Fall Roots

I smelled it in the air for the first time last week. Fall. It smells different, you know. Just as spring has it's own scent of newness and freshness, so fall has its own. That awareness that Fall was really here scared me. I'm not deluded. I know that the last month has been a little bit of heaven on earth. An extended vacation of sorts. No deadlines, no schedules, no expectations, no pressure - just seeing and touching and exploring. All the while, I knew that reality was looming around the corner. Fall. It is here.

Today Hannah and Ellie went to school for one hour in the morning, and tomorrow they begin in earnest. Sasha will begin on Monday. As we walked to school this morning and admired the band of clouds wrapped around the mountain peaks we talked and squeezed hands and compared the flutter-meters of the butterflies in our tummies. They walked into the school, were greeted with the other new students by the principal and were taken to some classrooms.

As I watched them, I was amazed. Amazed at their peaceful dispositions. At their willingness to enter the unknown with such trust. At their ability to be courageous in such a vulnerable place. At the cost they are paying for this year away - probably more than anyone in our family. At their capacity to embrace this experience as something more than just a challenge. They simply amazed me.

Oh, I know there will be difficult days ahead. Questions and queries. Tears and anger. Sadness and loneliness. It's coming - I know - because it always does when you do something that's really hard. But that's when you grow, I'll tell them. That's when the roots go down and you become strong. I'll say this as much to myself as to them.

Fall is hard for me. I don't do well under pressure. I love routine, but I crack and feel the heavy weight of having to "be somewhere, with something, wearing something else, and don't be late and display a smile and be happy dammit." That's what life feels like sometimes. Running. Sometimes in circles and sometimes straight ahead. Mostly what I want to do is crawl under my quilt with a book and sleep the expectations away. Sometimes I do.

And I think that that is why the last month has been richer for me than for most. It was exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it. A retreat in the middle of a full life. My challenge now, is to take that retreat into my everyday, especially when my dark, difficult times come. "Because that's when you grow", I'll tell myself. "That's when the roots go down and you become strong." I am saying this to me, now. I am trying to listen.

Slug Trail

Nearby Burnaby Mountain is home to Simon Fraser University, "Playground of the Gods", and a network of awesome multi-purpose trails. Multi-purpose means that both hiking and biking are permitted, which can lead to some close calls. But I'm getting ahead of myself. It seems that Burnaby Mountain is also home to an animal that is often disparaged as being "disgusting" or "gross". I'm talking about the humble slug. In Manitoba, slugs are typically the size of a peanut - at least the slugs that I've seen. But here. Oh my. They're gi-normous! I mean check these suckers out!

They're not only huge, they're also plentiful. On one section of the trail we did the other day we must have spotted at least 5o of them. For some reason, seeing one on its own didn't really bother Karla too much, but seeing a group of three slimy slugs would freak her out.

Here we are at the start of the trail.

Everyone's happy right? I mean we're hiking a relatively easy trail (actually, it was rated intermediate) spotting slugs here and there. Life is good.

We're seeing cool mushrooms (or "shroomies" as Ellie calls them) . . .

Then I decided we should try a trail we had never done before - still an intermediate trail, but one that would take us up the mountain a bit higher. I didn't realize exactly how much higher it would end up taking us. Nor, subsequently, how much longer it would take us to close the loop. It was starting to get dark and I guessimated we still had at least 20 minutes left to go. I also knew that we had to take a small section of trail that was rated "advanced". Now, I had never been on an advanced trail before, so I didn't know what that would mean exactly. But I knew enough to know that taking an advanced trail was best done with plenty of light, particularly if you're hiking newbies and three of them are kids (the youngest of which is just starting kindergarten). The good thing (at least I thought it was a good thing) was that I knew the section had to be downhill. I mean, how hard can going downhill be, right? Well, it can be dang hard when it's this dark:

Of course it's not that dark out in the open, but with all the tall trees (stupid trees!), there wasn't much light at ground level on the trail. The girls were slipping on the loose rocks like crazy. Sasha seemed to be having fun despite the difficult terrain and lack of light, but Hannah was having a pretty hard time, mostly because she has a sore ankle. Hannah also wasn't wearing her glasses - she kept saying "it's dark for you guys, but it's dark AND blurry for me". Sasha's fun turned into shear terror when we suddenly heard a mountain biker come barrelling down the trail we were on. The trail was so steep that I knew he would have a lot of trouble slowing down, never mind stopping. So I yelled "look out" really loud so he would hear me and hopefully be able to stop before crashing into Karla who was bringing up the rear. He managed to stop just in time, but appeared to do some damage to his wrist in the process of careening off the edge of the trail to avoid a collision. I'm sure Sasha was scared more by my yelling than anything else, but hearing the terror in her voice ("Dad-DEEEE!!!!") was not a nice feeling. Needless to say, we'll be sticking to intermediate and easy trails from now on, especially if there's any chance it's going to be getting dark when we're out there.

