Weekend Wonders

Its full on Summer...... and it feels SO good.

A weekend is a vacation....outside, in the sun, going new places, trying new things.......

As tired as I was on Friday night I dragged the family out for a walk around 8pm partly because I knew it would be an amazing sunset and partly because I needed to get into nature for a while, to breathe deep, to hear the birds, smell the flowers....

Terra Nova Rural Farm Welcomes us in

(I am reading Ann Pelo's book "The goodness of rain" and it is SO speaking to my soul about the need to connect to the earth, to nature, to notice and wonder and be delighted about what has been created for our enjoyment and stewardship........ I dip into this book little bits at a time and ponder the poetry and wisdom of her beautiful writing.....)

David taking it all in

So we did just that...... and it was so good......that amazing twilight was fodder for my camera and my soul (I played with light and the results were interesting and I will show some of them on Wordless Wednesday this week)..... the warm, low, soft light.... my beloveds indulging me.....some great photos.....an incredible sunset on a perfect summer night with a spectacular backdrop of the north shore mountains.....hard to imagine a more beautiful place on earth.

A boy ponders the world

My sweeties

Luckiest Mom in the world

Day is done.........

Amazing to be so blessed to live and love here. Now.

Saturday started with my usual morning workout but was followed by a special treat of a pedicure at a very nice spa with my delightful friend Sue (thanks Joyce for the GC!).  We chatted and laughed and caught up as our tender tootsies were pampered.  My friend Sue deserves her own blog post but suffice to say she inspires me SO much and I love her so it was great to hang out for a bit.

And then home to the reality that the 8 year old dishwasher is unlikely to repair itself and that suggesting the teenagers now wash all things by hand forevermore seems destined for failure......we headed out to get a new one.  Through the process we learned more than we needed to about racks and programs and manufacturers......blah blah blah........just give me the one on sale today for $350 off (probably fell off the truck right?) and be done.  I detest spending money on things like this - it brings me no joy at all.....no doubt it will be lovely to have a new, quiet dishwasher that actually cleans rather than redistributes the food to every item in it..... I will try and be happy.  I will.

After a BBQ dinner that included two lovely trout Allan caught at  Cannot-Be-Named lake, the kids, my Mom and I headed to the Night Market to get my Mom a case for her new Samsung tablet.  Of course no night market visit can be complete without a minimum of one food purchase we opted for chocolate bubble waffles and although tasty were not worth the wait.

The range of crazy stuff available and the range of prices is mind boggling but we wondered around, found what we came for and left as another stunning sunset coloured the sky orange.

Funny inadvertent capture in the foreground.....

Giant Duck???

Goldern throat lozenge ad with creepy white guy.......Oky doky

Sunday church was lovely especially so as our Acting Rector Ben baptised his little baby boy Ambrose - it was a tender moment and a lovely picture of love.

A little after noon we headed to the Canada Line and off to the Vancouver Food Cart Festival at the Olympic Village.

Strange as it may seem I have not been to the Food Cart Festival or the Olympic Village.

Neither disappointed.

The food cart festival was busy but manageable - we were lucky to find some shade to eat in.  I had a smoked salmon taco from Feastro and the the rest had Lamb Kebab Wraps from Mangal Kiss as well as their super refreshing Lemonada drink with lemon and mint.

So Vancouver......

Fierce Feastro Food Truck

YUM

Refreshing

Lunch!

We were sorely tempted to try more of the food on offer but truth was we were not too hungry anymore.

I think we will be back though!

There was a little flea market on the side that looked quite uninteresting until we happened on artist Duane Murrin and bought this fantastic triptych  (for an amazing price) that now hangs in our front hall.  What a great find!  I love it!

We wandered along the seawall to the Olympic Village which afforded some stunning views of downtown Vancouver on a stunning day.

False Creek 

Aquabus, city of glass and mountains beyond!

LARGE public art

VERY LARGE

The heart of Olympic Village

 Mom treated us to coffee and dessert and we had a welcome sit and  engaging chat before wandering back to the train for the ride home.

Old and new..... Vancouver constantly reinventing itself

Canada Line

Lovely to be tourists in our home town as next week we will be tourists in Portland sampling their vast array of food trucks and foodie places.

I am flying down on Tuesday to meet my high school buddy Leigh for our 4th annual Thelma and Louise adventure.  The family drive down on Friday and we have the weekend there and Monday to celebrate Allan's birthday before coming home.

I am excited for the break and the adventures ahead.