Ken's 100th Birthday

We had the most wonderful day with our relatives to celebrate our beloved Uncle Ken.

                    Here's Tobin and Marika with Freya.

                         Peter, Wallachs and Chris.

             Christine and Ron

Another Birthday Celebration.

Noreen and Claude arranged a belated party for me at the Derby. Thank you both.

                          
We have such great neighbours and friends and appreciate them so much.

                                We ended with a nightcap by
their fire-pit.

46 Random Acts of Kindness

 I phoned Suzanne to wish her Happy Birthday and she and family were running around town doing 46 acts of kindness to celebrate her birthday. They had a lot of fun and amazed a lot of people.

We went down to Peach Arch Park at the Border to enjoy an Art Show with Point Roberts in the distance. 

Today was our yearly happy hour with Clarks and Agnes and Hans. Trying to get us together is always a challenge with the latter driving long haul trucks.

Riding the Interurban Railway

Jan and I went to Cloverdale Station to see the original trains my mom used to ride way back in the 20s and 30s. The mission of the Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Assn. is to restore and to operate heritage interurban cars on the original BC Electric Railway Route through Surrey and the Fraser Valley to link heritage tourism destinations.We got to ride the 1225, built by the St. Louis Car Co. in 1913. There were 28 identical cars ordered, 51 ' long,69,700 lbs with a capacity for 60 passengers. They could travel up to 55 mph.

 When we went East, the train worker had to get off and throw the switch to move the tracks for us to go through. We then went back the other way heading west to Sullivan Station but first had to stop traffic 3 times including Hwy 10, a 4 lane major road while we puddled along and a dirt track at some farmers field.

This 4.7 mile (7.4 km) trip was delightful, seeing the back of farms, beautiful quiet countryside,
 crossing the Serpentine River only about 10' at that spot and viewing the restored original car. 
Shoes at Woodwards were only $7.45

We had a ride on the speeder and toured the restoration area of the Cloverdale car barn. We had ridden the 1225 all restored to its former glory with 20,000 volunteer hours. It was the last run before the system was decommissioned Feb. 28, 1958.

                      We had a great time.
They have built a car barn where they are refurbishing another train.

Michael Buble

My great friend Jan treated me to this concert for a birthday present. It was a delightful evening. We went over the Cambie Bridge and just like rock stars pulled into a street parking space available at 7 pm and only paid $6 for the nights parking. The Rogers Arena ended up packed.

There was a 7 piece warm up band for the first half hour and they were great, then Michael came on.

He truly has an amazing voice and was glad to sell out to his home town crowd. All his friends and family were there, even the fellow from his corner store as a kid. He thanked them all and his fans for making him what he is today and his amazing life.He sang at our end of the arena and ended with pink and white hearts raining down on us.

                                                    thank you Jan.

'Football' - World Cup Soccer

To say that Ron is glued to the TV would be an exaggeration but he is so enjoying all the games.
When I turned my computer on last week, this was Google's picture with a soccer ball being kicked from left to right by the 'eagles'? dressed in the countries colors.

 Here is the next . A soccer ball is being kicked against the apartment wall and bounced back again on this roof top.

                       This one shows the large g  kicking ( dribbling) the ball side to side.

Now they get really creative. There was a soccer ball at the right, which flies up to the blue 'g' ( an announcer with a mike) hits him and his glasses fly off his face, flip up in the air and fall onto the face of the yellow O to the left, and blue\s mike falls to the ground. You can nearly 'see' the shock on his face.

Needless to say, I look forward to turning on my computer every morning.

This was probably my favourite. Everybody is working hard as the boss walked by and click, here;s the game again.

Father's Day

Ron and I celebrated his last week with a Sunday Brunch and going to the car show.
This dad got a fishing rod and all the gear for casting from the shore.

Lexi and I went to a show at the local Art Gallery. There was an amazing exhibit by Hiroshi Shimazaki, a  man who has studied and taught around the world and now lives here. The paintings were all watercolors from 45 cities around the world. This was a man playing a flute on a boat sailing in Indonesia.

We enjoyed dinner with friends overlooking the ocean.

We finished our visit Monday with a hike to Secret Beach after dinner. We go to about 9 different beaches within 10 minutes from the house. Lovely.

Gymnastics Performance

Had a great time at the show. It's amazing how well trained and behave these small kids are.

They performed on every piece of equipment they had. Trey now does back and forward somersaults but they were to quick to catch.

Everyone earned a medal for their hard work and improvement. The teachers are very well qualified and it shows.

Beautiful Marina

We took our young guy for his rehearsal and had dinner at the Dock pub. Busy place, 6 float planes came and went while we were there.

Picked up some Fettuccine Alfredo at the Old Boot cafe.

Love the consideration for Italians.

Monthly Trip across the water

On the Canada Line (skytrain) from Richmond to Vancouver Center, the stop is at the front door of a new condo being built at Marine Dr. How handy is that?

I counted.  50 % of the passengers are on their screens not even enjoying the view and the population is spit
50/50 from Caucasians and many other nationalities. Amazing change since Expo 86.
As we were coming home from the kids school, we stopped for the smallest baby deer I've seen there, still had spots like Bambi.

As usual, George (Gibson) was dressed for the season, beginning of summer and boating .

Remembering the Rumble Seat

That's what it was called. An 1899 dictionary describes it as," a seat for servants in the rear of a carriage".
Peter and I got to ride in it in our 1948 Ford on a short drive around Crescent Beach.
This local girl was my favourite, she's always loved trucks. She found her 1929 one and her pink boots on eBay and is having a ball.

This bright yellow sticker on the left windshield gave the driver the right to buy 4 gallons of gas during WWII.
This 1956 Chev was like the one Lenny and I drove for our wedding in 1962.

Then the band started up and some cars started their engines to leave and it was LOUD - I thought I was right back in the 60's or on the set of Grease. It was great.

The Glades, A Woodland Garden

Kathy and I enjoyed a stroll through these 5 acres of 1600 mature rhododendrons and companion plants.

                    There are several water features with 4 ponds and 2 waterfalls.

                      This one has Hebe, the Goddess of Youth, pale white in the shrubs.

                          There are waterlilies in bloom and a lonely duckling ( one of twelve) sunning beside the Reflection Pond.in the front lawn. Her mother was in the main large pond created by the original owners.

We passed the Rhododendron Rex, the dinosaur of the species with leaves up to a foot and a half in length.

Then we saw this one which we had never seen before. It has tiny individual flowers with a surprise of the bell shaped one in the middle. 

New to us.

Happy Birthdays

We celebrated Hilda and Charlie's birthdays and added Paul and Bill as well.

We'd celebrated Gaston's at the Tudor last week while Malcolm embellished his card.

             so enjoyed this in the sunshine.

We are so lucky to have such great friends and neighbours.