In preparation for what’s called “seasonal lethargy,” bears put on 30 pounds of body fat a week. Heading into our own hibernation, the only bulk we care to 'bear' is chunky knitwear.

Keep the tush toned with a twice-weekly September session of Booty Camp. Located across the Lower Mainland, the girl only classes are lead by certified trainers and include fitness assessment and nutritional support on top of cardio and strength building circuit training. And enrollment comes a exercise DVD for doing on off-days.


We just finished four weeks and feel fit to bare arms beneath fall’s faux fur vests.

Camps ($159/4wks) start today and tomorrow in Yaletown, Fairview and North Vancouver, to sign-up visit www.bootycampfitness.com

Prep school is meant to prepare you for the rigors of upper academia, but what most of us learned about liquor as pupils was unsanctioned and no more sophisticated than coolers, kegs and shooters. Now that we’re grown, we’ve graduated to The Diamond Preparatory School For All Things Drink.

Known for serving up serious cocktails, the Gastown establishment is now offering courses for aspiring bartenders and amateurs alike hoping to master mixology. In Classic Cocktails 101, we were taught the basics of making six smart drinks—from the proper stirring technique for a margarita to how long a whiskey sour should be shaken—by owner Josh Pape, who first demonstrated (and let us sample) and then coached us through crafting two of our own.

Their next classes, Gin & Gin Cocktails and How to Stock Your Home Bar & Throw a Cocktail Party ($90 each), are this weekend. But if you’re all booked up, they’re also available for private tutoring.

The Diamond Preparatory School For All Things Drink, 6 Powell St., Vancouver, www.di6mond.com, for more information and to enroll email school@di6mond.com

Even though Olivia Newton-John got physical with leg warmers and light aerobics, chances of us getting taut and toned with wimpy leg lifts seem pretty slim.

So when a friend tipped us off to Mode Boot Camp, we couldn’t help be intrigued by the 2 or 3 day-a-week intense outdoor workouts. Plus, the evening classes end at 7 p.m., leaving us plenty of time to make it home for 90210. Priorities!

Situated at Yaletown’s Cooper Park, trainer Mike Roulston creates high-intensity circuits with the most effective fat-burning exercises. All equipment is provided (so no forgetting your yoga mat at Starbucks for the 10th time) and the energetic, small classes will get your heart pumping and have you master of the plank in no time.

Now the only question left is, what happened to Brenda Walsh’s hair?!

For info on Mode Boot Camp visit http://modebootcamp.com/

Are you harbouring a baby Basquiat just waiting for someone to "understand" his finger painting?

My First Masterpiece kids workshops run by a professional artist, might be just the thing to, ahem, draw out his genius.

Using real canvases and artist–grade paints and brushes, kids create a take–home masterpiece complete with fancy frame.

Now you just need to secure the wall space at the Tate Modern.

For prices, photos and locations visit www.myfirstmasterpiece.ca

You’ll go zip trekking in Botswana next year.

This year, it’s more about upping your culture quotient than shocking your friends with your daring vacations and litany of vaccinations.

While others are getting bitten by malaria mosquitoes, you could be getting personal lessons from world-famous visual artist Nick Bantock in a restored mill surrounded by olive groves in Southern Spain.

From spring to fall, local outfit A Flavour of Spain hosts such cultural excursions, each with an emphasis on cuisine, painting, language or literature.

A two-week vacation is less than $3,800, including classes, meals, wine, excursions and accommodation.

There is a free information session tonight in West Vancouver. Read more at www.aflavourofspain.ca or call 604-986-2262.