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Those of you who know me well know that I LOVE to snowboard (I mean, I have a blog about snowboarding – kind of obvious, right?)  Not only do I love to snowboard, but my family loves to ski/snowboard (I know, we have a few skiiers in the family).  And we don’t like to just ski/snowboard a little bit – we like to go a LOT.  So naturally, when I first told my mom about this new boy I was seeing two years ago, I’m sure you can only imagine one of the first sentences out of her mouth (and no, it was not “is he real”) – “so, does he snowboard?”  Well, no.  In fact, not only does Drew not snowboard, he had never even been on skis OR a snowboard when we first started dating.

So this year, Drew decided he’d set about to change that.  We just got back from a wonderful trip to Vancouver, and while we were there we packed up our bags and headed to Cypress Mountain for a half day of riding (by the way, Cypress was only a 25-minute drive from our hotel in North Vancouver – I would KILL to only have a 25-minute drive to the mountain each day!)  When we arrived to the mountain, and after making a quick stop at the pro shop to buy him a pair of gloves, Drew stood in line for a rental for like 30 minutes (it’s been so long since I’ve been riding with someone who rents, I forgot how long it takes!)  But finally we got up to the front, and the employee standing there asked him, “what can I get for you today?”  Now, I had expected Drew to want to ski.  I mean, for your first time, skiing just makes sense right?  Plus, everyone we talked to told Drew that he would prefer skiing over snowboarding.  I even told Drew he should try skiing over snowboarding (after all, I didn’t want him to be totally turned off from the sport all together after going just one time!)  And, well, he’s just a skiier type of guy.  So you can imagine how surprised I was when Drew responded to the employee, “I’ll take a snowboard, please.”  I was shocked.

Anyway, Drew had already told me months earlier that when he tries skiing/snowboarding for the first time, he doesn’t want me to teach him (mainly because he didn’t want to channel the frustration he was bound to hve at me – understandable!)  So after picking up his board he enrolled in a beginners, half-day lesson (Cypress has some kind of special where you get a lesson, rental and bunny ticket for $100 – not bad).  I walked him over to his lesson, established a meeting place for when he was finished, and took off to ride on my own for a few hours.

When I met back up with Drew around noon, I begged and pleaded that we take a run together.  Drew said that his instructor didn’t even take him up a lift – they had spent the entire day just learning how to stand!  But of course, I always forget what its like to be a newbie, so I told him he’d be fine and took him up the bunny lift.  When we got to the top (he didn’t even fall getting off!), I was all prepared to stop and offer a few tips for getting down the hill, but good ol’ Drew just takes off and snowboards all the way down (Falling Leaf style, of course).

Overall, he enjoyed it, but he was really frustrated that he couldn’t “automatically go straight” (boys!!)  BUT, I’m excited to report that he’s already signed up for a three-lesson package at one of our local mountains near Seattle!

My snowboarder boyfriend!

Since we only snowboarded a half day (and we were so close to the city to begin with!) we were back at our hotel in our cozy lounge wear by 2pm.  And after a little much needed R&R, we decided we’d head in to downtown and enjoy a little dinner, then head out for a crazy night on the town (well, as “crazy” as us old 27-year-olds can be).  So we went to a little bar in Yaletown called Jimmy’s for a few beers then to a fabulous Italian restaurant called Lupo.  I have to admit, this was one of the better Italian places I have been to – I ordered the Lamb Shank Ossobucco, while Drew ordered the ravioli evening special (it was some sort of prosciutto with cheese) and both meals were so delicious.  The ambiance and service were both fantastic too.  If you are ever in Vancouver I’d highly recommend this place!

Our “crazy night out” ended up with us realizing that it was only 8:30pm when we were done with dinner, so we just went back to our hotel, watched a few episodes of Dexter, then went to bed.  Hey, fine by me!

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