This year we decided to spend New Years wandering the beaches of the Pacific Rim National Park. We rented the cutest little cabin in Ucluelet, and I got to spend quality time with my parents, my sister and her husband and of course the newest edition to our family my nephew Vanya!

On the way there we stumbled across The World Parrot Refuge in Coombs, it was an awesome experience to see all the birds, to interact with them and to even talk to some of them! I definitely recommend this place to anyone who’s driving by and wants to hang out with some beautiful parrots.

Then came the long walks on the beach. I find it so very peaceful to just wander around watching the waves crash not really thinking about anything. It’s a perfect place for a little getaway if anyone is looking for one!

Enjoy some of the photos I managed to capture!

~Lena

In the tradition of new year resolutions I figured this would be a good time as any to reflect on them for 2011, both for myself as well as for our business. So here goes!

• Blog more often! In a similar manner to project 365 I will attempt that with a blog post everyday! If Jasmine Star can do it then so can I!
• Improved health and fitness (both for Lena and myself). I guess this would entail eating better, less late night snacks, more volleyball! and getting back into rock climbing!
• Grow the business! I am extremely excited to be attending WPPI in Las Vegas in February for the first time! Looking forward to the opportunity of networking with other fantastic photographers, and learning everything that is going on in the state of our industry. Not to mention hoping to pick up some goodies at the trade show!
• Learn Russian! (I think it’s about time that I started to learn the language so I can start to converse with the in-laws!)
• Say farewell to our remaining Canon gear and move right on over to Nikon! (Yup so there will be a sale going on shortly once I get back to Vancouver!.. anybody looking for a 5D Mark II and 50 f1.2 amongst other things!?!?)

I am sure there will be more added to the list as things come to me, but for now this is it!

So anyways it’s officially the new year all over the world by now so once again HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Now to wake up Angel and take her for a walk!

~Jason

Vanya was born on July 9th very early in the morning, or very late at night, whichever way you want to look at it. His proud parents are my sister Katya and my brother-in-law Russ. They make a beautiful little family!! I am very very happy for them and their little bundle of joy.

I cannot wait to watch him grow into an awesome soccer player Congratulation Katya and Russ, you both did great!!!

I had the honour of photographing little Vanya a few minutes after he was born! We also did a few newborn shots the day after. Here are the results, enjoy!!

~L

This photo was taken a few minutes after he was born!! What a cuttie-pie already!

So, I present to you why Skiing/Snowboarding is only Awesome in your head!

Easter Monday we decided it was time to hit the slopes after the Olympic Craze and after spending nearly a month in shirt/shorts in Australia. Jason, Daniel, Estelle and I headed off to ‘enjoy’ a day at Whistler. You know exactly how the scenario for most of us goes: get up a the crack of dawn, haul all your gear down to the car, drive up hyped up on energy drinks, put on uncomfortable boots in which you can’t even walk in properly, get extremely over-priced lift tickets, get to the top of the mountain and find that you can’t see a thing past the end of your skis because of heavy fog, ski as if you’re blind, fall a few times cause you unknowingly went off the groomed part of the run and ended up in the bumps at high speeds, get an expensive burger, ski a little more still not being able to see anything, get a few serious cramps cause you’ve been bad and haven’t been to the gym lately, barely get down to your car stopping every 20 meters cause your legs are on fire, take off the boots, this is where it gets a little better, cause getting into some awesomely comfortable runners after being in the ski boots all day is definitely my highlight of the day!, then you gotta pack everything, drive back home exhausted, again!, get home and pass out on the couch. Now you’d think that this is where the torture ends, not a chance! You wake up the next day, and you’re hurtin’, wake up the next day, and you’re still hurtin’!!

