Tag: beer

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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Tofino, BC

Place 88 – Day 1: Tofino, BC🇨🇦 – Exploring, Beer & A Lighthouse

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up pretty early and got ourselves ready to head out to Tofino!

Tofino is a very popular destination for tourists, so we were glad to finally be able to go.

We drove out there, on an estimated 2.5 hour drive. There were some road works and construction happening on the route, so we had to stop a few times, one of which was for 30 minutes, but we eventually made it to Tofino in around 3 hours.

We parked up and went right on the hunt for coffee. We found a place and walked there and had some pretty good coffee from Tofino Coffee Roasting Co.

We had the coffee and then walked around Tofino, just to see what it’s all about.

The actual town wasn’t all that interesting, but there was a little boat dock area which had some really fresh air and some really cool looking buildings.

After we went here, we actually ended up bumping into people that Kim knew from work and they gave a couple of really great suggestions!

The first suggestion was to go to chesterman beach which was a slightly less populated beach but really, really nice.

We stopped at the Tofino brewing company on the way and got there right as they opened! We had a beer and just relaxed outside for a bit which was really nice and the beer was good too! It was then time to get going again.

We drove down to the beach and got parked up and then had a nice, long, walk along the beach. There weren’t many people there and the sand was SO SOFT!

We decided to see how cold the water was, which was VERY COLD though kinda nice on our heavily trodden feet.

We left this beach and drove back up to Tofino and parked back up, being smart and using our ticket we still had time on!

The second thing that Kim’s friend suggested was to get a key lime pie slice from a restaurant nearby, so we got that and it was very, very delicious!

We left here after walking to a hotel that Kim remembered staying at as a child and then we drove out to Ucluelet. This super small town doesn’t have much, but it did have a lighthouse!

The lighthouse had a very large whistle buoy near it which warns boats where to go, so that was VERY loud.

We then decided that it was home time! We were pretty tired but had an incredible day and such a nice break!

We didn’t have too much trouble driving back to the hotel, which by the way, is basically a pub with rooms on, which isn’t as bad as it seemed.

We got back to the hotel and Kim ready that it was possible to see bears nearby, so we went to look for them but saw none, so headed to the local brewery!

Curtis got a beer and Kim got a cider and then we realised we were hungry and no other food place was open, so we had some pizza and a pretzel from the brewery.

We got a half and half pizza. One side was a veggie pizza and the other was lemon and herb chicken with tomatoes and tatziki.

We ate our food and had another drink and then eventually headed back to the hotel, which was just across the road.

We got back around 22:00 and chilled out until sleeping, which we are excited to do!

Likely another early morning tomorrow, and a long day, but it should be a fun one!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 527: Vancouver, BC – 2 Days, 2 Takeaways!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a fairly quiet day, especially compared to the rest of the week.

He did some tickets and some admin in the morning and then had a long team meeting in the afternoon.

Once the meeting was done, Curtis had some lunch and then in the afternoon he had to chase a few people to do some things which were security related and then he did some more tickets.

Kim’s Day

In the morning Kim was getting ready when she received a phone call saying that the delivery driver was there and ready to pick up the laptop. She had totally forgotten! So she quickly wrapped it up and then Curtis took it downstairs to the courier.

Once Kim was ready she joined a meeting to go over some plans with a colleague and talk them through a few processes that they might need. Then Kim joined a meeting about a facilities project that is going on. In the meeting they picked a vendor and Kim reached out to them after.

Kim then had a bit of time before her next meeting so she popped out to get a coffee! After staying home all week stressing it was lovely to take a little walk midday and feel more normal. Kim came back to join a meeting with a couple of the executive team to go over some paperwork. It was so interesting and Kim is really enjoying helping with this process.

For the afternoon Kim worked on writing up a couple of job postings. She is really enjoying this aspect of her job!

Evening

We had a takeaway yesterday, but we are still out of food as we’ve not made it to the supermarket yet, plus, Friday is takeaway day, so we went up to La Cantina and ordered a takeaway!

We had this first in Whistler so we got it again here! We had ordered from the one here before but Curtis tried something different and wasn’t that impressed, so he had the same thing he had in Whistler today and it was delicious.

We watched some TV, played some games and did some cleaning/tidying as the viewings are happening again tomorrow.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 385: Vancouver, BC – Grouse Grind, Bears & Dead Battery!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Grouse Grind

We were up at 08:30 and had some egg on toast for breakfast.

