stubsadventures

One of my favourite things to do when I travel to the islands in BC is to get a private yoga lesson. It is a great way to set a tone for the trip. This time, I tried something new, called Nia. Nia is this combination of dancing, yoga, martial arts and letting go. Throughout the entire lesson, we laughed and laughed but it was actually a really good work out! It was so fun to try something new. Shelly at the Driftwood Inn is a must if you adventure over to Galiano.

I am now 31. I am not the least bit upset about getting older because so far, every year is even more kick ass than the one before it. On my birthday this year, the first thing I did was go to the spa. We had a day booked at the Madrona del Mar Spa at the Galiano Inn. The Inn itself is stunning. Set right on the ocean, it is quite a large place but not at all overwhelming. The spa is to die for. Starting off with a mineral bath and a steam, I was so excited when they took us to the “cabin in the garden” for our massages. I have been lucky enough to have massages all over the world and I have never had one like this. The cabin is situated next to a running stream and that’s all that you hear the whole time you’re getting massaged. Talk about heaven. Now this is how you should turn 31. After that, we each had facials. As if the day wasn’t awesome to that point, during the facial the lady kept telling me how great my skin was and the fact that I would have a baby face for a long time to come. Best present ever!! Even if she was just being nice because it was my birthday, I’ll take it.

Prepping to go home, eating some cheese cake and taking a midnight walk to the ocean. After narrowly missing the ferry, we made it home in one day, 14 hours of travelling.  Another one in the books.

Stubs.

I love this country. I can never say that enough. There are endless corners meant to be explored and every time I lay eyes on a part I never have before, I honestly feel a little more complete.

Yesterday was spent exploring Galiano Island by foot. All in all, about 15km of walking for the whole day. The town centre here is pretty tiny but I did manage to find a couple of awesome, locally made products for the house. One of the top priorities for me is to shop locally. There is nothing better than going into a little store, owned by someone who lives near where you are vacationing and it being filled with things made by the people who live around there. For me, I am just as conscious a consumer here in our country as I am when I travel the world.

The parks and roads of this island are both beautiful. The roads are lined with huge trees and everything is still green. Today and yesterday, there was no rain at all, which is pretty rare for this time of the year. Caper has been exhausted the entire trip, she has been getting a crazy amount of exercise. Tired Caper = Well behaved Caper.

Today was all about exploring another island. A noon ferry to Mayne Island was well worth the trip. The first stop was to a free park, with a Japanese garden. Although everything wasn’t in bloom, you could tell how beautiful it must be when it is. It was still very quiet, and we were the only people there, it was a nice hour of complete silence.

From there, we explored the little town and did some shopping at another local shop owned by Darrell Perfumo. This place was amazing, filled with things made by people on the island. I bought quite a few things in there and can’t wait to see what they look like up in the house!

The ferry rides between the islands are awesome. Although the wind is damp, it is still warmer than the -37c I came from at work, so it’s amazing to take in the fresh air and for it to not burn the inside of your nose, lol.

Tomorrow, I turn 31. I can’t wait.

Stubs.

My birthday trips have been pretty epic the last few years, I have been making a point of spending more time in BC and taking the time to explore this amazing and very vast province. You could spend a life time driving, hiking, snowboarding or taking ferries around this province, and I intend on doing all of it.

The Gulf Islands as they are called are nestled between Vancouver and Van Island. They are all different shapes and sizes and each has it’s own unique flavor. All are quiet and beautiful. The passing ferry horn every hour or so is the most noise that you will hear and even then, quickly you don’t seem to notice them anymore.

To get to the west coast, you have to drive up and over the Rocky Mountains. This is never a simple drive. The mountain passes are full of surprises with any number of things from terrible crashes (Poncho and I encountered a massive train accident once), freak snow storms, animals of every shape and size, idiot drivers and roads that require your full attention. The drive through the Rockies is majestic but has to be respected. Two years ago, when heading to the coast, I saw two tire marks going straight off the side of a cliff and police tape marked between two trees. Something like that makes a person slow down.

In the south of BC, there is a beautiful park called EC Manning Provincial Park. The road through it is winding and impressive. After staying a night in Princeton, we hit up the resort first thing in the morning to less than 15 cars. A day of boarding was a perfect way to stretch out after the long drive. I am finally able to do an entire run down the mountain, although I do need to stop and have breaks. I’m still not totally confident on my front edge yet, so I tend to use my heels a lot, which is really hard on the quads! Only two spills the whole day pretty much equals a success.

Today, we woke up and took a Nia class, which was very cool. Modern dance, yoga, martial arts all mixed together. Very cool. For the rest of the day, the mission is to explore Galiano, on foot.

Stubs.

For a second day of adventuring, Josh and I headed to Niagara Falls to do some shopping and take a quick drive by of the falls. After making a few clutch purchases, we headed for a good meal before heading into Oakville to visit my two other cousins and my Aunt (Josh’s brothers and mom). Josh just got this new badass ramp, so he can get into a lot more places that aren’t accessable. It isn’t nearly as big as you might think and was pretty easy to carry. Spending time with family seems to not happen as often as I would like these days. There is nothing better than sitting around and trading stories for an evening with people who have known you since your birth.  Which I got to do a couple of evenings on this trip.

Leaving Toronto is always hard. I am liking the city more and more all the time and I love being around my cousins there. This time, I made it a little easier on myself by flying back to Alberta with Poncho. I picked her up in a stretch limo to ride to the airport in to celebrate her engagement with. She was so surprised when it pulled up, I could actually hear her shrieking before the limo came to a complete stop. I was crying I was laughing so hard. The trip has been filled with relaxation, hosting some of Poncho’s old friends for dinner one night, going on a big group hike, eating good good, moving furniture, drinking wine with amazing Cochrane chocolate, dips in the hot tub, stories of adventures, picture sharing and lots and lots of laughs.

Coming home was also sweet because I got to check out my den which had been redone. I found a guy named Chris Hamilton in Cochrane who is amazing and did all the work that is in the pictures. Next, he is going to refinish my bedroom!

Stubs.

After arriving safely in Toronto after an awesome airplane nap, I spent the evening watching football with two guys who had some skin in the game. It was actually the first time all season that I got to watch an NFL game. So far, there is no TV at the resort.

This morning, I got up and roamed around Younge St and people watched while Josh got ready. There are A LOT of crazies in Toronto. One guy stopped me, grabbed my arm and told me that I looked exactly like his sister and it was blowing his mind how that was even possible. I would guess that he was about 65 years old, *shot to ego* until, I walked away from him and a couple stopped me and asked me if he had told me he was a brain surgeon because that was what he had told them. Awesome start to the day. Then I sat in Rachel’s Coffee House and had an really good vanilla latte.

Josh just got a new van and it was time to give it a run for its money, we left the city and headed straight north. We first stopped in Beaverton and got out and walked along the lake. It was a gorgeous sunny day, without any wind. A nice change from the snow I left in Alberta.

From there, we headed to one of the coolest neighbourhoods I have ever seen, a place called Lagoon City. It is a little place filled with man-made channels that all the houses back onto. There was every kind of house there, from budget townhouses to multimillion dollar houses and each one of them backed onto the lagoon.

The entire day, we ended up driving the entire way around Lake Simcoe. I got to see lots of old buildings and a tree filled with shoes. I’d say that’s a pretty good success.

Stubs.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with madness. So much has happened around the house, it’s hard to comprehend. I am thrilled with the progress but exhausted at the long hours and physical work that has been required to get to this point. My eye is on the prize though and I know that the end is getting near, although I am perfectly aware there never really is an end to the work.

Luckily to break up this marathon of work, I am heading to Toronto for a few days of quality family time. I have been to Toronto quite a few times in the last 18 months. Last May, my cousin Josh became a quadriplegic after diving off a boat in Ontario. In a family where the cousin list seems to be growing daily, Josh and I have always been close, our birthdays are one day apart.

I have gone to Toronto to celebrate his milestones with him. The first time I went was after his release from the ICU. The first time I saw him, he was in physio for the first time and I’ll never forget how reassured I was when I saw his crazy bearded face smile. He was a bit of a mountain man, but he was determined. Our visit was filled with days of sitting in the hospital with him and trying to figure out what he was saying through his tube. One word he has always been able to communicate clearly has been a four letter word starting with the word “f”. No coincidence, trust me.

Over the last year and a bit I have been amazed at his strength and determination and constant need for presents. You can’t cry but you can bring him presents. He is the first to put smiles on the faces of those around them and through all of his challenges he has been the one to reassure everyone that he was going to be ok. We’re closer today than we have ever been. Plus, Josh’s brothers are two of possibly the cutest kids I have ever met and just as much as I love spending Josh, I like hanging out with them and listening to what is new with them.

This trip to Toronto is all about adventures. I am getting that kid out of the city and into the fresh air. We’re not quite sure how this is going to work yet but we can sure that at the very least it will be a gong show. And, I will blog about it.

I’ve attached a couple of pictures from the house.. the completed pictures are to come soon.

Stubs

Poncho is coming to visit soon and I thought I would celebrate by posting some of my favorite pics of us from 2005 on… enjoy.

Stubs.

There are so many aspects to this house that I’m still discovering things all the time. One of the things that I discovered the first time I came to look at the house but have chosen to ignore until this weekend, was the outhouse. A real, legit outhouse. Until this weekend, I have never even opened the door, pretty much just afraid of what I would find. I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite clean actually and very much in working order. Unfortunately, it is right now where I will eventually put my new garage, so at some point in the future, it will have to come down. Which begs the questions, how on earth do you go about getting rid of an outhouse?

I’ve been doing a lot of hiking in the trails around my house. On any given day, I’m hiking between 5-15km. I very seldom pass another person and based on the amount of spider webs I’ve walked through in the last little while, the trails are not always well worn. It’s hard to walk around and make a lot of noise to keep the cougars away, so your supposed to sing or talk loudly as your walking and apparently that’s usually enough to help you avoid an encounter. The problem is, you feel like a crazy person walking through the middle of the woods with no one around singing to yourself. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I could sing but I don’t even like the sound of my voice and with my luck, I’d get attacked just because the cougar would want that terrible sound coming out of my mouth to stop. Instead, I yell really loud commands to Caper because that doesn’t seem quite so bad in my head, just Caper thinks I’m crazy is all. That I can handle.

Stubs.

Bonaire is an island slightly north of Venezuela and is known for being a divers paradise. I once read that Bonaire was one of Jacques Cousteau’s favorite places to dive. That was all I needed to hear. I worked with a dive adventure company, Caradonna Dive Adventures and they hooked the whole thing up.  The Netherland Antilles are made up of three islands (the ABC Islands), Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. Of the three Bonaire is the quietest.

My first four days were spent diving. While I was there, I got my advanced certification so that in itself required a bunch of dives. I had an awesome dive master and was really glad I had opted for a private guide. The diving was unlike anything I had ever done. They all shuttered to hear that it was the first time I had ever dove in warm water. Until that time, all my diving had either been in the Atlantic off Nova Scotia or lakes. I can see how people get used to diving in the warm water, it felt like a treat to skin dive compared to wearing the full stiff wetsuits you do in the cold water. In the four days of diving, I never spoke to another Canadian. I was the only one skin diving and they all thought I was nuts.

My mission in Bonaire was to lay eyes on a seahorse but I was surprised how many other things I found that were big highlights, seeing the wreck the Hilma Hooker and her huge anchor resting on the bottom, the octopus and squid and just massive schools of fish. On my deep dive, I hit my deepest dive to that date, 119ft.  I was pumped.

As much as I love diving I love all kinds of outdoor adventures, so I arranged a guide for two days to show me the back roads of Bonaire. Hans couldn’t have been more perfect. We went caving in two different systems, on dry, and one wet that we snorkelled through. In the wet cave, we stopped and sat on a ledge, turned our lights off and tiny see through shrimps nibble on your legs.

We toured one of the most interesting national parks I have ever seen. While in the park, we hiked to the highest point on the island, which was a fantastic hike. Hans was pumped because he says very few people actually went all the way to the top and he was excited that I was up for the challenge. The view was totally worth the climb. After that, we went kayaking through some mangroves on another part of the island. The tiny channels were fun to navigate and filled with thousands of baby fish. At one point, we got out and snorkelled up a few of them and it was hard to keep the smile off my face.

An unexpected surprise about my time there was that it was during Carnival! Even though after the days of diving I was pretty tired, you can never turn down partying to amazing live music. There were two parades, one during the day and then the same parade at night at the end of the festival, but all the costumes have lights on them! I was really pumped that I was there for all of it, I met some amazing people from all over the world and shared more than a few Polar (the main beer there).

Stubs.

Watching me complete multiple tasks is generally entertaining. With my short attention span, I find it hard to start a task, fully complete it, then move on. So, what I do is start something, finish it about 95%, then lose interest so I start something else. I’ll finish that about 95%, you get the idea. Once I have about five things on the go, I’ll go back to the first one to finish that. I won’t completely finish it though because I’m still kind of bored with it from doing so much the first go around that I may get to 98%, then again move on. In the past, this has been with little tasks like cleaning, some wall papering, yard work that kind of stuff. I have never before had big ticket items like painting the whole main area.

My goal this week off was to tidy all the loose ends that I had floating out there because once the painting is finished, the next project is larger, so I don’t want to loose focus. I finally finished the mud room and the main hallway, which is a big relief. Kitchen is mostly done and baseboards are all done in the main area. Check check. One room I had also started was the laundry room. I bought these awesome knobs at a place in town and I love them every time I see them. I have some in the living rom and some in the laundry and the best one of all is the seahorse. I have been fascinated with them for a while know and in 2009, was lucky to see two in Bonaire. I had already done probably 7 dives looking for them and had given up when I got invited to go on one more charter. I will always have a clear memory of just floating there in the water with my face about 6 inches away from it. They don’t look like they’re from this world and I like that. After finally seeing some in Bonaire, I got a wicked seahorse tattoo on my ankle.

It is snowing regularly now. The snow here is perfect snowman snow and heavy to shovel. The other night, I went out with the ladies in Calgary and when I got home, I was running back to the house in high heels, a dress, the dog and my bags in about 6 inches of snow.  It might be time to put the hells away for the winter.

Stubs.