So tell me, where in any of the above described is the fun?? It’s all in your head! Skiing is totally psychological!!! Most of us, when they think skiing, we think of the fun times on the slopes. Now really think about it, is it really all that fun? Sure, there are the days that you’re loving life when you find that perfect line, you dig your edges in and you fly without a care in the world. But finding that perfect line is hard, for that line, you have to get up at the crack of dawn to be the first one up, to get untouched powder or even an untouched groomed run, whichever you prefer. It’s all the thrill of the chase, the reward sure is awesome, but all that goes before and after is kinda sucky.

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE skiing, and I can’t live without it. It’s the only place I feel in control, I feel free, I don’t think, I just enjoy the wind in my face as I’m zooming down!!! I’ve skied almost for as long as I could walk, and I loved every day of skiing no matter how cold, how crappy the snow is, how slow my partners are (I ditch them half the time anyway)! It didn’t matter if I lost my iPod while I fell, or if some dude ran into me and broke my pole and left without even apologizing, it didn’t matter that I had exams to write, or if I was desperate to sleep in, it didn’t matter that our coach made us ski 7 days a week, and it didn’t matter that at one point I could not feel my feet for a good hour cause they were frozen! I could go on forever telling you all the unhappy things that happened while on the slopes; yet, I can also go on forever telling you all the fun things that went down while on or around the slopes!

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if you were to look back at your ski career, you’d find that your body took a beating while you still managed to have a blast!!! It’s all in your head! You’re conditioned to think that skiing is awesome, and there’s just no other way around it. Think about it, and tell me what you think!

For now, I should really go do some work :S, but I leave you with one of my favorite photos of Whistler. Enjoy!
~Lena

We’re on a plane over Australia, and although this won’t be posted until we’re down on the ground again, I thought I’d write anyway, and give you a quick overview of our trip so far.

I’m looking out the window and I see clear blue water and red soil of the land down under, and it’s only hitting me now that I’ll be in Australia in a few hours. Australia always seemed like such a far-away land, and all it had was kangaroos and some funny looking people who now live n Whistler and speak with a strange accent, hehe. But now that I’m married to an Aussie and I’m flying over this distant land, it’s finally hitting me that there’s more to it than kangaroos and Whistler lifties! I can’t wait to explore Perth, meet some real Aussies, eat the famous Australian pies and perhaps get myself some comfy Uggs  

But let’s go back a few days and I will tell you all about my impressions of SIngapore. I’m not the most cultured person I know, all I’ve ever seen was  the snowy winters of Siberia, cool summers of the Altai mountains, all of Vancouver and Whistler, a little bit of Mexico and a few months of Europe, oh and the resorts of Cuba. So Asia was and still is a foreign land to me. Singapore was definitely not what I expected, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised at every corner  

Did you know that they drive on the wrong side of the road? I didn’t. I thought it was only those who spoke English with an accent drove on the wrong side, but as it turns out Singapore’s main language is English, and they do speak it a little funny, thus it was only logical they drove on the left side.

It’s also interesting to note that it’s always summer dress season there! Can you imagine the life without sweaters, boots and winter coats? The only bad thing is that you’re always, and I do mean always, sweaty there! Not sure that I could ever get used to it or adapt to it, but I don’t think I’m cut out for living in the tropics, the humidity would kill me. You sure do begin to really appreciated air conditioned air. The one cool thing that tropical countries like SIngapore have is lots, and lots of green trees, namely palm trees. I love walking down the street and being shaded by green giants, although the shade does nothing to cool the hot air.

Something else interesting to note is that they eat a lot! They eat 6 small means throughout the day, the food is cheap and abundant. There are small food courts all over the place. We ate all the different asian varieties of chicken, duck, pork and seafood, but if you’re a clean freak, you might find it hard eating anything in singapore. First and foremost they don’t give any napkins anywhere, unless you’re in a fancy restaurant. You gotta carry your own kleenex and wetones. But all in all, I had a great time experiencing a little bit of the  culture in Singapore. I’ve got lots more to say about it, like their awesome parking systems, monkeys as city dwellers, nannies and their metro system. But I’ll save that for anyone who is actually interested and wants to hear about it. I’ll tell you all about if you ask  

Now, here’s the part where we go sightseeing: their markets are busy, their zoo is awesome, and their orchid gardens are magnificent. Click on the photo to see the slideshow of our favourite photos from Singapore.

