that NEVER EVER sleeps. Tunisia is indescribable. We definitely had a touch of culture shock to say the least! We were in awe of the traffic, the beaches, medinas, and the roman ruins. A definite highlight of Tunisia was riding camels and 4 x 4-ing in the scorching hot Saharan Desert. Pics from our vacation can be viewed by clicking here. We kindly edited the selections down from 2700 to 1425…don’t worry, it should only take you approximately 6 hours to get through them Happy browsing.

A couple of weeks ago, Rachel and I drove up to Salmon Arm, BC to spend mine and grandma’s birthday weekend together. Ren and Sue also made the trip from Hinton, so we made sure to fill the weekend with some fun activities. On Saturday we hit the beach for a few hours, where we got to witness Ren demonstrating some of his newly learned swimming techniques, then we headed to Dutchmen Dairy for some tasty old-fashioned ice cream. Unfortunately, the first scoop of my double decker waffle cone ended up on the steaming pavement. Oh well. The next day, mom, dad, Rachel and I rented a 4-man Sea-Doo and took turns dragging each other on a tube around Mara Lake. Rachel somehow managed to get it up to 50 mph while I was riding with her and I was screaming like a little school girl! Anyway, it was a great weekend, and well worth the 6 hour drive from Seattle.

In the past couple of weeks I have been busy working on some fun email campaigns for Onlineshoes.com. I created 3 separate emails (in men’s and women’s versions), which highlighted our Casual, Outdoor and Athletic categories. To create the realistic “snapshots”, I scanned in textures, objects and images, and compiled them with photos of shoes taken from our website. Some of the items were also created from scratch in Photoshop. To see all 3 segments, click here.

Every year, Onlineshoes.com designs a Look Book which highlights some of the new trends that will be hitting the site for the fall and winter seasons. This year, I had the pleasure of art directing and designing the entire piece. The concept blended lifestyle moments and product photography (all shot by our in-house photographer) to create a sense of time and place, while also helping the viewer to see themselves in our shoes. So far the book has been well received; we’ve already had numerous responses from some of New York City’s finest magazines who want to highlight our products in upcoming features.

The first annual Canada vs. USA road hockey best of 7 championship series was held at Greenwood School on June 2nd, 2007. Thanks to the meticulous planning by our pals, Gregg and Tom, the event was a monumental success. Highlights included numbered Canadian and American jerseys, commemorative t-shirts, professional reffing, an on-site statistician and scorekeeper, and a giant backyard BBQ party (hosted by Peto and his wife) that featured an ice cold keg of Moosehead lager, delicious food, and Krispy Kreme donuts (thanks Koh!). To top it all off, the event concluded with a 50/50 draw worth $140 – 70 bones going to the road hockey association and 70 going to Tom, who won the kitty. In the end, Team Canada demonstrated why hockey is the national pastime with a dominant 4 games to 1 victory that left the Americans trembling in their sneakers. For highlights of the series, and to see more photos click here.

Snapstyle is all about making life your own, and it’s a website and brand that I have been working feverishly on for quite some time now (my friend Cliff might disagree with the word “feverishly”). We’re hoping to launch the content portion of the site in April, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve had the pleasure of designing everything Snapstyle… from the logo to the website, and everything in between (including the catchy tagline), and it has been a great experience. Stay tuned for the launch announcement!

Well, we just got back from our 2-week vacation to the Hawaiian Islands with our friends Burke and Paula. We had an amazing time! We visited the Islands of Maui and Kauai and had a lot of exciting adventures. Many highlights of the trip included: a no-door helicopter ride over Kauai, Zip-Lining in the Kauai backcountry, watching the sunrise from atop the 10,000 foot peak of Haleakala Crater, and then biking down its face, hiking the Nualolo Trail above the Napali Coast, frequenting many beautiful beaches, and experiencing a real Hawaiian Lu’au in Lahaina. We also did a lot of snorkeling and saw a huge variety of tropical fish and even some Green Sea Turtles. I’ve created a mini website where you can view a flash slideshow of our 226 photos (more to come soon). So, please check them out and stay tuned for more in the near future! Use the buttons in the lower right of the screen to navigate through the album. You’ll need the Flash plugin to view the site, which can be downloaded here if you don’t already have it installed on your PC.

My first trip to Mt. Baker turned out to be a memorable one. After only 6 runs, I had a head-on collision with a skier and ended up breaking my beak. The older man I collided with seemed to be fine and skied off after a few minutes, leaving me to bleed all over the snow on my own, as I waited for the ski patrol to arrive. It turned out that I also got a mild concussion and had to call it quits for the day. Unfortunately for me, the conditions were absolutely amazing, with a foot of fresh powder blanketing every inch of the hill. On a brighter note, I did receive a free day pass for my next trip to the legendary mountain, because I got injured before noon! Yay! Oh, and another good thing… my nose doesn’t look as bad as it does in the picture, just a little extra bump.

Danny and Matt, a couple of old friends of mine from high school, sent me some pics of them launching off of a kicker they built up at Big White in Kelowna BC. Although this image of Matt doesn’t show it, they were clearing a pretty decent sized gap, over a cat track. Danny also sent me a nice little clip of him doing a smooth frontside 360 and riding away cleanly. Thanks for sharing Danny… be sure to send some more!

A while back, I wrote about the musical talents of Tim Gilbertson. Well, his first full length record was just picked up by Edmonton-based Pop Echo Records, who are going to be releasing it to the masses sometime in May. Also of note: he has a show coming up at the Powerplant on February 3rd, as well as an interview with the Edmonton Journal scheduled for the near future. If you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend you check out his myspace page for some samples of his music. And of course, be on the lookout for his debut release in May!