Tag: BBQ

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Sep 25 to Sep 26 2021: Vancouver, BC – Walking Alpacas!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Saturday 25 September 2021

On Saturday, Curtis was up at a good time to go and get a haircut. He had a really great barber, actually! She was new at the shop but she was very nice and did a great job. Curtis’ll definately be going back to her for his next cut.

Right after that, Curtis walked back home and met Kim, before we walked for about 30 minutes to get to a park for a BBQ with Curtis’ hockey team which the team organised!

Not too many people turned up, but it was nice to have a bit of down time in the blistering sun, eat some food and have some drinks.

We headed back home and Kim went out to get a few items at some stores and Curtis watched the first Leafs pre season game!

Sunday 26 September 2021

On Sunday morning, we were up early and got ourselves some croissants for breakfast.

We left the apartment into the lovely rain and drove for about an hour up to Langley to a farm!

Kim had booked an alpaca walking experience for us both as Curtis’ favourite animal is the alpaca.

We got there and were handed an alpaca right away. We were able to walk them for a bit and then we got to a field where we met many more alpacas and got to feed them whilst we learned all about them.

We got to see the pigs, chickens & rabbits followed by some cows that came to say hello!

We headed back home after we were there for a while and once we got back we were pretty hungry, so we went out for an impromptu late lunch!

We went to Water St Cafe, which is down in Gastown.

We may have got far too much food, though on the plus side, we had dinner for the next night!

We got some mixed breads along with a cheese caprise, which was very delicious. The bread was really good too.

We finished that and for some reason, we order a meal each. Kim got a carbonara and Curtis got meatball pasta.

We had very little of our meals as it was a little too much for us! But we did have a few drinks which were delicious.

We walked back home in the rain and when we got home we did some relaxing for the remainder of the evening.

All in all, a fun, busy weekend!

Mr And Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 987: Vancouver, BC – Korean BBQ Lunch

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up and felt very well rested, which was great.

We had some breakfast which was just ‘stuff’ cobbled together. We had cookies leftover from dinner last night (which were free), some cake and some fruit, as well as juice and Curtis had a coffee.

We got ourselves ready and then we chatted with Kim’s parents for a bit.

After that, Kim went out to meet some people for work for lunch! The plan was to have an outdoor gathering, but that was cancelled due to rain, so she met them for food instead.

The food was just okay, but she had a really good time hanging out with them for quite a while! She also had some tiramisu pancakes which were good.

Once Kim got back home, we just did some laying down and relaxing for a while. We eventually got ourselves up and made some quick, easy dinner. We needed to use the mushrooms we bought, so we had those with some other things.

We watched some TV and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 357: Vancouver, BC – A BBQ, With People!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Breakfast

We slept in for a while, until around 11:30, and then lazily got up and had some breakfast, which was grilled cheese.

Returning Clothes

Kim went to Burnaby to return some clothes at a shop or two and also to buy a few items.

Kim got herself some new earrings that she had been looking for, too.

Curtis stayed home and played games for the afternoon and evening.

BBQ

Kim went to a BBQ which her friend invited her to at her house.

She really enjoyed herself, and there were quite a few people there but they were all in a bubble, so Kim stayed distanced as much as possible, but still had some good conversations and some fun!

Shopping

When Kim was done at the BBQ, she headed home and we went to do the weekly shop. We finished the shop and headed home, getting home around 21:30.

Cheese & Wine

We had cheese and wine for dinner, because we fancied it and it’s a fun Saturday dinner!

We watched some TV and chilled out for the evening.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 186: Vancouver, BC – Workplace Baby Shower

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a few meetings today.

He had his daily meeting, followed by doing a little bit of admin and work, but then right back into another meeting.

This meeting was very interesting, though, and it was planning for the team’s financial forecast, so it was cool for Curtis to see what went on there.

After that meeting, Curtis got some ticket work done and was then meant to have another meeting, this time an external meeting with a cloud software company.

The representative didn’t show up, so Curtis didn’t have that meeting, but did eventually get his questions answered via email.

For lunch, Curtis and a couple of colleagues went to a place called Hot Star Chicken. This is a Taiwanese street food place where you get a big slab of fried chicken in a paper bag.

Curtis had a BBQ one and Kim had a Korean flavoured chicken.

Kim went back to work and so did Curtis. He put the remainder of the chicken on a plate and ate it that way when he got back to the office and it was much easier to eat.

