A walk in the clouds

David and I have been trying to go for more walks together in the evenings. It's good exercise for us both, but it's also a great time for us to bond. Especially since David likes me to distract him from the fact that he's walking by talking with him. So he always grabs my hand and says, "what should we talk about today, mom."

This particular evening we walked through the meadows just north of our house.

As you can see, the grass has gotten very tall. As you pass through the meadow, you come to this bridge. Sometimes there's so much water down here the entire bridge is under water. But we had an unusually dry winter followed by an unusually warm spring so the creek is quite low this year.

If you're lucky, you can sometimes spot wildlife in here (if you're really lucky, it won't be that cougar that's been prowling around Langley this spring and summer). Once I saw a beaver, but his house doesn't seem to be here anymore.

We continued on past the wetlands and turned west towards Surrey. It was a beautiful evening.

And the sun was just beginning to fade, so that I could capture all these gorgeous shots of the sun as it descended.

Just about here there is a huge tree with an equally eagle's nest. Apparently it's been there for years and years, my Running Room walking leader showed it to us one morning as we were on our long walk. I have yet to see any birds in it, but we've started including this route in our regular walks just in case.

Here it is. You can't see the nest right now because of all the leaves, and the angle I took the picture from. But the sun is nice, isn't it?

(You almost can't tell we're walking amongst the power lines, can you?)

We continued on to the industrial border of Langley and Surrey where the path ends near the railway tracks.

Our choice was to cross the tracks or back track and go over the overpass. I left the decision to David and he decided he wanted to hop the tracks, 'like a hobo'.

And then walked towards down the mall...which meant we got to pass the most amazing part of town where there were junk yards and shipping containers and these guys:

While David debated breaking in through a hole in the fence, I took pictures.

He discarded the idea of breaking and entering in favour of being danger boy on the overpass.

Here's the junk yard, or scrap metal yard...lots of beautiful junk to look at.

One more overpass, and we were done.

A brief departure

One evening in Early June I had driven to Aldergrove to fill up on fuel and do our weekly grocery shop. As I was coming down the hill into Langley, I was just in time for the most amazing sunset. So I pulled over by airport and snapped these two pictures.

What a glorious sight. I love late spring sunsets.

Welcome to the jungle

One thing the entire family loves to do is visit nurseries. We have many to choose from in Langley, and recently have discovered Cedar Rim. Apart from having a HUGE selection of plants, and garden/home decor, it's a beautiful site with some themed areas.

Of course we had to do the obligatory photo in the massive adirondack. Looks comfy, doesn't it?

But my favorite section is the Jurassic Park section. If only these guys moved - can you imagine walking through the nursery and finding a dinosaur blinking out at you?

Phone Dump

Here are some random pictures from my phone in the last while.

Ashlie and Jade hung out with us for an afternoon/evening and we went for a very long walk through Brookswood. We stopped by this wall to take some pictures. You can see how into it they were (for reals) by the crazy faces they were making.

I bought a fit bit this spring and I've been trying to take more steps. This particular day we needed to walk to Brookswood because my car doesn't have enough seats for all of us. But these three kept diverting us and diverting us and by the time we got home, we'd walked more than ten k!

And this sort of hilarity ensued pretty much the whole way.

Ada and Lizzie sure love each other. Ada gets so excited about her Lizzy and Elisabeth loves not being the baby anymore.

Pro-D day in May means a spring trip to Harrison Beach. I couldn't believe how low the water level was here. You can't really tell from this picture (it looks pretty gray), but we've had a crazy dry winter/spring and now our summer is supposed to be HOT and dry too.

As per usual, we walked to the hot springs and then pretended we were Hobbits and Orcs racing down the hillside.

This is one of my favorite spots because of the vegetation and the beauty of this spot (plus we pretty much always have it to ourselves).

But you can really see how that whole mountain seems to be made of a series of boulders loosely piled upon each other and held together by a mass of moss. It's a little scary!

The trail eventually leads in behind the Harrison Resort.

And once we'd finished exploring, we headed to the beach to wade around.

And stage more battles.

I can't remember where this is from, but they're so cute. And they actually look like they like each other.

We've been heading to the pool a lot this spring and they often have fun stuff set up. Like this bridge in the deep end.

Ruben came to school to pick up the  big kids one day. He fell asleep shortly before we arrived,

but woke up in time to play with the big kids too.

Dollar store mustaches. A constant source of hilarity.

Ada, yelling at me, "Look! I catch an Ada!"

And Lizzie bought herself facepaint. She's still learning...

Parades are my favorite

And I am so happy to be introducing a whole new generation of kids to my favorite pastime.

This year we had my sister's family as well as the neighbors and Ada join us. Here's a crazy pan picture of everyone:

I should add that Saturday we were at the parades in Cloverdale, and these are from the May Day festivities in Fort Langley. As you can see, Ada is very happily tagging along with us.

If you've never been to the May Day activities, I highly recommend them. We start by going to the parade. Which also means coffee and a treat from Wendel's. The parade is awesome (by which I mean it's not just real estate professionals in their cars and martial arts students marching).

Last year, it rained but this year it was HOT. And crowded and awesome.

The candy is of course a highlight. Especially for the two year old.

I like the classic cars.

And others appreciated the dancers.

After the parade we grab lunch. Last year we did the free lunch at the church up the street, but this year we opted to stop at my favorite grocery store and grab some healthy food. Which we ate in the Marina Park.

Before heading to the field for the carnival. Rides, carnival games, music, and a market. It's a really good time.

School trip to the Vancouver Aquarium

The school made a year end field trip to the Vancouver Aquarium. I love field trips, but I hate that when we go to Vancouver we end up with about two hours wherever we are before we have to come home again. So this time I elected to take my own car and stay till we got bored. Elisabeth rode in on the bus and David came in with me. So we hung out outside and let giant sea monsters intimidate us.

The stuff of nightmares, isn't it mum?

It started to rain so we tried to go for coffee at the new cafe Cody built. Unfortunately, nothing opens there till later. So we waited in the drizzle.

When the school arrived, I had David and four of his classmates, all boys. We had a scavenger hunt type of worksheet to complete and about an hour to do it in, so off we went!

David and the sharks.

Here's my crew; they were fantastic.

We were all a little bummed that we got the scientist version of the beluga show, although I guess in the current climate of anti aquariums that was probably a good thing. The boys really wanted to get splashed though.

We sent home the school, and exchanged Elisabeth for three of the boys and decided at the last minute to keep K too.

Have you done a 4D show at the aquarium? They're soo much fun. Not only do you have the three d effect and the incredible sound, you get water, bubbles, smells, poked in the back and swished from under your seat. It sounds a little creepy the way I'm describing it, but it makes the shows so interactive.

I missed Kandace in this group shot (she was taking pictures of penguins), but here's one last shot of everyone before we headed off to play on the beach. Must add a day trip to Stanley Park to my summer to-do list!