Roxy's visit

From August 8th to 12th, Roxy came to visit.  She was road-tripping with her friend April and it was so fun to have them stay for a few days.  I took the time off work and showed them how wonderful Vancouver is during the summer (since Rox only lived here for the coldest and rainiest half of the year)!

Highlights from Roxy's visit included:

Reading on the beach at English Bay...

(Roxy's photo)

Riding the False Creek Ferries (my first time ever!) from English Bay to Granville Island and back...

April and Rox

Korean BBQ with a bunch of friends who wanted to catch up with Roxy...

Left side of table: Layne, Roxy, Samira, Junghyun
Right side of table: April, Amanda, me, Ben, Andrew
(Roxy's photo)

Lunch and a train ride at Stanley Park with Rosanne, Aydin and Gemma...

(Roxy's photo)

Introducing the girls to the fantastic Richmond Night Market...

... And spending Wednesday night, Saturday and Sunday at convention.

(Roxy's photo)

Thanks for visiting, Rox - come back soon!

Coming soon...

Working in the Wilds

Things have been pretty busy for me (Ben) at work lately. Part of the reason is that I am heavily involved in a very large project that requires a lot of different input from me; however, one of the upshots of this is that I actually got to go out into the field for 6 days about a month ago. I don't get let out of the office very often, so this was quite exciting! Especially since it was a pretty fun trip, which included...

Flying in helicopters...

Learning what biologists actually do in the field (it seems to involve a lot of sitting down)...

Seeing some great scenery (and hiking down 45 degree slopes of dense bush with great scenery)...

Including lots of pretty flowers...

And some more unusual finds, like a lightning struck tree...

And a dead moose...

But before you get too jealous, it also involved 14 hour days, long weekends that weren't (weren't weekends at all actually), some fairly heavy hiking, very early mornings, and mad dashes to the airport where you take the wrong car and leave half of your belongings behind at the hotel but are very grateful for lovely workmates who pick up behind you and bring it all home again!

Visiting Whidbey Island

At the end of July, we headed down to Whidbey Island (across the border and about 3 hours south) to visit Kelly, Janae and Etta.  We had a very relaxing and fun weekend with them, and it was great to see them getting settled in their new place!

We met their goats, Pig and Lydia...

Ben helped Kelly with some work...

We dug up their patio in search of a long-lost root cellar...

Sat around chatting and munching...

Had a BBQ at the beach while the sun set and cruise ships sailed past...

Played fabulous duets...

And had Sunday lunch in the cute town of Langley, after which we wandered through the shops and ate ice cream...

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend - thanks guys!

Day trip to Bowen Island

Please excuse the lack of blog entries recently... our camera has been on holidays (with all these photos on it) and has just returned.  :)

In early July, we took a 20 minute ferry ride to Bowen Island for a day trip with Gerard, Janelle, Claire, Julia, Shonna, Joel and Aleah.  It was our first time on Bowen Island, but we had long been intending to go someday!

Beautiful BC

Claire being sun smart

View from Bowen Island

Markets

Wooden Boat Festival

Shops

Claire

Old car

Looking over the fence

Wandering the streets

Me with Julia

Gerard and shave ice

It was definitely a place worth visiting again sometime!