After lunch, Curtis spent an hour doing some ticket and project work, both were successful, and then he had an hour long meeting with someone from legal.

After that, it was beer and hockey time! Curtis grabbed a beer and watched the first period of the leafs game, before walking home.

Kim’s Day

Today Kim finally saved all of her outstanding travel invoices! She had a full half a months worth and spent most of the morning sorting through those.

She then went and met Curtis and a couple of his work friends for lunch, but on the way back to work stopped to pick up some chocolate bars for the baby shower.

When she got back to the office Kim put all of the regular things in the fridge for the end of week drinks.

She then got on with some administration tasks before starting the fun stuff of baby shower preparations.

Kim printed off the answer sheets for the nappy game, melted the chocolates into the nappies, sorted the snacks and made the mocktails. The mocktails on the menu today were:

  • Mumgo Colada
  • Gran-berry ‘Cider’
  • Up at the Crack of Sunrise

Kim was very pleased with the mockt

ails and names she picked for them. Kim also arranged for rum to go with the mango colada style drink for those that were drinking alcohol.
Once all the games were set up the team allocated 15 minutes to sit, enjoy and catch up together before inviting the rest of the office to join in.

They drank mocktails, played ‘mark the soother on the baby’ and ate cookies.

A few other people joined while the team were guessing what was in the nappies. Then, suddenly, another department joined in with a fondue set!

As it was someone’s birthday the day before they celebrated with fondue, this was a welcomed addition.

Kim decided to pick a winner for the nappy guessing game so ran around the office to see if anyone else wanted to try first, a few more people had a go and then Kim went through the correct answers. It was so much fun and it was great to see everyone relax and enjoy each other company!

Most people left around the same sort of time, so the few who were around at the end cleared up with Kim. She then realised that she had not yet place a weekly shop order for next week, so she put one of those through and then went home.

It was a brilliant evening and a really nice way to celebrate the excitement of a new little baby on its way!

Silly Videos

Once hockey was finished, we each had some food (Curtis had the last of the roast and Kim had the remainder of her chicken from lunch) and sat and watched silly videos.

Before we knew it, it had been a few hours!

It was fun to just sit and watch stupid stuff for a while, though.

Tomorrow’s Saturday, but a busy one!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 76: Vancouver, BC – Company Summer BBQ

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis was only working until 13:00 as there was a company BBQ from then, so he had a shorter day.

Curtis got a couple of tickets sorted as well as got some admin done with regards to purchases.

Curtis spent some time looking at security configurations as well as configuring a spare laptop.

At 13:00, the BBQ events began. Every team (Curtis’ was yellow) sat together and were given clues. These clues led to places and the whole team had to be in a photo in front of that place. Yellow team took some time to plan a walking route and then set off.

Curtis’ team didn’t rush, but got all the photos done with 5 minutes to spare and were the 2nd to last team back.

After this, it was drinks time! The BBQ was on top of the building in which the company apartment is located, way up on the 46th floor with a great view.

Shortly after getting settled, the games began. The first game was to eat a doughnut off of a string without using your hands.

After this challenge, there was a small break and then a planking challenge. Curtis took part in that one for his team bit he didn’t do well…He was first out! The winner managed to do over 5 minutes!

After the planking challenge, there was a small break and then there was a balloon challenge. Each person had to tie a balloon to their leg and try and pop each others. This didn’t go well as everyone kept cheating!

The final challenge was a team one in which there was a large bucket of water at the front of a line of people and the first person had to fill a cup with water and pass it down the line, over their head, with everyone’s eyes closed. The last person then had to pour it into a small bucket and first team to fill the bucket won. Safe to say, Curtis’ team did not win but got very wet.

Curtis stayed until the end just chatting with people and eating the burgers and hotdogs, then he stayed to tidy and clean up. He helped take things down to the car and then walked home.

Curtis noticed he left his jacket back there, so hopefully he can get it back tomorrow.

Kim’s Day

Kim left home and headed the opposite direction to work. She is taking a first aid course for the whole of next week so had to go and pick up the work book / reading material. So she hopped on the skytrain to the first aid centre, grabbed the 2 binders for her colleague and herself, hopped back on the skytrain into the city and was at work before 9:15!

For the course Kim also needs another workbook so she printed all 300 pages off so she can study for the rest of the week, weekend and into next week. She tried reading it on the laptop but it was straining her eyes.

For the rest of the morning Kim went through quotes for a few upcoming things the social team has in the pipeline.

