Corner of the Block

After work we usually go for a stroll to get some fresh air and pick flowers.
Heres a few pictures of some of the different stuff around our block that I love..

This is my favourite tree, it reminds me of the grim reaper..

Mistletoe



Tulips grow everywhere here, in peoples gardens and wild like daffodils

The neighbours umbrella tree

And a few days ago just as we turned into the back alleyway on our way home from our walk we heard these guys chatting in the big tree next door. There was ply wood left up there probably from an old treehouse that they were lying on and had turned into their home







Crochet Scarfs

During winter I decided to pass some time crocheting the kids some animal scarfs. Well I have finished two so far, and they are on their way to New Zealand to their new owners..just in time for their winter...

This is the Raccoon scarf for Benka:

And this is the fox scarf for Lily:

I got the awesome pattern for these guys off Etsy from beeskneesknitting.etsy.com

Antique Weekend - Fort Langley

Saturday we went out to this cute little village on the river called Fort Langley, which was a main trading post back in the days for the Hudson Bay Company. It was a nice little place with all old style buildlings, a bridge across the river, the train running through and full of cafes and antique stores

There was one massive antique mall full of goodies, I could have bought many things but restrained myself...I might still go back to buy a couple of goodies I keep thinking about ;-)

It had a crazy amount of stuff but it was all set up so well in little stalls, some even looked like rooms and houses 

These were some of my favourites...yes I'm still mad about my porcelain dogs...

I was dying to take this home, it was from another antique store in Fort Langley that was much more expensive than the antique mall

We also had a wander down to the river



On the way out I found a thrift store and this was my best buy of the day, for under $10 too, so I was happy with that

Then Sunday we went to the Vancouver Flea Market in the city

We have been there before but I found a clock the first time we went that I couldn't stop thinking about so we decided to go back and buy it. It was $20 which I thought was pretty good...it will fit in well when I get back to NZ one day with all my other quirky house stuff

Greater Vancouver Zoo

Easter Sunday we spent the day at the zoo, it was perfect spring weather for it..

As we walked in Brendon made a friend with Hagrid - a great horned owl. He was very suss about me, wearing my fur vest (it's fake), which freaked me out a bit but he was pretty choice

A lot of the animals are the same as the Auckland Zoo, but they had one section that was North American animals;

American Eagle

Arctic Wolf

Moose

(free moose rides)

Barn Owl

Raccoon

And Shadow the bear

When we first walked by she wasn't there and I was gutted because I was so excited to see a bear, so when we decided to quickly check as we walked back and she was out it was awesome! 

She was eating her apple in her watering hole, it was so stable resting on the back of her paw while she took bites...

Ahhh such a tourist...

We made friends with this really cute fella, I'm not even sure what he/she is but we liked him/her..

Road Trip to Whistler

This weekend we went for a road trip to the ski town, Whistler. Its a two hour drive from Vancouver following a river inlet most of the way which made for a really nice drive. We made a couple of stops on the way to check out some scenery.

This was Porteau Cove...obviously

And we stopped at Shannon Falls

I love this tree I found at Shannon Falls, it looked like green velvet

This was our first view pulling into Whistler, its a smaller area just before the main village called Whistler Creek

The actual village in Whistler at the bottom of the mountains was so cute and styley

And of course I found some funny statues

At the little river down from our hostel I found this awesome handrail covered in crochet

Heres some views from the top of the main ski mountain

And from there we did the peak-to-peak gondola over a canyon to the other big ski mountain, the trees didn't come out so great in the picture but they all looked like they had been sprinked with icing sugar

That faint line running through the clouds is the peak-to-peak gondola

So...most people go to Whistler to ski or snowboard...I do neither of those. BUT instead we went tubing which was frikkin fun (I think we were the only adults there without kids though haha)



On our trip home we took the long way, travelling six hours inland and around in a big loop. The trip from Whistler up through Pemberton to Lillooet felt like we were driving through the North Pole to see Santa, we just kept buzzing about the views...it was hard to capture them in the car on the highway but this stretch of road went for about an hour or two in the middle of nowhere driving through the mountains covered in snow

We stumbled across this amazing lake, called Seton Lake, and the water was so incredibly turquoise, it was like being inside a postcard

This train driver has a pretty sweet job, we meet up with this train across the tracks quite a few times on our trip (yea we were being slow tourists) and he gets to see some pretty amazing views during his day at work

We were lucky to see some wild life on our way, which I was pleased about because for the majority of our trip we didn't see much. We were actually laughing not long before seeing these guys that the 'beware of deer' symbol may be the only deer we would see all weekend

From Lytton down to Hope we followed the Fraser Canyon, which was huge. It was such a change from the snow coming up to the highest point in Lillooet, the Fraser Canyon was much dryer winding with the river and through awesome tunnels like James Bond. It was actually so desert-like we saw tumble weeds

Just before Hope we pulled over and found this lake, actually called Lake of the Woods

Then on the last part of the trip from Hope back to Vancouver it was pretty standard highway, but we did manage to find this goodie