Lethbridge

This crazy lady just had a birthday! Thus, we headed to Lethbridge to help her celebrate


Nana picked us up at the airport and helped welcome Ty to Calgary by helping him ride a horse in true Stampede fashion. We started out the week staying with Nana and Grandpa and headed to Crazy Cakes for their classic spudnuts on a rainy Thursday morning. (Can you believe that I grew up in Lethbridge and had my first spudnut at 32??!!! Me either! Good thing Ty is making up for lost time and trying them at 1!)

We also got to meet our new nephew Fraser while we were there. We welcomed him in party hats in classic Julie and Lowell fashion!!

He's wearing one of Ty's sweatshirts in this picture! I love sharing Ty's clothes and seeing other little bambinos enjoy them.Fraser junior is cute!! (He also met Fraser senior this week, see Fraser Sr. later on in this post)

Ty and Fraselnut (Or Fraselberry' (as the French ‘fraise’ means ‘strawberry’), 'Fraselator', 'Frasenator', 'Fraser the Laser', 'Fraisin', 'Frasel-rock' (like Fraggle Rock), ‘Crazy Frazie’, 'Frazie Fraze’, and 'Frasel-boy'. These are all on top of the popular ‘Fraselnut’ (which has somehow evolved into ‘Fraselnut butt’ at times). All those nicknames were taken from Julie's blog!! This kid isn't going to know what to call himself! :)

Ty helped drive out to the Crownest Pass for Grandma's birthday weekend. He looks like his daddy when he's about to take a curve a little too fast for my liking.

We did a couple of hikes while we were there. Ty attemped his first summit of a rock. ;) He didn't make it. Simultaneously his father was trying to give me a heart attack by jumping off the rocks. First comes climbing, then comes jumping. AHHHH . . . the things I have to look forward to.


We had a great weekend away visiting with Brad and Raquel and my mom. Ty and Maria had a fantastic time playing together and kissing and hugging, as all cousins should when they are under 5.
My mother may take offense to this but I think her and Ty are in the classic 'sasquatch' pose here. Look out Crownest Pass, there is a pink and green monster roaming your hiking trails together!

We also went for a very nice alpine hike behind the visitor centre in Coleman. Pretty scenery and lots of creek crossings! I only got my feet wet 3 times.





Brad and Marc also did a quick summit of Goat Mountain one morning and had fun repelling down the ropes left by power line construction workers.

Thanksgiving Monday was a beautiful day with no wind!!! so we headed down to Indian Battle Park for a walk with my dad.This family was having a lot of fun!

Marc spent some time biking in his beloved coulees and went out one day with Fraser Sr.Speaking of Fraser . . . we continued our Lethbridge visits in Vancouver on Sunday by hanging out with him and Kally on Sunset Beach in Vancouver. A great way to ease us back into BC life after two great weeks in Alberta!!

harrison lake

after returning from the desolate east, it was time to refresh and revitalize utilizing immediate proximity to the healing waters of harrison lake.
harrison is 60 km long, with both shores offering a myriad of beaches and coves perfectly suited for front country camping. unfortunately this fact is better known in surrey than it is in chilliwack, and thus in mid summer the beaches are often covered in garbage, 4x4 tracks and toilet paper. luckily, camping midweek at the end of september allowed us our pick of empty beaches and the garbage was almost nonexistant.

this summer we have officially established that ty loves camping. his favourite activity is probably throwing rocks in the water.
he also enjoys walking on logs. i sort of regret teaching him this; he witnessed me hopping from log to log and soon enough he was clambering on himself. at least the beach provided a soft landing.
when all the natural stimulation was just too much for him, he could sit down and read a good book.
speaking of stimulation, niko loves camping too. he enjoys digging sticks out of the lake, harassing squirrels and keeping an eye on tyrn. i think he was up all night keeping watch, b/c he flaked out every morning when we got up to take over.
this particular cove offered an endless supply of dry driftwood. we cooked over an open fire, making bacon and eggs, grilled cheese, hotdogs and mini cherry pies. mmm...

having my kayak along allowed me the opportunity to commune with some playful seals in the afternoons.

harrison offers amazing views, real solitude and hotsprings! we didnt get to the springs this trip, but we hope to be back in a a few weeks.
goodbye harrison! thank you for treating us so well. i feel both refreshed and revitalized.