There were 2 meetings with catering arriving today. They both arrived early again which meant kim was sat smelling pizzas and burritos for about 30 minutes. She then set up the catering in each of the rooms the meetings were in. A couple of minutes later the pizzas were in the kitchen as the meeting had been cancelled! It was great news, Kim and the rest of her team grabbed some lunch and sat up on the roof to enjoy some sunshine.

When she got back to her desk Kim sorted out some post that had been left for her. Just as she finished this a whole new batch of things to post arrived so she got them done too.

At 3:30 Kim had a meeting with a catering company to go over a new platform that Kim might be rolling out internally! Its very exciting because it means Kim has to do less, which is always a win!

For the rest of the afternoon Kim picked up the odd job here and there but spent most of it reading up on first aid. At one point she did eat a pain au chocolate which was magnificent!

Just as Kim was about to leave all of the stuff from upstairs was brought down so Kim put things away after it was unpacked.

Whole Foods Food

Curtis got home and Kim was doing her training, so she focused on that for a bit until she got hungry.

Kim wanted to get Chinese, but they didn’t have what she wanted, so she went to Whole Foods and got some butter chicken and rice with a naan bread there.

Once we got home, we watched a 1 hour long YouTube video and Kim ate her food.

We then watched a bit more of YouTube and the relaxed for the rest of the evening.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Bland Bay

Place 62 – Day 4: Bland Bay – Filleting A Fish 🐟

Kim & Curtis Hale

After waking about 09:30, we sat and Curtis had coffee and then we spent the majority of the day just chilling in the sun.

We had some pizza for lunch and Josh got back from fishing and then fell asleep.

Once Josh woke back up, he went to fillet some fish.

Kim wanted to see how to do it, so she was shown by Josh and then she had a go!

After filleting the fish, we turned on the BBQ and had some more meat for dinner!

We then ate, drank a bit and then played a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity.

We are up around 08:00 tomorrow to head back to Auckland.

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

Auckland

Place 49 – Day 376: Auckland – 2 Hour Massage, Ferry Trip & Afternoon Tea!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Kim had a massage booked for herself and her mum this morning, meaning Curtis and Kim’s dad (Tom) had nothing to do.

To combat having nothing to do, Curtis and Tom took a walk to a ferry port, about 35 minute walk away. The sun was beating down but there was a bit of wind so the walk was actually quite nice.

Once they got to the port, they had to wait for 30 minutes or so for the boat, so they sat and watched the world go by. They were right next to the harbour bridge so had a great view!

City_of_auckland_bridge_skytower_water

Once on the ferry, it only took about 10 minutes before arriving in the city.

Curtis took Tom the wrong way to the city, so they had a 30 minute diversion but it was nice! There was a hill to walk up followed by a park called Albert Park right by the university which had a gargantuan tree!

Big_tree_albert_park

They eventually got to the city centre and went to McDonald’s for a coffee whilst waiting for Kim & her mum.

Kim and Maggie had a terrific time with their massage! It was 2 hours of vigorous massage, but it helped them both greatly!

Feet_slippers_thai_massage

Massage_table

We met up again in the city and went for afternoon tea at a 5 star hotel!

We had an assortment of savory items, some scones and some sweet treats. There were sandwiches, curry pasties, macaroons, mini pavlova and more! We also had unlimited tea and coffee. This was very tasty and actually filled us up! Curtis gives it a 4.5/10 as nothing really blew him away. Kim gives it an 8/10.

Afternoon_tea

After we finished this, we waddled back to the car and drove home to relax for a bit, which didn’t happen!

Someone wanted to buy our bed, so we had to take that downstairs. Once we took it downstairs, we packed everything up and got it ready, both for our roadtrip and for leaving Auckland!

We got the room completely empty and tidy so that it could be shown to potential new tenants when we aren’t here.

We went out again in the evening to see Danielle and Josh and introduce them to Kim’s parents.

We went out to a BBQ place and the food was pretty good. Curtis had a 200G sirloin steak with bernaise sauce, chips & coleslaw. Meanwhile, Kim had a burger which had no bun but had fried mac & cheese as a replacement! Curtis gives his food a 6.7/10 and Kim gives hers a 8/10.

It was great to catch up with Josh and Danielle after such a long time and to introduce them to Kim’s parents.

Once we got home, we watched some YouTube videos and had dessert and then went to bed as we all need to be up early tomorrow.

We haven’t got a bed, so we are setup on the sofa/floor for tonight!

