Road Trip: Mountains

Mountains make me happy.

They are a piece of paradise for me.

I love to climb mountains, it gives me a sense of peace.  I feel refreshed, cleansed, relaxed, and that's where I love to be.

If I can't climb a mountain, being close to one is also good.

What better mountains to be around than the Canadian Rockies?

Even though I've seen these mountains many times before, I still get a rush and thrill like I'm seeing them for the first time.

This is my favourite spot, I could spend the rest of my life here.

Raising a Besta

The birth of our Ikea Besta: a photo log.

 The TV cabinet took the most time to put together, and hanging that TV was a doozie.

 Castle, of course, crawled up to smear his ooogie hands all over the TV.

Are all the shelves even?

 Time for Castle's nap.  That's when things really got going.

 Gotta make room for that hamburger phone.

 Doors start to go on.

 We deliberately chose different size doors to break things up and create some visual interest.

 We decide to shift the cabinets on top of the TV over a little.

 Nap over, Castle's back.  Just the sliding doors left, and peel off that blue film.

 A few days and a road trip later...

All done.

Finally, we are unpacked.  Lego, craft supplies, art supplies, books, toys, tools, camera, TV, all in!

I'm glad we went with the glossy doors, they were twice as much as the regular white doors, but the glossy makes it look like it could be from Inform Interiors and not Ikea.  (Haha, dream on! I say to self.)

Road Trip: Agritainment

Agritainment made it into the dictionary a few years ago.

It's one of my favourite words.

It encompasses farm-based entertainment, such as hay rides, corn mazes, pumpkin patches...

This place of agritainment is called Log Barn 1912.

It's in Armstrong, BC, a little north of Vernon.

Total agritainment mecca.

It was a shock to find Bubble Tea on the menu.  How Asian of them.

Everything looked so yummy.

We had house made Mennonite sausages on a bun, Russian Borscht, and peach pie for lunch.

The soup was bright ruby red.

Plenty Good.

The Goat Walk was one of the best things I've seen.

Buy some snacks for the goats, put it in a bucket by a pulley at the bottom,

and pull the bucket up to the top for the goats.

Keep going, gotta work for those snacks, goats.

It was a super fun place for us to stretch our legs after a morning full of car ride.

Road Trip: Sunset

This was just about the most beautiful sunset, where we couldn't see the sun.

The light on those hills turned our view into a soft impressionist oil painting, right before our eyes.

This happens on most summer days in Kelowna, BC.  What a sight.

Car Rides

We covered a lot of ground in the past week.  Up to 6 hours a day in the car.  Castle was a trooper.

It's nice to be home, but it would be even nicer if we stayed an extra couple of days lounging by the lake.

Passiflora

Aren't these flowers amazing?

They are passion fruit flowers.

Found at the farmer's market on Granville Island.  The depth, layers and colours, so beautiful.  Can't believe this has to fade away in order for a yummy passionfruit to appear.  Seems unfair.  Why can't we have both?

Dining Out: Campagnolo Roma

After a fun filled afternoon at the Vancouver Aquarium, we stopped at Campagnolo Roma for a quick early dinner before heading home.  

I see it as a more casual little brother to Campagnolo, where by the way, we did not have a good experience at the last time we were there for dinner.  The host staff made plenty of mistakes and caused us over 1.5 hour wait four our table.  They forgot about us, over booked large parties, poor communication between staff etc etc. Even though they profusely apologized during our meal and gave us part of our meal for free, we were not impressed.  If someone does one thing wrong to you, that someone needs to do 10 good things back to make it up, psychologically true fact.  Hence we've never been back.

Local Octopus Salad, charred bread, scarola, red wine vinegar

But this is a completely different restaurant, therefore we will not let our past experience hinder our judgement.  And now that we have a little one, our dinner time is 5:30pm, most people are not even off work yet, so we never need to wait for a table anymore.

Rigatoni, Fennel Seed Sausage, Walla Walla Onion, Ricotta

 We were their first patrons of the evening, got to pick our seat.  They didn't have highchairs or boosters, so there wasn't much choice but the bench, a place for Castle to plop.  (Minus 1 for no highchair.)

Pizza Funghi - chanterelles, zucchini, fontina, roasted garlic cloves

 My favourite of the meal was the Funghi Pizza, which doesn't look that great in the picture, but do not let that fool you.  The combo of ingredients was smashingly exciting in my mouth, and the fennel seed spicy sauce that it came with on the side was awesome.  I may come back just for this pizza, hopefully it's a permanent item on the specials board.

Pizza Margherita - fior di latte, tomato sauce, basil

 The ceiling is covered in a variation of wood planks at different thicknesses.  Fun.

All in all it was a good place for pizza, but that's about it for me.  I'm not one to go out for Italian food, because it is so easy, quick and inexpensive to make at home, especially pasta. I can't justify paying 10 times the cost for a little bowl.

One more photo from the Vancouver Aquarium before I sign off, these two are holding hands while sleeping.  So adorable!!!

Before and After, for now

Take a guess.

This is the before:

Boring pendent!

This is the after:

Fun pendent!  

We are now dining under a cloud.  Dirt cheap from Ikea, this is our temporary lighting solution before we want to afford one of these beauties.

You can get up close to examine them here. 

I finally understand now why most before photos of 'Before and After's look so blurry and poor in quality.  I did not intend to do a 'Before and After' with this new lamp, but seeing it installed, I had to share because it's so much fun.  I went digging in my history of folders for a before photo.  And that terribly crocked one taken on my iPhone was unfortunately the best of them.  Now you know.