bike a neering

the snows have held off long enough for my friend kris and i to embark on an alpine mountain biking excursion. the trail we chose linked 2 peaks and meandered down a long ridge between them.
the initial climb took us about 3 hours. we started up the flank of the mountain in dense new growth and then broke out into this beautiful open alpine forest working on its third millenium.

from there the trail transitioned to rough scree and we did some serious bike a neering. the wind was howling over this saddle and a bike slung over your shoulder acts surprisingly like a sail in those situations.

from the saddle we dropped our bikes and scurried up to the peak and back. after that we just had to clear a bit more scree before the next several hours were filled with this:
an incredible long winding descent through alpine meadows and old burns.
then rolling cross country trails slowly giving up elevation as we descended into a backcountry river valley. our initial plan was to visit the second peak and return directly to the car, but on the trail we encountered an old wooden map that showed another route down around the backside of the mountain instead. feeling adventurous, and not ready to finish our day, we opted to add another loop to the journey.
our beautiful pine needle and packed dirt trail meandered down the flanks of the mountain in an extremely pleasant fashion but although the valley continued, the trail ended at the border so we doubled back lower down, crossed the creek and followed an old doubletrack/singletrack/creek bed out and around the backside of the mountain and back to the road.
the round trip took us 8 hours and brought us through wonderful and varied terrain; both the views and the trail surface changed continually. high mountain trails have a glamour all their own. once again i feel so blessed to have these opportunities within an hour's drive of home. maybe there will be time for one more alpine ride before the snow hits!

observations on toronto

borrowing a page from my sister julie's blog, i have compiled a list of observations on toronto, a city i had occasion to visit this past week.

1. being a born and bred albertan, now west coaster i was fully intending to hate toronto, but it won me over. turns out it is quite an enjoyable city, with excellent food.

2. people move faster in toronto. i noted this almost immediately upon exiting the airport. everyone was moving about 15% faster than they would, had they been executing the same task in british columbia. this includes, but is not limited to, crossing crosswalks, ordering sandwiches, going through automatic doors, exiting parking spots and skidding to a stop through crosswalks.
which brings us to the next point:

3. there are a lot of bad drivers in toronto. and not just because it is a populous city. i saw more spastic driving in downtown toronto than i have seen anywhere else. midintersection accidental brake stands, 5 point parking spot exits and numerous rim/curb abrasive encounters.

4. the food downtown is fantastic. i stuffed myself with shwarma, falafels, and baklava, unavailable in chilliwack, as well as roasted chicken pitas and philly cheese steaks. there was carribean, indian, lebanese, or thai food on every corner.

5. the waterfront is quite nice. my friend dave mentioned that the toronto waterfront was notoriously ugly, however the portion that we explored was lovely.
6. i have it on good authority that the greater toronto area produces more pollution than the oilsands.

7. at night the streets are all jazzed up like brussels. apparently some people are up in arms about the corruscating light show on the cn tower. maybe its extra glitzy right now b/c of tiff? but you dont install coordinated purple backlights in the top 5 floors of your office building just for a film festival.

8. torontonians are fantastic hosts! in my random study, with an n of 2, i can reasonably conclude that all residents of downtown toronto are warm and welcoming and are happy to share their apartment with you and walk you to work and show you the best shwarma places.

Labour Day

Shareen and I spent this past long weekend helping it live up to its name - we did some hard labour canning 60 pounds of tomatoes (which we turned into sauce) and 20 pounds of peaches.

We started Friday night by boiling all the tomatoes down . . .


And the next day adding spices and carrots (for thickness) then blending them all into sauce. Lots of work but well worth it. mmmmm


The next day we started on the peaches. We put them in the sun to ripen faster. Lucky Shareen did most of the work while Marc and I went to a BBQ. Thanks Shareen! Unfortunately we were so frantically trying to finish the canning, we didn't take a picture of the final product. Close your eyes and imagine 18 large jars of juicy Okanagan Peaches. Tasty!

While also doing the majority of the canning, Shareen also babysat Ty so Marc and I could go out for dinner. Here she is being paparazzi auntie!The whole weekend was not hard labour though. Shareen introduced us to Mexican Bulldogs. . . a margarita with an upside down corona. mmmmm Best enjoyed on the patio with a silo in the background.


Last week we also headed up to Sheridan Lake to a friends cabin for a couple of days. No worries, lots of relaxing there too! The kids had a great time and so did the adults.

Hiking to a (sort of) nearby waterfall . . .
Uh Oh . . .

Enjoying the water:

Hope you all had a great weekend that involved lots of relaxing and not too much labour. ;)