24 hours of whistler

Fresh Tracks!




Brian, Thom, Kelly, Camille and Chadwick




At Horstman Hut




Mr. Noppe is happy at 8000 feet...




Thom and Chadwick scoping their lines




Beckoning Boundaries







Maya and Nini




Kelly and Thom





On Thursday, our friends Camille and Chadwick ofJonetsu Photography invited us for dinner and drinks in Whistler. Camille cooked a great dinner of beef kebabs and a yummy candied salmon and goat cheese salad. Um, and lots of red wine to ease it down. ;-) Chadwick also played host-with-the-most, even making me a cappuccino with a machine as big as our car. Their friends Kelly and Thom
joined us a little later and we had a wonderful evening together while great lovely cold crystals dropped from the night sky. It was truly a winter wonderland up there!
Luckily, I brought my skis..... :-D

Friday morning dawned with still more snow falling and we lapped up a fantastic day of Whistler-Blackcomb's finest. WOW. What a day! I showed Chadwick and Thom a spot they hadn't seen before. I just love the exhilarating sense of freedom & flight skiing gives us. Communing with nature in the crisp alpine air together with the fast camraderie of mutual enjoyment lends one a tremendous sense of contentment!

We all had that pleasantly tired and sore feeling when we got back to the "cabin" (bigger and better appointed than our house!) and had another glass of red wine to toast a great day!

Thank you so very much, Camille and Chadwick. We have been working a bit too much lately and you gave us a wonderful gift by inviting us up. Our turn next time!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Charles+Karina




My wedding Season 2007 ended on December 31st. I photographed a wedding until 8pm and then headed to Northvan to ring it in with friends afterwards...

As a start to 2008, one of the cool things was receiving this email from my friend Carla today. She was writing about her brother's wedding on New year's eve at Brew Creek Lodge in Whistler. What an awesome setting tucked away in the forest!

Thanks, Carla and Pius, for referring me to Karina and Charles for their wedding. They are great people and I enjoyed myself immensely (and it was great to see you both)!

Letters like this make my day...errrr, year! :-)


"thanks so much brian ... and we were also thrilled to see you "in action" on new years ... everyone was so impressed with your professionalism and energy (and practical jokes ... mostly charles ;) .. cant wait to see the pictures ... thanks again for making the day even better ... karina was very happy !!"

So, a little story, regarding the "practical jokes"...

You see, Karina, the bride, has a reputation for being serious about planning. Apparently she is the Queen of Lists and Spreadsheets. I didn't actually see ALL of them, but there were purported to be many! And, she was um... a bit anxious about everything going "as planned".

After photographing K & the Girls getting ready, I went to the lovely chapel next door to get ready to photograph the ceremony. There was Charles, at the top of the aisle with his groomsmen, his back to a crackling fire, waiting for his bride to arrive. The place was packed. And one could palpably feel the anticipation in the room. So, I walked up to Charles and apologetically told him that Karina had had an anxiety attack! And wouldn't be there for at least half an hour.

Silence. Dead Silence.

Now, he didn't know that this was wholly untrue, and that Karina was upstairs actually laughing (and crying) with her girlfriends... AND totally ready to go. :-)

Heh Heh.

Omigawd, the look on Charles' face was PRICELESS!

He looked at me as though he could believe me, but maybe, just maybe, my deadpan delivery was suspect.....

He looked very relieved when I told him the truth!

A minute later, Karina arrived, radiantly gorgeous, while my friend (and her brother-in-law) Pius played his guitar beautifully.

At the end of the night, Tammy, one of Karina's best friends and a bridesmaid, told me I really should change my motto from "Images Beyond Your Expectations" to:
"Images Beyond Your Spreadsheets".

Perfect. And I think they will be.... :-)

Happy New Year to Everyone!

Baby's First Christmas

Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Definitely we did... it was our 7 month-old Saphira's first Christmas. It was great to open presents with our wide-eyed daughter. The snow was gently falling while christmas songs played in the background. What a heart-warming day!
Starting at 2pm, I cooked a turkey feast ... in true Noppe fashion, we didn't eat until 10 pm, though! I'm painfully slow in the kitchen but my wife usually appreciates the outcome...

I almost never use recipes, preferring to let my inspiration come from the fresh shopping experience and any creative juices flowing while I prepare and cook (and maybe drink some red) ;-). I think our turkey stuffing worked out well so I'll try to write it down in hopes that maybe next year someone else can use it as a starting point for their own kitchen adventure. By all means, leave yours to share, too!
Measurements will just be a guess, with some unconventional units.... ;-)


I have a big thick plastic sheet that I got at Ming Wo on 4th Ave many years ago; it has an honoured place in my kitchen. Makes it easy to cut a lot of things together. It can be rolled up at the sides to slide all the ingredients into a pan or mixing bowl afterwards...

K, here we go. Whenever possible, I use organic or at least local ingredients.

Brian's Turkey Stuffing 2007

After thoroughly rinsing with water, start soaking one cup of short grain brown rice and a half cup of wild rice for at least 2 hours in water.

Then chop all the following ingredients up into small pieces for easy eating...
enough to end up with one handful each of:

fennel,
italian parsley,
red pepper,
celery,
carrot,
onion,
brown (crimini) or portabello mushrooms.

Then chop up 5 cloves of garlic.

Put all of this into a mixing bowl and add:

a few spoons of currants,
a handful of hazelnuts,
a few sprigs of rosemary, stems removed,
a big spoonful each of thyme and sage,
two spoons of sea salt,
a spoonful of hazelnut or extra virgin olive oil.

Drain the rice and mix it in a bowl with everything else. Stuff the turkey; I used the rosemary stems to skewer the skin flap closed and keep the stuffing in.

Boxing Day Walk

soaring high



bald eagle on the lookout



a young bald eagle


Regina, Saphira and I went for a lovely walk. There were a few eagles and I had my camera so I snapped a few pix on the way back....

White Christmas??

Little lovely Saphira


While driving home 2 nights ago after a long day of errands and meetings (and driving Mom and Dad to the airport), it started to snow on the Sea to Sky highway. So beautiful!

Snow always reminds me of being a kid, growing up in a small town in the Ottawa Valley. It will likely be a wet, not white Christmas, but some snow on the ground is great!

Speaking of feeling like a kid...

AH, My Wife. When it comes to gifts, um... she is a kid. 5 years old. Absolutely impossible for her to resist tearing open gifts prematurely!

So, yesterday, Regina just had to have a "little peek" at some presents that my brother Mark and his wife, Debbie had given my parents to leave under our tree. One of them was a gift certificate for a big box store.
Sorry, Mark and Deb!

But, the upside... we used the certificate to get our little Saphira her first highchair. Now she can eat at the table in her own chair with mom and dad like a big girl. Saph is only 6 months old and we had decided to wait that long before giving her solid food. She ate mushy organic banana while her mom and dad had rigatoni with sundried tomatoes, green olives, mushrooms and basil. Doesn't sound fair, but one-thing-at-a-time for our little one!

Cool and Misty

Black Bear Paws




River Serenity




Listing Calm


Went for a walk and followed a black bear's footprints in the snow. They weren't fresh, so I figured it was safe!

The cool mist on the river gave a wonderfully ethereal feel to the landscape.

Let it Snow!

The Magnificent Diamondhead




Office View


Ah.

It's that time of year when we transition into winter... after the beautiful fall colours, there is snow in the mountains to look at or play in. Today there are big clumpy snowflakes landing in our yard... truly lovely; can't wait to get up there and ski in it!