Labour Day Long Weekend

This weekend was all the best parts of summer in three days. Saturday I met up with Jevon, Melissa and Melissa's Mom and we hiked up Mount Thom. It's not a long hike but it's fairly steep so it'a good work out. You get a beautiful view of the valley up there too. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves by going for pie at the airport :)

Saturday evening I went to a bar-b-que at Susan's. Susan is a new friend of mine. It was great to see her place and meet a few of her other friends. We had yummy steak and corn on the cob and other food and then made s'mores. It was great.

Sunday after church Mom, Dad and I went for Thai food and then I went home and scrapbooked for awhile.

Later that evening the three of us drove out and visited my Great-Aunty Phyllis. She is my grandma's sister (I visited their other sister, Elsie this summer) I just love her. As a kid, visiting Aunty Phyllis was kind of a chore. As an adult I treasure every moment I have with her. She has an incredible memory just like my grandma had and she'll talk non-stop until you leave. It was wonderful to see her again.

Monday we had a picnic at the church. Lots of people showed up and while some people played baseball and volleyball I was content to just sit and hold babies and visit :) There are LOTS of babies around so I definitely got my fill.

In the evening Meredith and I went out for dinner at Milestones and then for a walk on the pier at White Rock. We finished our day with dessert at Pearl.

Good food, good friends, lots of memories. It was a fitting way to say "good-bye" to summer...but I'm still hoping that it's not really gone!!!

Vancouver

I live about an hour from the City of Vancouver (depending on traffic). A lot of people out her in "the Valley" find going into Vancouver an big deal. Personally, even though it's a bit of a drive, it's something I *love* to do...as evidenced by my activities over the past two days.
Friday night I left work and met Mere and we went into Vancouver together. We walked around a bit first and found a really cool used book store and drooled over all the neat tools in a kitchen store. We decided to have dinner at "Moose's Down Under" which is an Australian type pub. It was great and Mere had a fund time identifying all the Aussie influences there.

After that we went over to Canada Place and took in the Friday night opera singers in the Pan Pacific Hotel. We continued to wander around down town for awhile and then made our way over to "Cafe Crepe" on Granville for a yummy nutella, banana crepe and coffee.

Saturday found me back in Vancouver in many of the same places that Mere I had visited only this time I was accompanied by two of my brothers, Seth and Aaron. Mom and Dad went over to Victoria for Friday and Saturday in celebration of their 27th Anniversary so I was "in charge" of Aaron. He actually stayed the night at a friends house on Friday because they had to do papers but when he was done Seth and I picked him up. We went to IHOP for breakfast and then drove through the rain into Vancouver. fun :)
Our first stop was at "Mink, A Chocolate Cafe" on West Hastings. It came highly recommended and I now know why. Seth had a mocha and a Belgian waffle (I'm in love with the glass that he got) Aaron just had a chocolate bar and I treated myself to the "Personal Fondue" (which Aaron helped me eat). It was wonderful! Not cheap but so good.
From there we went and bought tickets to see "Pirates of the Carribean 3" and then wandered through Chapters, the Pacific Centre Mall, and HMV on Robson.
I got a kick out of the display for the new Simpsons movie at the movie theatre and made the boys pose for a picture. Neither of them were too impressed but they complied :D
So there, two days in Vancouver in a row and both in one section of the city. There is still SO much more to explore. That's why I love going down there!<