Aqua, Average, Anne

I enjoyed every single day of my road trip thoroughly. I loved driving through all the different provinces and some states and seeing everything around me. I loved visiting friends and connecting with them. I loved seeing my friends' new children that I had not yet met.

My final day of visiting was one of my favorite though. I knew that saving Anne for last would be a great idea, because we always seem to have a great time.

It began with the simple desire to go for sushi. And for sushi we went. And we ate far too much. But it was delicious.

And then the day turned into a water tour. What's a water tour you might ask? Well, it's where you think of anything that has water, cram it all into one day and make a tour out of it. And thus the Aqua Tour of 2011 began at a sushi restaurant in Hamilton while drinking water.

The water tour involved waterfalls, rivers, lakes, pools, drinking water, drinking beverage that originally must have had some water used to make them, rain and umbrellas.

I laughed the entire day. I took in some of the beautiful places we went to visit. Do you ever have those days that reach the epic list in life as some of your favorite days? This would be one of them.

Good friends, good food, a lot of laughs. If time permitted, I would share more photos, but these will give you an idea of the fun that was had.

And the day even ended with a bee getting stuck in my bathing suit and stinging my bum three times. Lovely.

Guys, Gum, Girlfriends

A couple weekends ago, Kristen and I headed down to Seattle for a few days. Seattle is one of my favourite cities, especially on a sunny day. It is absolutely stunning when the sun glistens down on the water as your drive in. It's such a rich city with much to see and do.

And who doesn't love a toy shop where you can find fun hats to try on?

Or a donut store that gives you free hats to wear? It's like the lady knew we would want to wear them.


And a trip to Seattle must often be accompanied by dinner at P.F. Chang's. And they even give you a little mini dessert after, which is the perfect size.

And of course, we had to visit the gum wall again just because it's disgusting.

And it's fun to view all the unique art around the city.

I always love the flowers in Pike's Place Market. We wandered around the city, enjoyed city on the lawn watching the view, played some good rounds of racko, went to Guys & Dolls the musical (so good), had a nice swim at our hotel.


All in all it was a wonderful weekend away and good to just hang out and spend time together.


And go figure. They must have known I was coming, because they wrote my name on the gum wall before I got there.

Second, Seattle, Sore

I have been growing very appreciative of traditions with good friends. And I love that I have different small groups of friends that I do regular fun things with. I am definitely going to miss that when I move away, but cherish the times together now, and the times I know we will have when I am back here visiting.


Yesterday, Amy, Carlee and I headed to Seattle for the day. Walked around a bunch,went into some different stores, ate some great food and enjoyed a movie.


Instead of memorizing the movie times, Carlee decided to take a picture of them. We saw Lincoln Lawyer which actually isn't the type of movie I would normally choose, but I really enjoyed it.


Carlee has always wanted to be a mannequin, so she figured she'd get some practice in.


Stopped at Anthropologie because it is a super fun store and there's always really fun displays everywhere. Love it even though I have never actually bought anything there. It's fun to look.





And aprons. They have many of them and all of them are incredibly fun and original. :) (except for the hundreds of others sold in all their stores I'm sure)

And who doesn't love playing with large magnifying glasses?

Carlee found a prom date.

And Amy and I had a debate over very important matters.

All in all a wonderful day and it didn't really rain at all when we were walking around downtown, so that was nice.

One of my favorite things of the day was how much we laughed all day long. And not just ha ha here and there, but that gut splitting laughing that makes your abs hurt the next day. And intermixed we had really encouraging conversations about more serious things which was also appreciated. All in all a perfect day. I'm looking forward to the next 'eat seattle' already. :)

Capilano, Cousins, Canucks

Last week, my relatives from Castlegar were in town. My great-uncle Henry passed away before Christmas and they decided to have a memorial for him in Abbotsford since that's where he lived a lot of his life.


I have always loved it when any of them have come to visit. We all connect really well. It's funny because my mom used to babysit her aunts kids, and then they babysit us as kids. I also got to be a flower girl in Deb's wedding so that's really special as well.


We clicked well and had a lot of fun. Went to Capilano Suspension Bridge for the day on the Friday and beat the rain which was nice. Did you know that as a BC resident, if you pay for a day's admission (26 bucks), you get a year's pass? Which is expensive for one visit, but not for the whole year! So I'm excited to go back in the winter because they always do a lot of Christmas lights. And they're opening up a new cliff walk exhibit which also sounds pretty great.


My aunt Carol really hates her picture taken. This was the nicest one I took of us. The rest she refused to co-operate :)


Thankfully Deb and I share the same joy of taking beautiful photos. Or funny ones. With signs.




I love BC. And places like this that are surrounded by woods and it just feels outdoorsy. yeah it's touristy, but that was okay for this day.

And I love my mom as well. Because she rocks. And I love our friendship. :)

The bridge was super scary. Watch out.

Watch out for slippery surfaces. Thankfully I did not fall.

What do you do on suspension bridges?? Run of course!

Strangely enough, everyone slipped by this sign. It wasn't even wet really.

Sadly Deb had the worst fall..

Oops.

Hooray for suspension bridges!! They actually have a really cool exhibit that has little suspension bridges between trees. It's called treetop adventure and it's actually really cool. Great views as well.




My mom tried having a bigger wingspan than the eagle. At least she has a wider wingspan than the goose. Go Mom!




Unsure of what slugs do at slug crossings, but we probably fooled quite a few people into thinking we were giant, colorful slugs.

BEAR HUG!

White Spot before the game! Mmmmm!

All in all, a wonderful time with family and getting to know them in a new way as well. It was good to celebrate Uncle Henry's life with those who came to the memorial. I really appreciated hearing all the stories from his life. Always inspiring and humbling to hear of the amazing legacy people have left before us.

Precious, Personalities, Pictures

One of my favorite parts of visiting my friends in Quebec is that a lot of them have kids that I absolutely adore. I have been able to watch them grow up while I was a student there (the first few) and then scattered on my visits.

Anyway, I stayed with a family there with four kids and love each of them so much and their unique personalities. Here are some pictures of some of our two weeks together. :)

Didn't like the moose toque much, but I managed to snap a quick pic while she still had it on!

I remember how fun it is to have your hair all in braids as a kid!

A delightful sight to wake up to every morning. in fact I quite miss it.

After the braids were taken out :)

Fun in the mornings. :) Yay for pajamas.

Precious.

Brandis and I got to take the youngest to the mall for a few hours in Montreal which was a lot of fun. Such a good baby. And always full of smiles.



And when it snows a ton in Quebec, what do you do? You try and jump off any high point possible into piles and piles of snow!! Obviously! :)


And snow a lot it did. Intermixed with a bit of rain and freezing rain. But it reminded me of how much I love Quebec winters. And I'm excited to actually have proper winter gear for next winter!


And of course, the kids had to jump off the balcony as well.. the porch wasn't enough!

And sometimes it's a little hard to get out of the snow.. especially when boots get left behind!

Taking a photo with all the kids is not always the easiest, but this was one of my faves from them all! :) Although each is precious in its own way because it shows their personalities so much!

So here's a little bit of a glimpse of my time in Quebec and time that will be yet to come as well!