Scenes from today

My husband had a day off today as he has been working on some weekends lately. The weather was nice so we decided to drive to the beach again to enjoy the sun. We have been very lucky for the last few weeks that this great stretch of weather is still staying with us.

The water was so calm and the place was empty. We had the whole beach to ourselves to explore. A blue heron was in the water trying to catch his afternoon snack. We were all sitting on a log, watching the endless view of the mountains and the water. It was pretty nice.

On our way home, we stopped at the market to pick up some vegetables for dinner. At the entrance, there was something that made me smile. The Laughing Buddha and the bright orange Chinese/Japanese Lantern. They were just so perfect together!

Smart Meter

When I came home yesterday afternoon, I noticed something was hanging at the front door knob. It was a notice from BC Hydro saying "Save Money using a Smart Meter!" Yes, they installed the Smart Meter while I was out, without our permission!

As you may know, there are many groups of people protesting the instillation of the Smart Meters. Their main concern is the wireless radiation from the meter will increase our risks of illness. Secondly it will submit our use of the electricity and personal info to BC Hydro using wireless signals = raises privacy and security concerns....

zzz....zzz...

So, what to do?

There are high levels of radiation exist already wherever we go, even in the house, Wi-Fi, cordless phones, cell phones, etc.. So now we have additional radiation now.

I guess at this point, we just need to protect ourselves. I.E., don't sleep in the room where the Smart Meter was installed, use a ear-phone when we talk on the cell phone, hold the cell phone away from your head/ear, etc... I heard some cactus plants can help absorbing radiation from the computer... ?

I bet some Japanese inventors will have some great ideas. I will research and share it next time.

The other day I met a bear

It was a beautiful day ☀　Snoop and I decided to go for a long walk in the woods. We usually walk 1.5 to 2 hours, so we were both ready for this long one.

As soon as we got to the trail head, I noticed a white piece of paper on the information board. "Bear Sighting. Keep your dog on a leash". People left the date & time when they saw the bear. The last one was... about one hour ago.

...hhhhmmmm....

Snoop looked up and asked, "Hey Mom, what are you doing?". The trail seems so nice with the beautiful green leaves, nice breeze and sun shining through the trees... How can I say no to this?

OK, I will go for a bit. Without carrying a bear bell, I started singing a song loud. The first one that came out was..."The other day I met a bear" in Japanese! .... That's probably not an appropriate one...

BTW, do you know this song "The other day I met a bear"? Any Japanese person knows this as we learn it when we are kids. I remember it was originally in English, so I was curious to check it out. I was so shocked to find the facts... If you don't know the song, here is the song by Barenaked Ladies. (You can skip the advertisement)

It's shockingly different in Japanese... there is no Gun! It's a song for kids, so we don't say Gun. Guns are not popular in Japan. Anyway, in the Japanese version, a girl meets a bear in the woods, he tells the girl to run away (doesn't say why in the lyrics), but the bear keeps running after her because he picked up a pair of white sea-shell earrings that the girl dropped, and they sing and dance together in a happy ending... I was laughing hard when I found out the English lyrics!

Anyway, to go back to my story today, I didn't meet the bear, but when I found a very fresh bear poop with lots of berries, I decided to turn around and go back ... I don't carry a gun!

He might be dreaming about the bear.... zzz....zzz...

Last Summer Day (?)

We learned today is our last day of summer... :-(This last stretch of Summer lasted about a week but it is supposed to end today and temperatures will drop to about 20. We decided to go back to the beach to enjoy the last sunny warm day.

Snoop of course came along and enjoyed a variety of different walks...on the beach, in the forest and to the field! You are one lucky dog!

End of summer?

It's still August, but when we woke up this morning our fireplace was on...! The thermostat is set to turn it on when the house goes below 18C... End of summer? It was a bit of a sad morning...

I'm back

After a month of absence, I'm back.

I came back from Japan with my parents at the end of June, and we travelled to Victoria, Seattle, Vancouver and to the Rockies in a month. My parents really enjoyed everywhere we travelled, specially Victoria, but their favourite place was our backyard, just sitting on the chairs, relaxing, looking at the trees around and playing with Snoop. They enjoyed the trip very much and said they want to come back next summer again. I'm sure they will come back.

So, in one month, our vegetable garden has over grown, everything is getting so much bigger, including the zucchini plants. We had our first early tomatoes harvest a few days ago and they were actually really good. We have been eating salad everyday from the garden and we can't keep up with the amount of lettuce leaves coming out.

Snoop has been a bit stressed out for a while as I was away many days. But I think he is also back to normal and happy to have me around again.

Hummingbird

We have had our hummingbird feeder up for a week. I was supposed to have a shot of a bird by now but I haven't had a chance to catch the right moment!

For a week, I was wondering why no birds came to drink the nectar..., and I learned that they don't like that packaged nectar that came with the feeder! Picky birds!

This morning I made my own nectar and I spotted the first bird hanging around the feeder for a while and he drank it! Yay! As they are such fast flying birds, it's so hard to take a shot of them. I will keep trying...

Singing is great!

Japanese wives in my town started a choir group this January. This is the first report from Jan. 28. We have been getting together to practice once a month since then.

Last Sunday, we had our first performance at the Anglican Church in town. There were about 10 other performers and we were the last one to be on the stage. We were hoping to sing Japanese songs translated to English, but with this short time period, we were unable to practice that much. So we explained the meaning of the songs and then sang four Japanese songs total.

We got a standing ovation! Everyone commented on how beautiful the harmony was. We are booked to perform this summer in the one of the festivals and at the Christmas concert. We will be busy!

A shot from the rehearsal

Perfect Wedding Day

Gorgeous Saturday!

On this perfect day, our friends Shannon and Geoff got married on the beach. Beautiful calm ocean, snow capped mountains in the background, tasty food, great music by Shannon's daughter and friend and everyone was happy and enjoyed the event. All the best!

Garage Drywall

Mrs. A, here is the answer to your other question... the garage insulation and drywall.

We started to put up the drywall last weekend, and we are almost done. All the drywall is in, we just need to tape/seal it together to finish it. It has been a lot of work and the materials were heavy. But it looks much nicer inside the garage, so we are happy we have almost completed the project.  Here is a pic of the progress from the start till now.

 

Mrs. A also sent us a message yesterday about the Super Moon tonight. At 8:35pm pacific it is the best time to view the moon according to the news. It will be the brightest and biggest moon of the year.

...I hoped to put up a picture of the Super Moon, but it was too cloudy here... Did you see the moon in your area?

Welcome!

Our new family member!

Big Storm!

Just wanted to let you know that we survived the latest big storm.

Wind gusts up to 130km/hr took down trees and power lines all over town...
It also took part of our roof ... again... but a lot more damage this time with shingles flying all over the yard and into the dog park next door.  We called the insurance company, but they are busy with other houses which have bigger problems than us. Hopefully someone can come and check out our roof in a few days.

We lost power at 5am and it just came back after 8:00 this evening. But somehow we managed to eat well :)

Anyway, just wanted to write a quick note saying we are fine.

The usual walking path after the storm...

Hydro cables are down due to many fallen trees all over town

Salmon Capital of the World

My town on Vancouver Island is also known as the "Salmon Capital of the World". In the summer time, I see many people go down to the river in their shorts and sandals with fishing gear. They stand in the river and fish... and catch salmon, that easy! Young kids stand by their parents with a stick on their hands...and wait for the fish to come on the shore... and then smack, smack, smack them with a stick! Tough kids!

We have some fisherman friends and they sometime share their catch with us. We are so lucky to know them! One of our friends works as a fishing guide. When he returns from the fishing trips, not everyone takes their catch, so he keeps the salmon. We have several cans of salmon sitting in the pantry, so I decided to use them for dinner tonight, making fish cakes.

We also have about 3 dozen freshly canned cans of salmon from another friend. Didn't know but found out we have to wait at least one year before we eat these as the bones are still hard. So, anyone who wants a nice salmon sandwich has to wait for a while.

Olympic Memories

There was a news story about London floating the Olympic rings up the river Thames to mark 150 days to go until the start of the summer Olympics. This of course reminded me of the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. Yes, it was a winter Olympics and it was very different from London's summer event, but as a Vancouverite at that time, it was very special.   

My husband and I used to rent a condo in downtown Vancouver. It was in the middle of the all the action, I remember the city was just crazy for those two weeks. We were able to see the torch marathon from our living room, the fireworks at BC place from our kitchen window, walked a few blocks to mingle with thousands of strangers from all over the world to experience the excitement! I must say we had some loud nights, specially the night of the Men's Hockey game for the Gold medal. We were on Robson Street where everyone came to see the game on the huge screen, or any screen they could find. That was a great memory. Overall, we all enjoyed being in the moment and being a part of this big event in history.

I was just thinking.. it was almost two years ago. We moved to Vancouver Island right after the 2010 Winter Olympics. We didn't have Snoop at that time. We had a 600 sqf, one bedroom apartment. Life was so different. My husband said a few days ago he misses some of the good parts of Vancouver, and I agree. But we both know we love our lifestyle now and we don't regret our decision to leave Vancouver. The best part? We found Snoop on the Island :)

English Bay: Mild February in 2010 - we loved it but worried about lack of snow for the Olympics

Robson Square: Crazy Party Every Night with thousands of people!

Sunny Sunday

Cold but beautiful day!

Early morning mountain view from the dog park, just behind our house

Blue sky, White fluffy dog :)

Choir Group

Another stormy day... We are getting tired of this kind of weather, even Snoop. He can't move forward in this strong wind and his walks have been very short ones lately. Sorry buddy, it's not fun :(

Today was the first day of our choir practice. There are about 15 Japanese wives living in this small town, and we decided to get together once a month to sing some Japanese songs. We have several songs we are practicing and hoping to debut at a local cafe sometime this year! Maybe? Need to come up with a group name first!

A total of 12 Japanese ladies came to my place today and we had a great afternoon of singing. It's a nice stress release!

Forgot to take a picture of us, so I will post a picture of today's Snoop.

Snow Day!

We probably had about 5cm of snow today. It started early morning and kept coming all day. Lucky, my husband got a ride from his co-worker, so he didn't have to drive the little Honda. It has now changed to rain, and the news is warming of possible flooding as the temperature rises.

Snoop enjoyed the day skipping and sniffing in the snow, but he realized he spent too much time outside? He started to sneeze a lot later in the day. He is now cuddled in the blanket and resting...

I spent some time shovelling snow. I had never owned a snow shovel before because we lived in a condo in downtown Vancouver. So, I purchased my first snow shovel at the end of last winter. It is much better than using a dust-pan!

It's Friday!

Snoop: Hurry up and take the picture Mom, I'm cold!