Tulips in bloom

Since I couldn't chase cherry blossoms, I decided I needed to see the tulips. I'm glad I went when I did, because the weather has been awful, and even on the sunny days, no one wants to drive all that way to tramp around a field with me.

Unfortunately, I still need to work on my photography skills. Or maybe not go at midday.

But my goodness, is it ever lovely out there. I went to the Valley Tulip Festival, in Greendale.

I don't realise it so much when I'm in Langley, but as soon as I get near the mountains I remember how much I love being that close.

You wouldn't even know we have mountains here most days, the rain clouds obscure them completely.

I have so many ideas in my head for the photoshoot I wanted to do here, I guess I'll work on my skills and hope for next year.

Easter Tidings

Easter was a little different this year, with no littles around. Still, we managed to have an egg decorating party.

 All the kids (except Larry who was visiting his grandparents) came over to decorate hard boiled eggs.

We decided to try the combo of wax and dye - taking our eggs out of the hot water and sprinkling crayon shavings on them, then letting the wax melt over the egg.

Before dying the eggs (while wearing our Easter bonnets).

 I'm quite impressed with the effect.

Date night with Davey

I've been trying to schedule regular dates with David and Elisabeth. Dates where we do fun things and we don't plug in. It was the last night of Kids' Club - a group Andrew and Elisabeth are involved in at Brookswood Church, and so David and I headed towards Fort Langley. We made a brief stop at TWU, because the cherry trees were in bloom.

They're gorgeous, though my favorite are the dark red blossoms that are just bursting into bloom now.

 After our walk, we headed into Fort Langley.

 It was opening night at Maria's Gelato, and we knew we needed to try it out.

 Then we wandered around until it got dark.

In search of cherry blossoms

I've never really gone in search of the cherry blossoms before. I've happened upon them accidentally like one year when we hopped on and off the aqua bus at Granville Island. But never purposefully gone to see them. This year I was determined to do so.

But this day we were actually headed to Granville. As we were driving out there, I saw a picture of a street in Vancouver, alight with blossoms, so we went on a detour.

 We didn't find the blossoms, but I took these from the car.

We stopped at the beach, because there were supposed to be blossoms near there. But we didn't find them.

 It was soooo windy and really cold, but you could see for miles. Absolutely gorgeous.

 And wonder of wonders, their magnolia was in bloom. Ours wasn't even close yet at this point.

Then we arrived at Granville Island and, as is my custom, I took a picture of the old sailor.

It was really busy at the market, more so than it has been in a long time. Possibly because we've had a crazy wet spring (after a crazy snowy winter) and so everyone felt the need to get outside. Can you blame them?

But we ended up having to park quite far away, in the underground parking of a condo building around the corner.  And we'd intended to hop on and off the aqua buses again, but because we parked so far away, we ended up walking a long way around the marina just to get into the market.

 And by that time, it was lunch and ALL the children voted to stop and eat. 

We sat outside in the sunshine and ate, and then continued walking the perimeter of the island.

 The children insisted on ice cream.

 And then we headed towards the house boats.

 I bought myself a wide angle lens for my birthday, with money I made crafting, and decided to try it out.

 I love the perspective the wide angle gets me in places like this.

 I would have missed it, but the kids were mesmerized by all the fish in the water. We saw starfish too - you hardly see those anymore.

Then we rounded the marina and saw this tree filled with tea bag people.

 Larry was pretty impressed with this place as an idea for a date. Smart boy.

 We'd finally walked the whole perimeter of the island, and decided to leave rather than take a boat.

  But I saw some blossoms, so I insisted that we walk at least that far so I could take some pictures.

 Well, look at what a spectacular day it was, can you blame me?

After this, we drove down towards the olympic village.

 We were hoping to see some sea life, or something interesting, but really, it was pretty boring.