After breakfast, we got ready and then Curtis went down to the drug store to get Mars bars and Red Bull.

We then left the apartment and went down to the car to drive up to Grouse Mountain!

We got to the mountain and started making our way up. The Grouse Grind is notorious for being pretty tough, with its 2000+ stairs (plus rocks to climb up etc) & 2 hour completion time!

We started the hike and saw a squirrel right away, which was a great start!

The further up we got, the more challenging it became and we did have to stop quite a few times to regain our breath and stamina.

Towards the end, we got into the clouds and could even see them moving around us.

We eventually got to the top in just 1 hour 20 minutes, which we were very happy with!

Bears!

At the top, there are a few things to do, such as food, drink, disc golf and a bear enclosure!

We obviously had to go and see the bears, so we did just that.

We spent a while looking at the bears and they were pretty active. One of them even had a bath!

Once we were done with the bears, we walked to grab a quick beer before heading down on the gondola!

The beer was perfectly refreshing and just what we needed.

After such as awesome day, we got in the distanced gondola and made our way to the bottom of the mountain.

Once we got there, there was a Starbucks, so we grabbed a coffee and went to the car.

Dead Battery

Once we got in the car, we tried to start it and nothing happened!

Turns out, the battery had died, but we hadn’t left anything on so it must have been it’s time.

We eventually found a tow company that could come and help us, but after we scheduled with them, a couple said they would help jump start us and that worked perfectly, so we cancelled the tow truck and drove to Canadian Tire to get the battery changed!

We got that booked in and had to wait about 30/40 minutes for that to be swapped over, so we did a bit of shopping.

We got a wok which we’ve wanted for a while and then went to the liquor store to get some beer for tonight, which we needed for sure!

We got our car and headed back home.

First Ever Poutine!

We showered when we got home and then ordered some food.

We wanted to try poutine for the first time, so we ordered a burger each with a side ceasar salad each and a side of poutine and some sweet potato fries.

We watched the film ‘love Guaranteed’ which wasn’t great, but was something to watch.

We played some more Tony Hawk Skateboarding and watched a bit more TV but we were very tired after our long hike!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 343: Vancouver, BC – Mt Seymour Hike

Kim & Curtis Hale

Early Wake Up (For a Saturday)

We woke up at 09:00, which is early for us on a Saturday, and we got up and got ready for the long day!

We had french toast for breakfast with cheese!

Hiking!

We drove for 45 minutes up to Mt Seymour. The drive was super easy and there wasn’t much traffic.

We got parked up and the weather became very cold, as we were on a mountain, of course.

We walked to the first trail, which was to head to Mystery Lake. This was an easy hike, but with some good elevation!

We got to the lake after about an hour and sat down, just relaxing and looking at the scenery, which was a beautiful big lake!

We left here and walked up further, eventually hitting the top of a mountain! The views were stunning and we sat and had some lunch here. We had a sandwich we bought this morning from our favourite coffee shop. We managed to find snow on the way up too!

We walked down once we were done with lunch and found a small trail to go up which ended up joining the main trail. We then found out that it was a much, much longer hike to where we wanted to go, so we just hiked all the way back down to the car.

We were out for a long while, and we drove home, very warm and sweaty, but feeling accomplished.

We showered and relaxed when we got home, which was much needed!

We went up to the drug store and liquor store to get some things we needed and some drinks.

Dinner & Fire Trucks?

We put our dinner on (baked potatoes) when we got home and sat on the balcony with a beer!

We had a really nice time just relaxing outside, but it started to get a bit windy and cold, so we came back in and luckily, dinner was ready. We ate dinner and watched some TV and then for some reason, there were 4 fire trucks outside as well as 3 fire car things.

We aren’t sure what it was for as it seemed nothing really happened, but a little entertainment for us and it seemed that no-one got hurt which was good!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 237: Vancouver, BC – Games With Friends

Kim & Curtis Hale

Late Start!

Today was Easter Friday, so it was a day off!

We took advantage of this by sleeping…For a while!

We didn’t wake up until 12:30 and eventually got out of bed at 13:00.

We had cheese toasties for breakfast and watched a bit of TV.

Games With Friends!

We played some games together and then a couple of hours later, Curtis played some games with Espen from Norway!

It was awesome to chat with him and to play some games, too.

During this, Kim watched the show Babies on Netflix.

Curry Time!

Once we were done with those activities, we ordered a curry!

