Morgan & Molly Say Goodbye

We all said goodbye to Morgan and Molly today. They have been such good sports about everything since they arrived in Canada for their son Fei & Diane's wedding. They have been willing to try new things and go new places. Morgan learned enough English to give a super speech at his son' s wedding and Molly was brave about eating the wedding dinner. We were all very glad to have met them and very sorry to see them go.

I hope one day very soon that I get to visit them in their country and I hope that I am as willing to participate in their customs and food as they have been in ours. We will miss you!

Happy Birthday

It was my first born daughter's birthday today and it got me thinking about the first time they placed this little bundle in my arms. She was all wrinkled and skinny. With long legs and arms and a large head. She looked like a peanut and for her first few days that is what I called her.

Today, even though she has trouble believing it, she is a lovely woman with a lovely kind manner and a good sense of humour. I hope all her birthdays are filled with sunshine, love and happiness!

Crimson Eve!

Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,

Awake in the crimson eve!

In the day's dusk end

When the shades ascend,

Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend,

To render again and receive!

Robert Louis Stevenson

Guy & Shirley's 2nd Annual Corn Roast!

Summer in Delta always means fun at Guy and Shirley's house. For the second year in a row Guy and Shirley welcomed friends and supporters to their home for a good old fashioned corn roast.
As usual here is Shirley working away in the kitchen while Guy worked at having fun!

Poker Run!

All my years of living on the west coast and all the hours I have spent on the ocean - Heck I even grew up right on the ocean front, I have never seen boats like these offshore racing boats. Thirty five feet long, brightly painted and beautifully kept these boats are definitely eye candy. I was told that some of these boats cost $1,000.00 a day in gas just to run them and they can get to 200 miles an hour! I am usually not a speed freak, but I would definitely be up for a thrill on one of these.

The boats race all over the US and Canada for Charity and on the Vancouver Poker run they hit the water at Rocky Point in Port Moody about 9 Am and then headed to the Sechelt making 5 stops on the way to pick up cards for their poker hand. They then race back, take their boats out of the water and go to a hotel to play their hand of cards. All the money collected from this race is given to various charities.
These boats are not only great to look at, but their owner/drivers are a great bunch of guys willing to answer many questions about their boats with smiles on their faces! Thanks for a great show guys!

For more on these guys and their boats check out North West Offshore

A day with Ruth

Spent a great day with Ruth walking the sea wall at White Rock and having lunch on the patio at Troll's. The weather was magnificant and the conversation stimulating. Ruth, being Ruth is always up for a day out. Ruth is a wanderer. She loves nothing better than treking around different countries and talking with different people. She is always learning new things and always willing to share her ideas and opinions. She always inspires me to stretch my mind and challenges me to never stop learning and growing. She hails from California, but I really think she is a Canadian at heart. I hope that Ruth keeps spending her summers in Canada for many many more years!

Blogger Problems!

I have lots of pictures and posts that I would like to put up, but sadly I am having a lot of trouble with blogger since they came up with the new beta. The new beta has a great user friendly interface and I like the look of it, but even before I installed it I began having uploading problems on my site. Now that I have loaded it I am having even more problems. First it told me that it would save my old template if I wanted to go back to it, but I can't find it?!? I also lost all my links in the change over and can't get them back. It was the first time in a year that I had any problems with blogger so I am hoping that in the next while they will get the kinks worked out and fixed. In the meantime I will continue to try and upload pictures and posts on a regular basis.

Sunday Morning Walk

Lucy and I decided to take a long walk in the canyon this morning. The sun was shining and it had begun to get fairly warm by 9:30 am . Being so busy and having other places to take Lucy this summer, she and I have not really gone there for weeks. I was surprised to see that it is still fairly green and cool there despite our having had such warm temperatures with little rain for so many weeks. Judging by the amount of unwanted drink cartons, beer cans and potatoe chip bags it appears that the canyon has seen it share of summer walkers and it is a good thing that it has stayed so damp as I would be afraid that those who so carelessly throw their garbage here would also not care where they throw their cigarette butts! I would hate to see this canyon destroyed by fire.
Lucy, ever the optomist, spent her time chasing squirrels up trees in the hopes of catching one and fishing for whatever she sees moving in the pools of water in the creek. While she has absolutely no hope of attaining anything from her intense efforts she never tires of it and never gives up. I admire her spirit.
I always feel more connected to myself after spending some time down there. It is nice to listen to the birds sing and the squirrels chitter. Even nicer to be able to hear oneself think for a change. Life here in the everyday world is so hectic and noisy that one forgets to seek that inner place of calm waters and soft music.
Speaking of the real world.... time for me to get ready for a family dinner.

