Urban Demonstration Garden

Our letterboxing experience today took us to the Lake Hills Master Gardeners Urban Demonstration Garden. I love this place. Here is their list of upcoming workshops.

Miles found the cow in the children's garden.

SIFF Movies to Watch

Movies to watch:
SIFF Golden Space Needles Awards
Some Guy's SIFF Top Ten List

Looking for Letterboxes

A whole new world opened up for us today - letterboxing! We've been waiting, on a nice day, to get out with Crystal and boys for a letterboxing tutorial/adventure. This was a lot of fun and i highly recommend it for anyone with kids! Upon finding the second box, Mina screamed with a huge burst of enthusiasm and excitement. At dinner, she told me that she wants to go letterboxing tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. She's already decided that for her sixth birthday party we'll have a letterboxing event in the backyard/neighbourhood. So yeah, she liked it. Miles is catching on rather quickly.

The stamp that Mina picked out to use as "our stamp" in these logbooks just happens to be the Book of Kells stamp that we used on the back of our wedding celebration invites. Our matching wedding bands are Celtic and have the Book of Kells pattern engraved on them. Interestingly, when we were still living in Waterloo, Canada , we had ordered the stamp set from a stamping company based out of Seattle.

Letterboxing links: Letterboxing.org and AtlasQuest.com

I can already see that this will be a fun addition to our summer. I just checked with AtlastQuest and there are 274 letterboxes within 25 miles of my house.

KEXP Father's Day Dance Party 2008

Keeping up with another Father's Day tradition, we joined the diapered crowd at Neumos for the KEXP Father's Day Dance Party. John in the Morning was there with his son, Arlie, as well as tons of other indie music fans. There was some great crafts, breakdancing demos, cupcakes, facepainting and of course, dancing! Here is a link to the KEXP blog and their photos links. See if you can find us looking down on the dancers from the balcony. We are standing with friends Heidi, Rob and boys. As the blog photos show, the KEXP party is a blast for everyone.
So with the hike, the dance party and a nice bbq at home, it was a rather awesome Father's day celebration for an awesome Pappa!

Tradition at Tiger Mountain

We always like to get out to Tiger Mountain for a Father's Day hike. What a difference two years makes...

Here are some other favourite shots from our hike.

Miles holding Thomas the Tank Engine.

Mina holding a catepillar.

Oh Baby Beluga

Vancouver Aquarium's new baby beluga

Sunless in Seattle

Washington Outdoor Women

I'm planning ahead, for a weekend in September, where i'll swap my apron for a paddle... Washington Outdoor Women workshop. My friend Deb told me about this and i'm sharing the information in case anyone else wants to join!

18 million cracks and 50 women in space

Based on a nudge from the Guardian, I just took the time to listen to Hillary Clinton's speech announcing the end of her presidential campaign.

Dig It!

Here's the new blog from Full Circle Farm, Dig It!

three photos i love from a weekend hike

Mina meets the banana slug. We love spotting these forest friends...

Put on your rainboots

We are getting a crazy amount of rain as of late. During a suny break, i took these pictures of our gardens coming alive.

I just can't wait for summer to really begin. For now, i'll enjoy this break from watering the garden.

my excuse for not blogging much as of late...

"Friends are the sunshine of life." -John Hay

Not just olive oil.

One of Richard's Peak Oil friends sent this article to him. Rich recommends reading it. I'm posting it here for you and as a bookmark for myself, The Coming Energy Wars.

Here is a second piece to read, Recoil.

KEXP Mind Over Matters

Here is another radio link for your free time. KEXP Mind Over Matters Sustainability Segment. Scroll down for the audio links marked Listen! There is much to think about in the piece about Taras Grescoe's recent book, "Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood". Here is a similiar article in the Globe and Mail. They've got a handy what-to-buy chart too.

SIFF

Sad but true, we've never been to the SIFF. The plan is for that to change tomorrow! We are set to go see the documentary Good Food at SIFF. Earlier in the week, I heard an interview with the film-maker as part of a 94.9 NPR special called Food and Farm Costs. A pretty romantic date, eh?