Berry bliss

Last Saturday, we went to a "work day" (aka preps) at the nearest convention grounds, 45 minutes' drive from where we live. This was a working bee specifically for people from our area. It was great to meet some more locals and see the grounds where we'll be going mid August.

Ben was working in the dorms and doing some construction on a shed. Lisa and I started off cleaning things in the nursery and then were given the fun task of stuffing foam cushions and mats (apparently called "ticks") into cotton cases that were only just big enough for them. Shonna and Janelle were doing the same with mattresses next to us, which was highly entertaining! By lunch time most of the jobs were finished, so after lunch we ended up with lots of ladies helping with the tick stuffing, and it was done in no time and with lots of hilarity. It was a very enjoyable day!

On the way home, we stopped at Krause Berry Farm in Langley with Lisa, Angharad, Shonna and Juanita. It was a gorgeous day and lots of people were out picking their own strawberries. We were not so energetic, but the others bought some pre-picked berries and other goodies, and we all enjoyed some berry smoothies and shakes on "The Porch"...


Juanita's take-home berry and custard pie - something the farm seems rather famous for...


Lisa's berry burger...

Kites and Shakespeare

Three weekends ago, we spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon at the annual Bard on the Beach festival in Vanier Park, Vancouver. This is one of Canada's largest Shakespeare festivals, held each summer from June through September and currently in its 20th year. There are four Shakespearean plays featured over the four months, held in two tents against a backdrop of mountains, sea and sky. This year's events are The Comedy of Errors, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, and Richard II.

We went to see The Comedy of Errors with Shonna, Angharad, Juanita, Peter and Jolana. Ben and I arrived a couple of hours early to get in the queue, ready for when the doors would open 40 minutes before the performance (we had prebooked tickets but it's open seating). We ended up about third in line, so while Ben held our place I wandered over to the nearby 34th Annual British Columbia Kiteflyers' Association Festival and took some photos! Btw, the mountains in the background are the local ski fields where we went snowboarding and snowshoeing in winter...


Here are some photos of the Bard venue, and us reserving our seats 40 minutes before the show with the rest of the eager masses - this is an honesty system using sticky notes provided by festival volunteers! We were in the larger of the two tents, which has only 520 seats - the smaller venue has 240 seats. You can see the larger tent from the outside in the last photo below (right side). Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the comedy and hope to go back for All's Well That Ends Well sometime. What a fantastic festival!!


PS. This is the 200th post on this blog!!

Women on Water

A few weeks ago, Lisa and I went to a "Women on Water" kayaking evening with Angharad. These are held every Thursday night throughout summer at Deep Cove (where the group of us went kayaking when Megan and Justin were here). There were probably 50 women there, and we paddled about 10kms - a great workout and lots of fun!


Here's a video taken as I was just figuring out how to use the foot pedals to steer... it ends a bit abruptly and you may be able to tell why...

I laughed every time the group took off again after receiving the latest set of instructions: all with one accord, a hundred yellow paddle tips would start bobbing up and down... Lisa and I spent most of the time trailing behind the rest of the group so had plenty of time to observe this!!


Halfway through, we stopped for a rest and the organisers paddled around handing out lollipops to everyone. The funny thing was that we had all stopped surrounding a fishing boat called "Dream Girl" with two men in it. It must have seemed a bit surreal to them - sitting there in silence, and suddenly an onslaught of 50 ferociously-paddling women came advancing around the nearest rocky outcrop!!! Or maybe they drop anchor there every week on purpose...


And here we all are, getting in close to hear the instructors telling us how to cross the last open patch of the cove without getting run down by speedboats...


Then, a well-deserved and delicious pizza!

Cultus Lake Waterslides

Three weeks ago we spent a Saturday at the Cultus Lakes Waterslide Park in Chilliwack, about an hour from where live. We car pooled with Gerard and Janelle, and met Derek, Tyson and Nicole there. The weather had been forecast at 25 degrees but turned out to only reach 17 degrees, brrr! At least this meant there were barely any line-ups! Here are some photos of the park...


And the rest of the photos are courtesy of Janelle...

L-R below: Gerard, Janelle, Tyson, Ben, Derek.

Here are some before, during and after photos of my dramatic incident for the day: being whacked on the nose by the top of Ben's head when we hit the bottom on the "Valley of Fear", a half-pipe shaped ride in which the riders are pushed from the top of one side and slide back and forth like a pendulum until coming to rest at the bottom. As demonstrated by me in the first photo, we had been instructed to put our chin on our chest to avoid such an incident. The crack occurred between the first and second photo...

Ouch!! However, my nose is okay now, so thanks for your concern but there's no need to worry. ;)

On the way home that evening, we had a scrumptious and enormous tea at a Szchezuan (Chinese) restaurant the others knew about. Nose incidents aside, it was a great day out!