Sometimes....

the only way the world makes sense is from upside down!

False Creek

Spent the day with friends from California who own a condo in False Creek. It is so beautiful there that it is hard to believe that I am in the same city that, only blocks away, has so many homeless people and such an enormous drug problem. I rarely get to see this side of the city and I marveled at how beautiful it really is.

We strolled along the sea wall which led us to Granville Island Market .

It was lunch time and I was so hot and tired that this giant ice cream cone outside the market looked very inviting. Inside the market I was over whelmed with the variety and quality of the food items available. I wanted to try everything and walked through the market sampling everything that they were giving away free that day!

The most delicious of these was an almond vanilla copenhagen made right here in Vancouver! Yum! It was delicious.

We then wandered our way through some of the alley's with little shops in and around the market and came upon a chalk art competition they were hold on one of the side walks. Some of them were very creative like this one that appears to be a drawing from a children's book with the hand that holds the drawing coming out of the drains!

She sat like a beautiful bride

Sunday was such a warm day here in BC and we have had such lovely warm weather for so many days this summer that it was hard not to think about mountains for just a little while. There is no better place to stand in awe of the mountains than in the Fraser Valley. I envy those people who live on the spacious farms there and every window on both sides of their houses gives them a view of different mountains. Today however we did not have to drive far into the valley before you were overwhelmed by the site of Mount Baker majestically sitting there all dressed in white like a beautiful bride. You felt she was so close you could smell her wintery perfume and fresh breath as she sat untouched by the scortching sun.

Dreams

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.

In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

BC Day or just the First Monday in August!

This weekend is BC Day in Canada and that really means nothing! Nothing except for a holiday! That is really all the first Monday in August is about. We don't really celebrate anything on BC day. It is not just a holiday in BC, but apparently in several other provinces as well . It is just the last long weekend in the summer and some politician recognized that one year, made it a statuatory holiday, and probably got himself a lot of votes! Even if no one remembers him/her now. Isn't that just the way of life!

So I spent part of my day sitting at Rocky Point, a little park and marina in Port Moody, contemplating what would represent BC Day. I think that this picture of sail boats and the Canadian flag said all that needed to be said about BC Day!

If you are lucky enough to be celebrating it - HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND! If not, find a politician who needs votes in your province? country ? and tell him/her about our deal! Hey, I'll bet George Bush would be interested!

A walk in the Bog

Felt like being outside tonight for a long quiet walk. So armed with my camera Lucy and I headed out to explore the walkways of the bog. I have been so busy all summer that I have not had time to breathe in the musky air of the bog and savor the colors of the foilage that has grown so immense with these hot summer days.

Lucy enjoyed doing her usual fishing in Davis Creek. Even though she has absolutely no hope of catching anything she determinedly searches the water for fry and then pounces in hopes of catching one. I had hoped to get another glimpse of the immense Eagle I had seen circling there the other day, but alas that was not to be.

The bog was filled with wild flowers of all different colors and sizes making me sorry I had never learned the names of these beautiful plants. I always feel better outside, all my tiredness seems to evaporate and my mind begins to slow down and rest a little. With Lucy happily running along side me we strolled from path to path not realizing how late it was getting.

I realized that it was about time for the resident owl to come out and started searching in the usual places I had seen him. On the last path way just as I had given up Lucy ran toward a tree branch and I saw something fly above my head.

Lucy had spooked him and he had flown to a branch just above my head. I should have been terribly mad at Lucy for scareing him, but realized if she had not spooked him I would never have seen him. As it was he was quite happy to pose for the camera as long as he was high enough that he could keep an eye on Lucy. I know just how he feels!