We had our curry and watched the film The Hustle which was an alright film but it was an easy, funny film, to watch.

We finished that film and then watched some more episodes of some of our TV shows, before heading to bed.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 228: Vancouver, BC – Plenty of Booze!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

We were going to go for a walk when we woke up, but right as we got outside, Kim realised she had a meeting at 08:00, so we went right back in!

Curtis did some admin and then some tickets before his team meeting.

After the meeting, another meeting he had got cancelled so he did some more ticket work and then finished off the morning with training.

After lunch, Curtis had a quick meeting with someone to show them how to do a couple of things and then did a bit of project work and research.

Curtis did some more training and then played some games with his team for team building!

Kim’s Day

Kim started the day with a week a midweek catch up that is open to all offices. There were a lot less people than last week, but it we still great to see people and have a chat!
After this, Kim joined the company wide meeting.

For some of the morning Kim worked on a few quizzes. She has a fair few ideas and it doesn’t look like this working from home situation will be changing anytime soon so she might as well add a few and use them as and when!

She also worked on her spreadsheet that logs the cribbage tournament. She made it easier to read and made the scoring sytem automated! She was very proud of this as she hasn’t used some of the formulas in years!

After lunch Kim joined on a catch up call with people in her team and who sit near by. It was great to see everyone and chat to them, she has missed them all!

Straight after this Kim watched the first game of the cribbage tournament and then updated the shiney new spreadsheet with the results.

Kim then spent the rest of the afternoon setting up games for in the future.

Plenty of Booze!

We did our workout which nearly killed us today!

After that, we walked up to the liquor store to get some wine, beer and pre mixed Moscow mules, just to stock up so we have plenty for any occasion.

We got back home and were hungry, so we had a big salad to start with and then leftovers from yesterday.

We watched TV and then played some mini sticks hockey at home, which was WAY more fun for us than it should have been, but was nice to get away from a screen for a bit.

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 195: Vancouver, BC – Crazy Sky!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis’ day started very busy and went very fast!

There were a lot of new tickets as most people are getting ready to travel to Mexico for the company trip!

Unfortunately, Curtis didn’t qualify for the trip (had to have started before March) and he didn’t want to pay for it, so he’s staying back next week.

Curtis got a video from the marketing team who created it to explain the new company brand story and mission and that was going to be shown in the boardroom for all to see and then ask questions.

Curtis had to set that video up in the boardroom and then partook in the meeting.

The meeting includes some drinks and food, which was awesome!

After that meeting, Curtis had another meeting with some people in his team going to Mexico and discussed some things that are need to know whilst they’re away as well as get further information regarding a project which Curtis will have to do some work on over the next week.

Curtis then finished up for the week and had another drink with the few people left in the office and then left.

He walked up to Max Performance where he got one of his visors from and returned that before going home.

Curtis got a photo of the crazy sky and the sun bouncing off the buildings!

Kim’s Day

Kim went to UBC today for her Project Management course.

Kim learned a lot and felt like she was really making progress which was amazing!

After, Kim went for some drinks with some people from work for someone’s birthday, which was lovely.

Kim then came home!

Food & Sleep

When Kim got home, she made a veggie spaghetti bolognese and then we sat and ate that whilst watching a bit of TV.

We then went to bed and we are very glad it’s the weekend.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 188: Vancouver, BC – Dentist, Team Building & PM Course!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis went to work but left after 30 minutes or so to walk to the dentist.

This a much different experience from the UK. You get a lot of x-rays as well as a full clean and exam in which they explain a lot about your teeth and go through possible treatments they think you should have.

This was 2 hours long, but free under insurance! Curtis has to go back Tuesday for some more cleaning, though.

Curtis got back to work and got something done quickly and then had a team building exercise. This involved playing some games as a team and having a laugh. This was great fun for Curtis and his team and is something they should do regularly.

Curtis got a few project things done for the next couple of hours and then had some drinks with people at the office.

It felt like a very short say for Curtis, but that’s a good thing for a Friday.

Kim’s Day

Kim spent her day at a project management exam prep course. She learnt a lot and feels really excited about the rest of the course and now has a LOT of reading and studying to do.

Curry & Beer

We really fancied curry and beer for dinner tonight, so we rushed home to have that.

We ordered from Indian Junction as usual and awaited the food.

We chatted about our day and Kim’s exciting course she is taking and then our food arrived!

We ate that and watched some TV for the evening.

We are looking forward to a chill weekend.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale