Tag: beautiful

Courtenay,BC

Place 89 – Day 1: Courtenay, BC🇨🇦 – Forbidden Plateau & ‘Medicine Bowls’

Kim & Curtis Hale

Forbidden Plateau

We work up at a good time again and Kim went out to get us breakfast.

We ate our breakfast and slowly got ready and managed to head out around 11:00.

We drove out to Forbidden Plateau which took us about 1 hour and 30 mins.

Forbidden Plateau used to be a ski resort but now it’s a short hike which allows everyone to get a great view of the water and surrounding areas. It was really quite beautiful!

‘Medicine Bowls’

We drove back down the road we came and took a sharp left to head down towards medicine bowls. This is a small waterfall with rock pools that people jump into and also just swim in. We didn’t have much interest in doing either, because it’s cold and jumping in is scary, but we walked to take a look.

We parked up in a safe location as, unless you have a truck, it’s not possible to drive the entire way there.

We walked for about 20 minutes to make it to the pools. There was a little hike involved but it was beautiful!

We really, really enjoyed this area! We were there for way longer than we expected but we just enjoyed looking at the water, sitting down and relaxing and just enjoying the quiet.

We walked back to the car and saw someone try and drive through the part just beyond where we parked where it was not really possible to drive and they scraped/damaged the bottom of their car!

Beer & Snacks

We drove form here to the nearby town Courtenay, where we had actually been before when we visited Comox in the winter a couple of years ago. We got ourselves a beer at a brewery and relaxed.

We left there and walked to a restaurant to get a quick snack. The snack turned into a huge meal and we really didn’t want that much food. We ate what we could and then we drove back to the hotel, which took about 1 hour 10 minutes.

We were tired, as expected, so we relaxed for a bit at the hotel and then went out to get some snacks and drinks for the evening.

We leave this area tomorrow and head out to a new area to do very little, though!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 903: Vancouver, BC – Vaccine Booked!

Kim & Curtis Hale

We both woke up to messages about booking our first vaccine, so we booked that in and we are ready to go for June 3rd!

We got up, happy to have got booked in, and Kim went out to get strawberries and banana so we could have them with French toast.

We had that and then slowly got ourselves ready to go out.

We did our usual walk and had beautiful weather for it! We did turn around and head back home a little earlier than usual as we went to look for some snacks, but didn’t find anything we wanted, so we got a nice different walk route out of it which was a good change.

We got back home and we were both pretty hungry, so we made some rice to go with our leftover chicken.

After dinner, we watched some more TV and chilled out.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 862: Vancouver, BC – Another Desk & Beautiful Day

Kim & Curtis Hale

Family Chat

Kim’s family wanted a chat, so after breakfast we got ready and had a chat with them for an hour and a bit before we had to head out.

Another Desk

We picked up a desk we had seen a while ago which we are going to use for Curtis’ office in the new apartment.

We got that and it wasn’t too far from our new apartment so we walked over to pick it up and walked it to the new place.

We dropped it off and then went for a nice long walk.

Beautiful Day

The weather was beautiful today, nice and sunny but not too hot, so perfect to be outside, which clearly everyone else thought the same as it was busy outside!

We got a coffee for Curtis and then went to get Kim and ice cream. Whilst we waited in the queue for that, we saw subway had ‘potato bun’ snack sandwiches, so we got one those each, too.

We had a really nice long walk to the beach, keeping out of the way of everyone and just really enjoyed the weather.

Hockey & More Furniture Shopping

We got back home and Curtis watched the Leafs game and during that, Kim went out to Homesense to take a look at some other bits of furniture we may need for the new place.

She managed to find a small stool which also has storage that we can use at the entrance to store shoes and to sit on, because why not.

Kim took that over to the new apartment and also a chair from home as she will be at the new apartment tomorrow for some of the day waiting for the new sofa to be delivered!

Sweet Chicken Thighs

We had sweet chicken thighs for dinner along with some more potato salad.

We then relaxed for a bit together and Kim had a nice relaxing bath before heading to bed.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 472: Vancouver, BC – Big Chillin’

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up around 10:30 and Kim made some incredible crepes!

We watched some TV whilst eating and then got ourselves ready.

Kim ready a bit of a book to relax for a bit and then we went out for some coffee!

We went to a place we didn’t even know existed about 5 minutes from our apartment which is called Angus T.

Whilst we went for coffee, they also make European croissants, so we had to try them! Curtis got a standard butter croissant and Kim got a pain au chocolate.

We really, really enjoyed the croissants and the coffee was pretty good too, all in all, a successful stop.

We did our usual walk to the beach, but there were quite a lot of people walking around there, so we left and headed back home.

Kim got some more incredible sunset photos, though!

Other than that walk, we did very little. We got some laundry done, and we had a nice nap and then it was dinner time!

We had excellent homemade mac and cheese and watched the animated Grinch film, which we quite enjoyed, and it was nice and short.

We played some games and did some more laundry, as well as watching some more TV.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day: 423 – Vancouver, BC – Murrin Provincial Park

Kim & Curtis Hale

BIG Win!

Curtis’ hockey game last night went extremely well!

His team won 7-0…And Curtis got a goal! That’s 2 points in 3 games so far. Going well!

When Curtis drove home, he managed to scrape the rear wheel arch on a pillar whilst parking back at home. We have an awkward space in our parking lot and Curtis hasn’t had much practice with it…It doesn’t really make much of a difference, and we had one on the opposite side from the person who owned it before us, so now it just matches!

Cinnamon Buns!

We had the cinnamon buns that Kim made for breakfast this morning!

They didn’t grow as much when cooking as Kim wanted, but they were still delicious, especially with the icing and strawberries that Kim made with them!

Murrin Provincial Park

We headed out once we got ready and went to Murrin Provincial Park. This place was not far from where we went last week.

This is a lake but surrounded by hiking trails, and when we got there we weren’t really sure where we were meant to go, so we just started following a trail!

The trail turned out to be a bit of a scramble, but it was really good fun! The weather has certainly got a bit colder, which is great for climbing around and hiking.

We hiked and hiked and got higher and higher until we were right at the top, with a beautiful view of the large lake!

It was pretty windy up there, so we headed down and that began our decent.

We came across some people rock climbing, which was pretty cool to see, but we tried not to distract them so we continued down.

Eventually, we got to the bottom and it was about a 1/2 hour hike in the end which felt good, but it was time for some food!

We drove up to Squamish and got a subway and a coffee (from Starbucks).

We ate our Subway and then drove on home.

Pizza!

Once we got home, we just relaxed for a while and then when we got hungry, we walked up to our local pizza place, Pizza Garden, which makes the most incredible Italian pizza, and grabbed a 4 cheese pizza from there.

It turns out, 4 cheese pizza isn’t what we usually get, so it was a little weird but still pretty tasty!

Once we ate, we watched the film Anna on Amazon Video, then played some games and watched more TV.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 211: Vancouver, BC – Long, Long Walk

Kim & Curtis Hale

Kitsilano Beach Walk

We got up and had some breakfast, but got ready for the day fairly quickly.

We left the apartment and had a brilliant 45 minute walk to Kitsilano!

The sun was out, it was still cold but there were no clouds in the sky.

We didn’t expect there to be many people either, but there were actually a lot.

We got to Kitsilano and walked around a bit, just for no reason. It was so nice out that we felt we should.

We did stop and get a coffee and doughnuts at Parallel 49th, though.

We started to walk back after this, with a few stops on the way to pet some dogs and we walked on the beach for a bit, which gave us excellent views!

Guinness & Moscow Mule

We got back home and went for a drink at the pub near our apartment!

We had been out for a good few hours, so felt like we deserved it.

Curtis got a Guinness and Kim got a Moscow Mule.

Risotto

Kim made her famous risotto again and we ate that for dinner. It was truly amazing!

We then watched some TV as well as a film, The Death Of Stalin which we thought was very funny!

We are both working from home tomorrow (and for the foreseeable future), as mentioned previously, so we don’t need to be awake as early!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 150: Vancouver, BC – Lynn Headwaters Regional Park

Kim & Curtis Hale

Lynn Headwaters Regional Park

We had a sleep in but then decided we wanted to go out somewhere.

Kim had been told about Lynn Valley, which is a village in North Vancouver, so we drove up there and did so with the hope of snow!

It took us 30 minutes and then we arrived.

We walked a bit further down the road and found a set of stairs, so we went down those!

We came to a beautiful clear river, which we continued to follow until we reached Lynn Headwaters Regional Park.

We started a trail and the further we got, the more snow there was!

We got to see some amazing sights, mostly the clear water river with the backdrop of a snow topped mountain which looked beautiful.

The snowy floor was beautiful and at times there was noone around, so it was silent and just relaxing.

We walked for a long while and just before it got dark we walked all the way back up to the car.

Coffee & Snacks

We treated ourselves with a coffee at a coffee shop in the village nearby. We shared a toasted cajun chicken sandwich and Curtis had a lemon slice whilst Kim had a nanaimo bar.

We got some things from the supermarket and drove home.

We got back home and were actually very tired! We watched some TV and then had sweet chilli wedges for dinner, whilst watching the movie Game Night.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 178: Vancouver,BC – Evening Sewing Fun

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis got to work at a perfect time today.

He was able to get admin completed when he arrived and then had his team meeting which he has each morning.

After the meeting, Curtis spent most of the day doing ticket work, but that was varied too which was great.

Curtis had to do a bit of project work, but not too much.

Curtis’ day was pretty uneventful, but walking home was beautiful!

Kim’s Day

As the competition is this weekend coming Kim decided to head into work early so she could fit in some open training and partially be involved in a regular class.

Kim ate far too much on the Vegas and Utah trip and didn’t train for nearly a week so really missed it!

When Kim got in she reorganised the the kitchen back to how it usually is and decided to fix some of the tables.

After this Kim spent a fair amount of time going over the invoices she hadn’t yet saved and listened to the past few weeks of voicemails. This took a while!

Kim then had a meeting about the summer party with her colleague and took on a lot of information and guidance about how to plan it.

