Washington weekend, Post 1: Whidbey Island

At the end of July we had a long weekend for BC Day, and we spent it south of Seattle in Washington state, USA. As both of us are very busy at work at the moment, we have no big trips planned for this summer... so this is the year of weekends away. I'd been looking forward to this one for weeks!

On Friday night we crossed the border, stopped at Trader Joe's, and then had dinner at our new favourite restaurant in Bellingham: La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza. This one had prosciutto, caramelized onions, mozzarella... and a salad on top!


Then we continued on to our destination for the night: our friends Kelly and Janae's new home at the south end of Whidbey Island! They're renovating a cute old house in the country, with the aim of subsequently relocating. We're going to love visiting them there! When coming from the north, the island is accessed via a bridge, but the next day we'd depart on a ferry from the south end (landing on the mainland 30 minutes north of Seattle).

We arrived sometime after 10pm, and sat up chatting and munching on Trader Joe's goodies for a while. In the morning, Janae cooked a delicious breakfast... and then the boys got to work on the window project! Meanwhile, Janae and I went into the nearby town of Langley to keep Etta out of the way of the window work. As we were driving out of their driveway, we saw three deer!

Langley was a picturesque little town full of interesting shops and cafes. I think a more in-depth exploration will be in order in the future!



Back at the house, here's the window project underway...





Janae and Etta...


Country charms...







Around 2pm, we set off for the ferry to the mainland. We'd intended to leave mid-morning, but we'd been having too much fun (thanks, K&J, for a great visit!). The ferry took 20 minutes and cost $9... Washington Ferries are a bit kinder to the wallet than BC Ferries!

Views from the ferry...




To be continued...

Lamingtons

On the weekend, I finally made good on my 6 month old resolution to make lamingtons!

Lamingtons are an Australian bakery food made from cubes of sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in shredded coconut. Theories abound as to their origin, but most involve Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, who was the Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901.

Lamingtons are among the Aussie foods I miss the most and crave most frequently. Guess there are no excuses for missing or craving them anymore though!

As our lamingtons were also quite popular with those of our friends who tasted them on the weekend, here's the [US/Canada-oriented] recipe...


Lamington Recipe

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
2-3 cups shredded coconut

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8x8 inch rectangular pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar and the vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well.
3. Pour the batter into the 8x8 inch pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. Cut into 16 squares, then refrigerate for a few hours to give the cake a chance to firm up before icing.
4. To make the icing: In a large bowl, combine confectioners' sugar and cocoa. In a saucepan, heat milk and 2 tablespoons butter until the butter is melted. Add the milk to the sugar mixture and mix well to create a fluid, but not too runny, icing.
5. Procedure: Place coconut in a bowl. Using tongs, dip each square into the icing, then roll it in the coconut. Place onto rack to dry. Continue for each piece.

Original recipe here (the above version is modified to reflect the procedure I used).

VSO concert at Deer Lake

This post is evidence that:

(a) Our summer is not acting very much like summer; and
(b) Vancouver's music lovers are somewhat hardier than its baseball players (refer to previous post).

Our group of picnickers waiting for Symphony in the Park to start on July 17th...




Okay, not everyone was smiling...


The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on stage in the distance... the conductor said it was the most colourful audience he'd ever looked out at!


So, yes... we went to two free outdoor VSO concerts a week apart! The cannons were even better the second time around! And we did move from the above location to a spot under the trees before the concert actually started, so that kept us dry enough. Anything for a free VSO concert, eh?!

Baseball game

On Saturday, July 16th, we went to our first baseball game - courtesy of a Groupon $12-for-two-tickets deal. The game started at 7:05pm in the Nat Bailey Stadium, and featured the Vancouver Canadians versus the Boise Hawks (from Idaho state, USA).













Halfway through the game, however, it started to rain. It was actually some of the heaviest rain we have yet witnessed in Vancouver (i.e. about the equivalent of normal summer rain in Australia). Anyway, the players promptly exited the field, and a huge tarp was rolled out and unfolded to cover the entire baseball diamond!!



The people in the uncovered sections of the stands also made a beeline for the sheltered seats, and some left altogether...


Then, an announcement came up on the screen saying that the game had been called off due to rain, and the Vancouver Canadians had won, 3-2!

Those of us who waited for another half hour or so (by which time the rain had almost stopped) were rewarded with a 15-minute post-game fireworks display. It was quite impressive, especially the ending. My phone isn't quite up to the task of capturing fireworks, but here's the best of about ten shots!


It was a fun experience - and a bargain at $6 each, even if we did only see half a game!!

A visit to/from Down Under

On Thursday night, we met up with some familiar faces from my childhood in Dalby! Kent and Elwyn were passing through Vancouver en route to embarking on a 7-day Alaska cruise as part of a 3-month trip around North America, so we took them out for... some good old Aussie food!!

Here we are enjoying our generous mains at Moose's Down Under: salmon burger for Ben; Aussie burger (with egg, beetroot and pineapple - and chicken salt on the chips!) for me; "Gold Coast Chicken" for Elwyn; and shepherd's pie for Kent...


It had been 1.5 years since we last went to Moose's, but now that we've tasted their huge, delicious, melts-in-your-mouth pavlova, I think we'll be returning a lot sooner next time!


With the moose...


After dinner, we took Kent and Elwyn down to the waterfront to check out the Olympic Cauldron from last year's Winter Olympics...



...And the "Digital Orca" sculpture beside the Vancouver Convention Centre...


...And then we spent a while chatting with them in their room on the 19th floor of the Hyatt.

It was so nice to catch up with them and hear all about their travels... and, as always, we love hearing some fair dinkum Aussie accents over here!

VSO concert in Stanley Park

On Sunday evening, July 10th, we went to a free outdoor concert by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) at Brockton Oval in Stanley Park. The concert was part of the 3-day Summer Live Festival, which was part of Vancouver's year-long 125th birthday celebrations!

Juanita, Ben and I took the Skytrain in to Waterfront Station. Then, because the line-up for the free shuttle bus was so long, we walked the 45 minutes to Brockton Point... picnic supplies in hand! It was a stunningly picturesque walk along the waterfront, past sea planes, fancy yachts, and Vancouver's swishest hotels. I couldn't believe I'd never been to that part of Vancouver on foot before. It certainly reinforced why the words "Vancouver" and "beautiful" are so often found in the same sentence!

This is the cauldron from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. We'd never seen this in person before!


Sea planes with North Vancouver in the background...



Sights along the seawall...





Into Stanley Park...




We saw a raccoon on the path just before I took the photo below, but it didn't hang around long enough to pose for me!




First glimpse of the VSO concert... we arrived just as the first song was ending...



We found ourselves a picnic spot, settled in, and soon saw some more of our friends sitting about 15 metres in front of us (we had already known they were somewhere at the concert!). Then it was just a matter of sitting back, digging in, and listening to awesome music for the next hour!










The concert finished with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Here's a video of the first few minutes and one of the last few minutes (16 cannon shots included!)...

This is the view from Stanley Park of Vancouver's one and only wind turbine (The Eye of the Wind), up on Grouse Mountain. It's fully functional, but it's also one of Vancouver's newest tourist attractions, which you can tour for $20!


The rest of our friends left after the VSO concert, but Juanita, Ben and I stayed to hear the next act: Spirit of the West, a famous Canadian folk rock band that has been around since 1983 (but which Ben and I heard of for the first time this same evening!). They were very good, and the lead singer had amazing stage energy, but the VSO was still the highlight!





The crowd configuration changed somewhat as the evening went on. Once the smell of wafting marijuana smoke became too overpowering (which I think was near the end of the concert anyway!), we packed up and started the 45 minute walk back to the Skytrain.

It was a great evening, and a very enjoyable way to celebrate our city's 125th birthday. Thanks, Vancouver!