Kalene & Blair Pt 1: The couple and the locale

 Our friends Kalene and Blair got married on August 27th and were good enough to invite us. Better yet, they were good enough to give us 10+ months notice, which ensured we had time off, a place to stay, and a car booked since they had their ceremony in Vernon, BC.

 Vernon is just a little north of Kelowna in the Okanagan, and was a new place for us both. They chose a lovely spot with sprawling wheat fields up to gentle mountains under striking skies. The weather was rather variable on the day but they had gorgeous sun for the ceremony and reception, with only a little wind and rain later in the evening.

 The reception and dinner were held inside a barn, which comfortably held the entire group and was very charmingly decorated with family photos and mementos of their adventures together. Just beyond the door was a saloon for refreshing beverages and a wide open field. There was a very nice buffet dinner with pie for dessert and lots of dancing to round out the evening.

Thanks again to the happy couple for including us on their special day, and we wish them years of happiness to come :)

Sociable Summer

Between my summer schooling and Kathryn's multiple jobs, its been a very hectic but well spent summer so far. We've still managed to fit some socializing into our evenings and weekends, with a few highlights shared here. First off, I helped my good friend Vicki with her small business selling crystals at a Latin American Carnival festival for a weekend recently. While I spent most of my time in helping in the booth, these Brazilian drummers walked right around our area, and they reminded me so much of Kathryn's drumming days that I had to snap a picture.

 A few weeks later, we had back-to-back dock parties with various whale watching groups. The community is pretty small and Kathryn wanted to be sure to visit everyone, so we had one evening on Granville Island with the folks at her company and the next night we caught a ride down to Steveston for another party held by another group. The trip was entirely worthwhile if only for the amazing burgers and salads, made all the better by a nice chatty evening on the pier in the far south of the city where Vancouver seems a little less omnipresent.

 Rounding things out, we have had one of three evenings of fireworks in English Bay just recently. We had a nice cross-section of old friends, classmates and coworkers come by to enjoy the sun, watch the fireworks, and indulge in a post-explosions Mojito.

 

There's still plenty of summer to come and while Kathryn is working like a Japanese beaver, I am hoping to savor a few moments of relaxation before September rolls around and I go back to BCIT part time to finish my degree.

Vancouver Concert Band

 Kathryn has been playing a couple of instruments as part of the Vancouver Concert Band for the last 10 months or so and enjoying herself very much. They have been holding a number of summer performances recently, one of which I was able to attend since it fell on a Saturday at the "Hats Off Burnaby" festival, rather than a Wednesday evening.

 She can be a little tricky to spot in the picture above, but the flute section (which she primarily plays in) is located on the right hand side of that picture. Below is a zoomed photo of her playing flute.

 The summer concert had a Caribbean theme with some bongo drum pieces, and her years of playing various drums for capoeira groups made her a natural choice for those parts. My favorite was a mombo they played where her drumming was a very significant part of the music and she played very well indeed.

I brought our pocket recorder with us and got quite a nice mp3 file of the event. If you want to hear it and we haven't sent it to you already, drop me an email and I will get you the file to listen to.

Outbound Inlaws

 Bevan and Valerie stayed with us for a few days before departing for their Alaskan cruise, which gave us a nice opportunity to have a visit and share and take in a little culture and relaxation. Between leaving work a little early and a whale watching cancellation due to bad weather, we were both able to be around for the majority of their time with us which was very nice. Here they are at the departure gate for their ship.

 Which was an enormous monstrosity of a ship! Apparently their room is midships on the starboard side. I think we'll stick to our small boats and nature tours for a good long time to come, but maybe the day will arrive when we'd like to be pampered in a giant floating hotel ;)

 On a very rainy Saturday before they set out, the four of us took a visit to the art gallery, which had a display called 'Mashup' which was an assortment of modern art, collage, and video editing. That sort of art in particular I find is a healthy split of 50% clever and 50% utter garbage (yes, signing a urinal maybe re-contextualizes the object from its original purpose, but it's a little too nonsense pretentious for me...) The highlight of the gallery was a small "dub room" where they were playing Jamaican music which introduced us to the fun album "Super Ape" by Lee Perry and the Upsetters. The photo below shows the main rotunda with a fancy modern art paint job.

Steven's visit and the various animals that ensued

 Kathryn's brother Steven was in town over a weekend recently and while showing him the sights, we managed to fit in several animal related photos worth sharing. With only a few days in town and an existing familiarity for much of the city, we spent most of the time at Granville Island or English Bay with a little visit to the aquarium tucked in. First off is the obligatory "Everyone Loves the Cat" photo in which all guests must smile as though pleased with the animal while he is digging his claws into their arm.

 The dolphins, belugas, and otters get all the mainstream love, but my favorite things at the aquarium are always the weird little fish tucked into corners that nobody notices. Like this Warty Frogfish, which I did not even know was a thing. Modern marine biologists have yet to quantify how much this creature sounds like Gilbert Gottfried, but hopefully someone is doing their doctorate on the topic right now.

 The baby geese are all hatched and their parents are both fearless and belligerent, but it was still surprising to see this sizeable family step into the busy traffic of Granville Island and stroll across the street. I even had a trace of my faith in humanity restored as all the drivers stopped and let the entire family cross.

Prepping the balcony garden

Every spring there is a big plant sale at the VanDusen garden, and every few years we manage to make our way down to take advantage of it (and fight old ladies over the last kale). This year we went with our gardening aficionado friends Ginna and Travis, and even managed to snag a friend with a ride of theirs, making it far more pleasant than taking the bus.

We were quite early so there was plenty to see and choose from. Kathryn was even sweet enough to pose with all her new acquisitions for a little photo in the checkout line. I unfortunately underestimated how much space we had available on the balcony so she didn't get as much as she might have if I wasn't along, but we still have a lot of nice new things in our little garden. All told we now have tomatoes, rosemary, fuchsias, tomatoes, miniature rose, kale, and a sundew now adorning our apartment.

Kathryn has been making so many nice little pots in her ceramics course that I wanted to be sure to highlight at least one of them with a plant. Neither of us are huge cactus fans, but they had a goodly assortment of succulents, so I picked one out to perch on the living room window and put some of her hard work to good use. 

Three Very Different Nights Out

After months with few performances of interest in town, we had 3 nights out in the space of 10 days recently. We started off with Metric, who we saw open for Imagine Dragons last year and were totally taken with. Kathryn is not tall enough to enjoy floor tickets at concerts, but she got us some great seats to enjoy the show from. David Suzuki showed up as a surprise guest and the picture below captures the intensity and energy of the evening, even if the performers are almost impossible to make out.

 Shortly after that, we went to see Chris Hadfield perform with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra doing a mixture of songs and anecdotes about his time in space. While he mostly plays smaller guitar pieces, there were also several classics by Holst and modern composers on a space theme which made the whole night quite fun. The Orpheum Theatre is quite striking in its own right as well, and I thought a picture of the venue is more distinct than the performers in this instance.

 Rounding out our trio, we saw Noel Fielding live at the Vogue theatre, and while I will totally admit we forgot the camera at home that night and the picture below is not ours, it is representative of the weird nature of his act. He starts out normally enough with a bit of standup comedy, but the show gets gradually weirder until the end where a member of the audience dressed as a night, Fantasy Man (played by Noel) and a harlequin (think deranged jester rather than romance novel) travel to the plasticine world to fight a minotaur (and a reverse minotaur with a human head) and a lecherous triangle to save Noel the dark side of the moon. We really enjoy his work in the Mighty Boosh and it was fun to see him live :)