Kim arranged a FedEx and sorted the pizza and tacos that arrived for different meetings. Kim sat down for some lunch and had some pizza.

After lunch, Kim continued with sorting the invoices that she is working her way through before having a good catch up with a colleague.

When Kim started she worked closely with the HR team and provided some support there, however she hasn’t had much to do with it over the past few months.

Kim and her teammate had a catch up to realign how this will be working going forward and talk about the gaps in Kim’s training.

Sewing

Kim went to training and the classes were fun. The open pole session was packed, so Kim achieved very little, with the exception of a nice little transition move she will throw into the routine! The second lesson Kim did not succeed in! She didn’t want to injure herself so kept to the basic end of the combo and didn’t push herself too much.

After that, she went back home with a friend from training to try and sew some things together for their performances.

This didn’t go too great as the machine didn’t seem to work correctly, but it was fun anyway.

After her friend left, Kim showered and then we sat and watched a little bit of TV before sleeping.

We can’t believe it’s Friday tomorrow already and we have a day off Monday!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 39: Vancouver,BC – Banana Bread Competition & Pot Luck

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis started the day with a coffee and apple juice after walking to work.

He looked into a possible setup for someone that wanted something a little specific and Curtis wasn’t even sure if it was possible!

Curtis helped with a few small issues and then he went to do some banana bread judging. Two colleagues had said they were each better at baking banana bread, so they went to war and each made one for everyone to test and vote on!

After lunch, Curtis did some more research for his project as well as had a phone call with a software company in relation to this project. They are also based in Vancouver and not far from Curtis’ office…And the guy was British.

Curtis installed some extra RAM in someone’s laptop and once that was done, he spent a bit of time seeing if he could develop a little something himself for the project, partially due to interest but also in case it would work for what he needs.

Kim’s Day

Kim got to work and got set up and spent the first bit of her day watching more training videos.

Then some information came in about some travel Kim was booking so she went back over to reception to get some help with that. That then spiraled into other mini training sessions.

It was then time to pack down guitar hero and put the kitchen back to normal.

Kim then went into a meeting to get a better understanding of what another string of her role would be. She also had a good chat with the lady she would be working closely with for it.

Then it was time to set up for the pot luck people set up to celebrate Eid. There was a wonderful spread and Kim provided some Brookies that went down well.

After stuffing her face with amazing food Kim went back to her desk to do a little more training. This then got a little tedious so kim decided to start setting up spreadsheets and other documents to get her started in her role. Things like template emails, lists of the more random items that get purchased on occasion and other stuff like that.

Then her computer was about to die so Kim and a colleague went about clearing the kitchen. All the food that was left had been polished off, so that made it much easier!

Seawall Walk

We both finished work and headed home. Once we got back, Kim headed back out briefly to pick something up whilst Curtis played some games.

When Kim returned, we went for a walk for about 20 minutes. We walked along the seawall, which is just outside our house, and along the private harbours and by the restaurants. This was a nice thing to do as the weather was very warm and the sun was going down, glistening off the water.

We had to fight through a horde of geese to get back home, but once we did we had dinner.

We ate the same as yesterday to finish it off.

We watched the Billions season finale and then an episode of Chernobyl.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Kaitaia

Place 69 – Day 3: Kaitaia – Te Paki Sand Dunes, The Top of NZ & Spirits Bay

Kim & Curtis Hale

Post breakfast, we were in the car and driving further up north! By 09:00, we were on our way and it was already getting warm!

We drove 1.5 hours up north to get to Te Paki stream. Here, in the middle of nowhere, there are giant sand dunes! Kim had read online that you can rent a ‘sandboard’ and go sandboarding on the dunes.

Once we arrived, we got ourselves a couple of sandboards and headed up the dunes. We were advised to go right to the highest dune to get a great view and then slide back down, which is what we did. What we didn’t realise was how incredible steep all of the dunes are and the effort it takes to get to the top, including getting sand blown in your face all the time!

Kim struggling with the dune!

We did get some amazing views at the top of the highest dune, which we soaked in whilst we relaxed after the tiresome climb!

The first sandboard down looked very high but wasn’t very fast at all.

We then went down the next hill, which was smaller but had way more speed and was great fun!

Luckily, as we were leaving, the sun got much warmer, so it was the perfect timing!

We had a drink and then drove from here to Cape Reinga, which is the top most point of New Zealand. Once we got here, we parked and walked down to the lighthouse, seeing the amazing views on the way. Apparently, two different oceans combine at this point also, which is what we assume the waves in the middle of the sea are!

We walked back to the car after seeing the lighthouse and drove to a beach over a gravel road, which took a while! The beach was called spirits bay and it was beautiful! We sat and ate our homemade ham, beef, cheese & salad sandwiches and then got back to the car to drive back to the apartment.

We chilled out for a while whilst we recovered from our tiredness and then we got back in the car and drove to the town to find food. We got a kebab each, which was an odd thing to choose but was delicious!

We watched a cabin restoration TV show and some other TV and then got packed up to leave tomorrow morning.

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale