31.8.09

To Lethbridge and a bit beyond

I just got home from spending a week in Lethbridge visiting family and friends. (Unfortunately Marc was unable to join me, he was here bringing home the bacon.) We also spent the weekend in the Crowsnest Pass doing a hike and relaxing. I didn't take too many pictures at home but here is a sampling . . .
With my Grandpa

We hiked the incorrectly named "Trail of Seven Bridges" in the Pass. Apparently there were seven bridges to cross the river until last year when they were flooded out. My brother crossed the river on the logs but I am too unbalanced to do that so just put my sandals on and trudged through the streams. As they are glacier fed, they were beyond freezing (what state is that? sublimating?) and a couple of times I actually felt like throwing up. Yes I am a cold wimp, I live in BC!



The view after the last bridge

My momma and I


I also visited some old friends from university and had a great morning reminiscing.
Brad trying to look old and distinguished.
My last evening in Lethbridge I went out for dinner with my dad and brother and sister in law. Afterwards we played crib at Brad and Raquel's. This was my first time playing and although I enjoyed it, it was too much math for me!

Hope you are enjoying the dwindling days of summer, we sure are!

24.8.09

food folks and fun

august has been so packed that there has been no time for a proper blog post. looking at our blog and realizing that it has been well over 2 weeks since our last post, i decided it was time to stop holding out for a thorough tour of august and put up a whirlwind version instead... first up: DJ3J!
josh has once again included us on his yearly sojourn across the oft frozen hinterland of canada. it was a quick visit, but we managed to get in a hike, increasing our flexibility with wii fit,
posing on deconstructed delivery vans,
and eating lots of blackberries!


next came fraser, on his way back from the yukon (as pictured above) with trusty rufus.

mister multiple molten motes showed up at a chaotic time for us, but managed to fit himself into our schedule and even bbq'd up some tasty cedar planked salmon.


fraser is now 2 for 3 on seeing bears when we comes to visit us. this one was lazing on the banks of the fraser after (presumably) gorging himself on blackberries.

once again, we trained both our minds and our bodies with wii fit. josh is naturally very flexible, and fraser is naturally very balanced.

finally (after kylie left for lethbridge for a week and i worked) we got to see our old friend arie. the one who welcomed us to the fraser valley 5 years ago now lives in faraway regina. we met at the langley zoo (that is arie and samuel on the right of the frame).

samuel is certainly energetic, and an absolute delight. who knew a tractor could find gainful employment delivering timbits to ravenous young train engineers? thanks arie and samuel for coming out to play!

and finally i would like to end with a quote from a globe and mail article on aug 21, about an emerging subculture of people who form lasting relationships with inanimate objects:

"Mr. Hall-Ford, who is autistic, says he is currently dating two small soundboards and is careful about telling people why he carries them around. His first heartbreak occurred when he was excommunicated from a church after being told he loved the sanctuary's soundboard more than he loved Jesus."

8.8.09

another alpine adventure

my friend chris booked a float plane in the chilcotin mountains northwest of lillooet on the long weekend. i met up with him in lillooet after a fantastic drive up north of hope into the hills. the road north from lytton to lillooet becomes a slim asphalt track through the arid open forest, and the views of the surrounding mountains were very personal. that could have been dangerous i suppose, as the western slopes in 2 sections were on fire.
we arrived at tyaughton lake, set up camp and went exploring on our bikes. we found some fantastic views and an entire hillside of purple wildflowers. we missed the top of the run we were looking for (the views and the flowers instead) but found some sweet singletrack at the bottom.
sunday morning we loaded our bikes on a plane and flew up to spruce lake, gaining about 500m in elevation.
our landing strip. the ride was much smoother than a commercial flight, and we got to see the mountains up close.

from the lake, we biked a steep rooty uphill singletrack gaining about 700m to cross windy pass.
approaching the pass.

after crossing over we whipped down an alpine singletrack descent into another valley. the scenery was stunning, but i had to keep reminding myself to watch the trail. i fell hard once in this section, i dont remember why.

above is the only picture of me on this post... thanks kevin (chris' friend kevin lugged all his camera equipment up the pass so he could take pictures of us).
some friends from whistler came along on the ride as well. these guys ride crazy singletrack every day and they had LEGS!

the cabin in the background, as well as the previously pictured singletrack, featured in the first scene of the groundbreaking bike movie "the collective".

from the cabin we climbed back up another pass, and then it was an hour of sweet dowhill all the way back to our campsite.
unfortunately, we didnt get to ride on day 3, b/c we were evacuated due to forest fires. they didnt affect the biking terrain, as you can see, there was no smoke in the above pictures, but fires did cut off both roads out of the area. the town of lillooet was evacuated and the wonderful hwy that i came in on was closed. we left in an rcmp led convoy down a forest service road right through the forest fires.
we couldnt really see the actual fires for the smoke until we reached the pemberton valley and looked back at the hills we had just come down.
after all that biking and dusty, smoky driving, a dip in the lake at whistler was the perfect end to an amazing weekend. thanks chris for organizing! we will definitely have to return to explore this mtn range a bit more.

6.8.09

so pitted

our friend rob just linked to this video

"you just drop in... sup aaa aaa aarh! ... then after that, you ride the barrel and get pitted... so pitted"



apparently it's been around for a few years, but i'd never seen it before tonight... i've already watched it ~20 times.

love it!

2.8.09

Heatless in Seattle

Marc and I spent last weekend in Seattle with his parents and sister and brother in law, Shareen and Craig. We had a wonderful time seeing the sights, walking around and took in a baseball game! Thankfully, although it was hot it was not as HOT as it has been here this week and we could escape to our lovely air conditioned room.

We started the weekend off with a tour of the Boeing factory:



Marc and Shareen both designed planes I would be very leery to fly in (Marc's did have over 300 seats in first class though!)
At the first Starbucks, it was too hot for coffee so I got a smoothie


For our friend Shawn, these are all over Seattle, who knew your coffee was so popular? Now you just need to start drinking it!
Marc's version of double fisting it. One was purchased and one was free!

We stopped at iHop 2 out of the 3 mornings we were there and it ended up being cheaper than McDonalds!
On Saturday evening we went out to celebrate Pete and Bette's anniversary!

On our way home from dinner we stopped at the Space Needle and Marc had fun capturing its image in the Seattle Sound experience.

On Sunday we went in search of a church and found the most amazing African American Episcopalian church. It was so lively and welcoming and we all thoroughly enjoyed our experience there! (Shareen and I also got a free clinique cream from the lady in front of us!) Afterwards we found a cupcake place for our own version of after church coffee. Much tastier than most churches I have been to!
We stopped at the infamous gum wall for Shareen to add her addition. (Is that redundant?)

Craig is amused, watching his wife further stickify Seattle

If Pete had a facebook page, we think this should be his profile picture
Getting some relief from the heat, I wish we had one of these in our backyard right now!
Marc beginning to enjoy his sampler beer tray before we headed out to the Blue Jays vs Mariners game!




A great weekend was had by all, thanks for all your planning Shareen and Craig!