We are all flying together tomorrow! Should be fun but also tiring.

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

Auckland

Place 49 – Day 357: Auckland – A Sleep In, Another BBQ & A Random Sickness

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up at around 11:30, which was a lovely lay in!

We had some breakfast in bed, watching a few videos and delaying starting the day.

The weather was scorching today, so we opened all the windows to get a good breeze going.

We got some laundry done and then drove to the shop to get a few things for the week, as well as a coffee.

Once we got home, it was almost time for us to go out again! We had a small BBQ to go to at around 17:30, so we stopped to pickup Kelsey & Hugh, Kim’s work friend and her fiancé, and then drove to the BBQ at another work colleague’s apartment.

We had a few chats and then a great BBQ and listened to some tunes!

Curtis started to feel quite unwell, so we came home and relaxed for a bit before Kim went out to the elephant wrestler, which is a pub in Takapuna, where she met some other work friends to celebrate a birthday.

That was our Saturday…nothing crazy but still nice (minus Curtis feeling unwell!).

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

Auckland

Place 49 – Day 329: Auckland – Eating A Scorpion 🦂

Kim & Curtis Hale

We got up at 08:00 and got showered, Curtis had breakfast and we left the house at around 09:00 and droveto the Botany ice rink.

Curtis had his final time on the ice in New Zealand! Curtis’ former team (the scorpions) had a scrimmage as an end of year ‘goodbye’. The scrimmage was incredibly fun and there was checking allowed, too!

Curtis did have fun at the start of the scrimmage, having to use rental skates as the skates he was borrowing were not there just yet.

Luckily, the skates arrived shortly after starting so Curtis changed into those.

Curtis threw a few good hits but also got hit very well a couple of times.

At the end, Curtis and a teammate did a penguin slide…because why not?

After the scrimmage, we left to go and get some meat and drinks for the end of season BBQ!

The captain of the team hosted it at his house, so we got the food and went there. The Leafs were playing so we had that on in the background whilst we ate and had a laugh or two.

After eating, Curtis had to eat a scorpion! Curtis had to do this as he got the most penalty minutes on the team for the season (34 PIMs in 20 games if the playoffs are included).

The scorpion didn’t actually taste tok bad, but was pretty dry and had an odd texture.

We stayed for a while and then left to come home.

After we were home, we relaxed for a bit and then went shopping. We got a coffee too whilst we shopped, of course!

We got back home and just spent the rest of the evening watching TV and finally finishing Bodyguard which is an excellent series!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

Kaikoura

Place 58 – Day 2: Kaikoura – Whale Watching, Hot Tub & Family Games Night!

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up a bit later, at 08:30, and got showered. We had very nice showers here again, which was a win!

Lisa went to the bakery to get some breakfast. This was an assortment of pastries.

From this point, we walked down to the whale watching building. Next to this, there was a black stony beach and a wonderful view of the mountains. We then went inside for our briefing.

After the briefing, we went into a bus to take us to the bay where the boat was.

We were then on the boat for 2.5 hours! We saw a lot of Albatross, including the biggest one in the world, the wandering Albatross. As well as this, we got to see the mountains from the sea, which were stunning.

There were many other birds that we saw, too. We stopped moving a few times so the crew could track the whales’ sonar, which we were unlucky with the first few times.

After a while, they finally heard the sonar of a whale and we raced to where it should be and, sure enough, it was right there, just chilling on the top of the water. We were then told that it was about to dive back down and we got some great photos and videos!

We then made our way back to land and got on the bus back to the whale watching building.

From here, Kim went off with Lisa and the kids to get food whilst Curtis and Gareth went to get the campervan looked at as there were some warning lights appearing.

Kim, the kids and Lisa were unable to find any food and met Curtis and Gareth at the garage before going to Subway for lunch.

After lunch, we went back to the garage and found out that the campervan was all good so didn’t have to worry about that at all. We then went to the shop to get dinner supplies.

We got back to the campsite and fancied a dip in the hottub, so we did that for a couple of hours, though it was incredibly hot!

We got out and had a shower and then it was time for dinner.

We had a BBQ for dinner, though it was too cold to sit outside so we went inside and had a lovely meal!

After this, we went to the onsite games room and all had an amazing time playing the games there. There was table tennis, fußball, pool & air hockey. We were here for ages and then had to head to bed at 22:00!

Tomorrow is another driving day but not too long, which is a positive.

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale