If you’ve been following my Instagram lately you’ve see a few pics I posted from a girls hike a few weeks back. Now normally I don’t blog about these rare moments of downtime/relaxation when they include friends– out of respect for everyone’s privacy but in this case the girl gang I went up with are a group of boss babes all running their own blogs– The Working Girl, To Vogue or Bust, and Cake For Breakfast. With their explicit consent, I am so excited to share this absolutely picturesque trip!

As much as I love December (isn’t everyone just in a wildly better mood?), it comes with extreme business and juggling everything from workouts, work, friends and family… plus scheduling in some ‘me’ time just becomes that much harder. Now maybe this makes it better … or maybe it makes it worse but I’ve started to multi-task a few things so I can make the most out of the chaos. In this case I wanted to get a bit of exercise, catchup with friends and get into the snow!

Around 9am I met the girls at my favourite JJBean and we absolutely loaded the Lexus NX compact SUV. I have to admit, when I told the girls I’d drive everyone up I was a little curious about how much gear these gals would bring and if we’d have enough room but we all fit in easily and had plenty of space to bring everything we could have wanted! For those trying to visualize this… four fashion bloggers, you can imagine the baggage!

After the dreaded Lion’s Gate Crawl, we officially felt like we were on our way! A few minutes later and we were climbing through the snow (thank goodness for all-wheel drive!) and reached the top of Cypress Mountain. It was a gorgeous day and I was even more excited to try out my new Noize Original jacket.

When Vancouver all of sudden had something resembling a real winter, I was in an absolute panic for a heartier jacket that did not make me look like a marshmallow. Honestly, most parkas feel (and look) like I’d tip over and roll away. But I came upon Noize Original Jackets and was instantly attracted to their style. I loved the cuts and the clean, slimming lines. Their materials feel amazing and what truly sold me was how warm they are so needless to say I was beyond eager to put mine to the test.

We played in the snow, chatted over hot coco and even had a full on snowball fight– I seriously can’t remember the last time I ACTUALLY had a snowball fight! It was the ultimate way to decompress and I stayed warm and dry the entire time. When the hot coco ran dry we piled back into the Lexus NX (hello, heated seats!), blasted the heat and belted our way through Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas album as we made our way back to town. Absolutely perfect way to spend a day!