~Lena

Click here to view the slideshow!

We totally got into the Olympic spirit and got ourselves some sweet hockey jerseys. Jason (even though not Canadian just yet) is wearing his team Canada jersey proudly; whereas I’m the opposite, although I’m no longer Russian by nationality, I’m wearing my Russian jersey and totally cheering back a big “YEAHHHHH!!!” when people on the streets yell out “GOOOO RUSSIA!!!” Although it’s not cool when someone looks at your jersey and says, “You’re from Poland?” People, learn your flags!

So anyways, we scored some tickets to the women’s curling event, and although we had no idea initially what curling was all about, we learned quickly while watching the ladies hit each other’s rocks. It’s quite an exciting game once you get how it works, and we got pretty intense cheering on Canada, and Japan! hehe Japanese girls are just so cute, and it didn’t help that they were right in front of us battling against USA. Japan prevailed over the USA!! The last 2 rocks were soo close they had to bring out a special measuring device, the few minutes they were doing that the whole crowd was so quiet waiting for the results, and everyone cheered for team Japan!! To sum up, we had an AWESOME time!

Here are some photos for your enjoyment!

~Lena

Jason switched over to the dark side, but he’s loving it! I’m actually going to let him do a review of his new camera gear since I’m not the techy one; however, I will say this, that Nikon D3s is sexy! It’s got sooo many buttons, so many features, so many options, it’s crazy! Hence when we went for a little walk to test it out, we went a little crazy, and here’s the proof.

Here’s a sneak peak of Jason’s new baby!

We had grand plans to go snowshowing, since it is winter and all and there’s supposed to be snow on the mountains. But we were quite disappointed when we called the local mountains to inquire about snow conditions. There were no conditions, cause there was no snow! hehe I’m just quietly laughing to myself about the snow situation, Winter Olympics are about to start and we have spring temperatures and a bunch of mud on the mountains. Oh well, not my problem really.

Back to our grand plans, we decided that it’d be just as fun to gather up the car full of animals and head to Buntzen Lake for a short little hike. There car was filled with 8 legs, 5 lunches (one extra for good measures), a bunch of water bottles, 12 paws and 3 wagging tails!

First we let the dogs loose in the gated park at the lake, Razor being a crazy water dog swam circles in the water just for fun, he also learned a few new games from a few rambunctious dogs. Gina was going a little nuts trying to get me to throw rocks for her in the water. And Altai being the most mellow out of all the dogs just wandered around and said Hi to all the dogs.

Then we hiked to the other side of the lake, and this is where all the real fun began! Jelena and Graeme had a bright idea to try to make Razor jump off the dock into the water. Poor Razor didn’t know what he was in for! This is how it all went down:

1. Get Razor excited about fetching a stick.

2. Make Razor run after the stick without realizing that there’s an edge to the dock!

3. Laugh really hard once Razor falls in! (Check out Jelena’s head-roll-from-laughing-too-hard!)

4. Poor Razor didn’t know what hit him, and he frantically tries to get back onto the dock. And of course he’s got no leverage, so Jelena goes in for the save, falls on her butt in the process, and gets totally soaked!

After all that, it apparently wasn’t enough, so Graeme goes for attempt #2. But this time Razor isn’t that stupid, and he stops in time to just look at the stick and totally ignore it.

After all the water fun is over, Altai and I play a little tug-of-war. That little bugger is super strong, look at him snapping those twigs!  

Razor joins in the fun! I’ve got nothing against 3 dogs, they beat me pretty quickly.

This concludes our fun on the beach! We headed off back to the car, and we were all pooped! The dogs slept like little babies on the way back home, and we had a nice little nap when we got home too.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAEME, hope you enjoyed hanging out with us!