This last picture was taken in a clearing just after emerging from the advanced trail.

Sasha's Best Night in Vancouver

You know how you sometimes have these grand plans for times in your life? Like birthdays or holidays or long-weekends? Well I compose grand plans in my mind quite often. This weekend was one of them....

This was to be our last weekend of summer and we were planning to do it up good. Then, Thursday night while preparing dinner for some house-guests, our kitchen sink went kooky and clogged. Mike's a pretty smart one when it comes to things like this. However, when limited with no plumber's snake in sight, we plunged our freaking triceps off to no avail. It was time to call in the landlord. The landlord set us up with a plumber who's grasp of the English language is quite limited - if we needed our landlord to translate, we were to phone him. You get the idea.

So, our Friday night began much later than anticipated with a still-clogged sink, hungry tummies, and still waiting for a definitive answer to when the plumber would come by. We decided that we'd go off in search of some grub and make the best of what night we had left of the last long-weekend of the summer. Off to North Vancouver and one of our favorite places, Lonsdale Quay.

We arrived at the Quay and expected a bustling, party atmosphere. Remember, this is the Friday night of the last hurrah of summer, people. We walk through the doors to the market and are greeted with silence and the sight of vendors putting tarps over their CLOSED kiosks. Apparently the market closes at 7 on Fridays. We had to quickly abandon our plans for eating a little of this and some of that from the large variety of vendors at the market. It was getting late, and we needed to feed the girls!

Usually we avoid chain restaurants whenever we can, preferring quirky unique mom and pop restaurants. But times were desperate, and when the neon sign for "East Side Mario's" called up to us from the top level of the Quay Market we were over our restaurant philosophy. We marched up the stairs, jumped over a barricade, and were greeted by a very large Italian man who appeared to be the host. This guy looked and sounded like he was a regular on "The Sopranos". I loved him immediately. After telling him we were new in town and from Winnipeg he began talking about a fellow student he knew from the 'Peg...."but she's got issues - up on human trafficking or something bad". He had me at "she's got issues" the favorite catch-phrase of my beloved friend, Heather. But I digress.

We continued our conversation with the "host". He just so happens to live in Burnaby too, he told us - just moved here a year ago. Before we knew it, he suggested we all get together at his place so our kids can play together - and he handed Mike his business card with the most classic Italian mobster name - Antonio Simoes. His business card said he's a divorce lawyer - but he quickly pointed out that he hasn't practiced in a year - he actually owns the restaurant. It was a perfect exchange - the kind that comes out of nowhere and leaves you feeling good. We're going to phone Antonio and set something up. If we start buying concrete in bulk or running out of trunk space, you know we got in too deep.

We had the most wonderful dinner at East Side Mario's. Completely unexpected delicious food and great conversation. From the dining room you can walk up the spiral staircase to the observation tower at the Quay. We took several trips up to the top during dinner to be amazed at the most glorious sunset. After dinner we went out to the pier and the girls played at the fountain and danced their hearts out.

On the way home, Sasha remarked that we had just experienced her "best night in Vancouver". Best. Night. We didn't do anything grandiose or spectacular. We were together. The food was good, her tummy was full, we laughed and talked. This is all a five-year-old needs. It's all I really need too. What are the words to that Raffi song? "All I really need is a song in my heart. Food in my belly. Love in my family". You got it right, Raffi. And nights like that just need a slideshow to do them justice....

Here's the link in case you can't see it here for some reason:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE9vAIkkMGE

Movie in the Park

That's right folks! It's the 3rd annual Movie in the Park sponsored by none other than . . . Chevron! It's an inexpensive public relations event put on at Confederation Park, I'm sure, as an attempt to appease residents of North Burnaby so they'll put up with the leaking of hydrocarbons, spewing of carbon emissions, and reverberating noise from pumps at the neighbourhood refinery.

Come on kids! Step right up and spin the wheel for your chance to win a cheap, petroleum-based plastic toy made in China, which will hold your attention for less than 5 minutes, after which you'll throw it in the garbage so that it can rot (or rather, not rot) in a landfill for the next thousand years or so.

Oh, I almost forgot about the hundreds of blue and red petroleum-based plastic glow sticks filled with toxic chemicals that were handed out to all the kids so that Chevron's corporate colours could be waved gleefully back and forth for a few seconds at sundown, after which they will also spend the next thousand years in a landfill.

Okay, now that my cynicism is out there, let's turn to the positives. The girls had fun - lots of fun. There were a couple of caricature artists there, so we stood in line for the hour-long wait for our chance to have the girls drawn as cartoon characters. We found out that our artist was originally from Winnipeg.

Almost time for the movie, so it's time to grab our seats for the show . . . "How to Train Your Dragon".

A good time was had by all. Thanks Chevron.

Lynn Canyon Remix

Yes, we went back to Lynn Canyon Park, and YES we walked across the Suspension Bridge again.  But this time it was just the PennerFive and we thought with speedy legs and fewer bodies in tow we could try some of the more challenging trails at the Park.   So off we went...

Dark seems to be coming more quickly here as it is everywhere these days.  So we hoofed it across the bridge and climbed what seemed to be a million stairs to get to the trail we wanted which would take us towards the "Twin Falls".  It was a quiet night in the park - it felt like we were the only ones out on the trails.


As we rounded a corner we saw another group approaching us.   As they got closer they began to look strangely familiar.   As their faces came into clear view we recognized them as old friends from Winnipeg!  She was in my Certification group in my last year of Education at U of M, and he was a colleague of mine at a school for a year or so.  We even attended the same church at one time.  We'd heard through the grapevine that they had moved to North Vancouver a few years ago.


They were surprised to see us and asked us what we were doing in Vancouver to which we replied "we live here now"!  After sharing a laugh, catching up, and introducing our kids we planned to try to meet up again and continued on our hike.  What are the chances of being on that trail, in that park, at the same time, on the same day?   Crazy.

Goodbye to the Toderash's at Kits Beach

Last Friday was our farewell to the Toderash's. They had been staying with friends in Langley for the week after they left our place, so it was good to catch up before saying goodbye. We met up at Kits Beach and walked along the seawall, then up to West 4th Avenue to check out the sights in Kitsilano. It was a gorgeous night. We ended the night with Gelato at our favourite Gelato shoppe, Cafe Dolce Nonna on East Hastings. Goodbye Toderash's!

Hannah and the Toderash's oldest daughter, Beth, are especially close and we knew this was a special night for them before they would part ways for the year.

We loved this humongous piece of driftwood. The girls climbed on it and looked out into the ocean. It actually looked like it had become petrified.

Canvas Creation

On a cool, rainy Sunday in August - shortly after we'd arrived - we began the process of finding a way to make our memories and adventures in B.C. last...

As we were driving here, I had the idea of each of us creating a canvas which would be a lasting symbol of each of our years on the Coast. I wanted each canvas to be a representation of what "happened" not only physically - but with our thoughts, spirits, outlooks, and dreams.

My vision was for each of us to paint a canvas and then alter it with attaching things, words, pictures, or whatever else we could think of. (As a side note - if there is an excuse for me to open a jar of Mod Podge, I'll take it. I'm a fan.)

The girls and Mike gravitated quickly to the vision and began to paint their canvasses.

Each one was so different. I love watching my girls create - but even more, I love hearing them talk about why they did what they did. We've had some practice with this. A year or two ago, our house church did a series on the Arts and we dabbled and played with many mediums during that season. That was a rich time for our family.

Kids aren't afraid to begin like big people are. They jump in. They abandon themselves to the cause and weigh the consequences later. I want to be more like that.

Here are our beginnings....

Sasha

Ellie

Hannah

Mike

Karla

As we're out exploring, I'll often hear the girls speak of their canvasses. They are always looking for the perfect thing to add. We've already had one session of altering our canvasses, and there will be many more. We'll keep you posted on the progression.

As they hang in our dining room, they remind us how much room there is for new things to be added to who we are.

They remind us that we were made to be creative.

They remind us that we are in the middle of experiencing a great gift.