Tag: breakfast

Sunshine Coast, BC

Place 91 – Sep 14 to Sep 18 2021: Sunshine Coast, BC ðŸ‡¨ðŸ‡¦

Kim & Curtis Hale

Day 1

We’re back! Hello! We went on a little trip to Sunshine Coast for Curtis’ birthday. You can read about it here.

On Tuesday 14th September, in the evening, we drove out to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry out to Sunshine Coast. Whilst it is not an island, it’s technically connected, there’s no other way to get there without a boat, so we took the ferry.

The ferry arrived late, but that didn’t make much difference to us, other than the fact we were hungry!

There weren’t many people on the boat, so it was quick and easy to get ourselves some food. We ate that and then the ride was pretty much over. (it’s only 40 minutes).

We drove off the boat and drove on to our first accomodation, which was a cute little cabin!

Here’s a low quality video of the cabin!

When we arrived, the cabin was incredibly cold as the windows were open, but after a bit of time with the fire on it got nice and toasty. We arrived fairly late, so once we got settled we watched a little bit of TV before sleeping.

Here’s another low quality video of the cabin!

Day 2

We woke up in the awesome cabin and drove down to Gibsons for a spot of breakfast.

We got a breakfast bagel each from a cafe there. The staff were wonderful (and one was British!) which made it a very nice experience.

Once we had our breakfast, we had heard that people were filming down the street for a holiday film! We went down to check that out, but not much was happening at the time, other than there being some fake snow on the floor.

We walked around Gibsons for a bit as there was a nice little marina area and the sun was shining!

After walking for a bit, we found a park to go to for a hike/walk!

We drove to Cliff Gilker Park where it said there were waterfalls and hiking trails, which sounded perfect.

The walk was through the forest with nice big trees and some really nice little wooden bridges!

We saw the waterfall, but it wasn’t really much of a waterfall, but still peaceful.

We walked around here for quite a while, mostly to just find all the bridges…we love bridges!

Once we left here, we drove to a petting zoo to let some animals, but unfortunately it was closed on that day, so we turned around and drove to something nearby that we found, called Robert’s Creek Pier.

Robert’s Creek is a small town with some nice little buildings that we looked at and when we went down to the pier we nearly got blown over it was so windy!

Wind!

We drove back to the cabin and had a look online for some places to get food and also a look for other things to do whilst we were in the area.

We eventually found a place for dinner, which was a Mexican place. Luckily, they were able to seat us once we got there (they were very busy!) And we grabbed ourselves some pretty tasty Mexican food!

We went back to the cabin and watched a bit of TV and relaxed.

Whilst relaxing, we heard some noises outside, so we checked and sure enough, it was a BEAR! We saw him right next to our cabin trying to get at the bins, but we think he scared himself away when he knocked over the bin.

It was our first time seeing a bear in the wild and it was pretty large and right outside!

Day 3 – Curtis’ Birthday!

We woke up, got ready and left the cabin to grab some breakfast.

We went to a cafe (after a bit of back and forth between two) and managed to get a seat. It was pretty small and busy!

We had to wait 45 minutes for our food, which seemed pretty long, and when we got the food it was…Alright. It looked good but wasn’t incredible. Curtis had a smoked salmon and dill cream eggs benedict whilst Kim had a breakfast bowl.

We left here and tried to go to a few cool looking spots with nice views, hikes and waterfalls, but they all seemed to be closed for some reason!

We ended up finding a park near the new cabin we were moving to, so we sat there for a bit and stared into the water.

We checked in to the new cabin and it was not quite as we thought. It looked like a cabin, but was pretty large. It was quite dark and just not as good as we hoped. But it did look cool!

Looks cool outside, right?

We relaxed for a bit once we got in. The weather had started to deteriate, which we knew was going to happen, so we prepared to just hunker down and do very little.

Kim found a really nice brewery called Batch44 and we headed there for some drinks and dinner. Kim also found out there was a quiz, so we entered that and didalright! We weren’t last, which is a win!

We headed back to the cabin and got some really good sleep.

Day 4

It was raining all day, so we just slept and stayed in, watching some TV and playing card games.

We went and got pizza for dinner. Nothing fancy but a bit of a tradition for lazy days!

There was a large wind/rain storm which blew over a power line! This caused us to have an outage and, as the power line was laying on the only bit of road in/out of the town, we were stuck in the dark!

We were able to get some candles from a neighbour and we spent the night playing cards and chatting. It was kinda nice, in a way.

We didn’t get too cold and headed to bed. We were however awoken around 02:00 when the power came back on! But we were glad that was able to get sorted.

Day 5 – The Final Day

We woke up and got some breakfast at a diner style place and then looked for something to do before we needed to catch our boat.

We found somewhere called secret beach (it was sign posted, so not very secret!) And we had a wander around on the beach and the logs that were on there.

Pretty nice place!

Kim found a nice rope swing and had some fun on that!

We took the ferry home and drove back. It seemed to take far less time!

We got home and made some dinner and then it was time for Curtis to play hockey. He’s finished his 3rd game now and is really enjoying being back out there on the ice.

Curtis has a goal and two assists already, all of which came from the last game!

And there we have it!

That was our sunshine coast trip. We hope you enjoyed having a blog to read again. We had some fun times and we were excited to share it with you.

Maybe we’ll have some other fun stuff coming up at some point, but we hope everyone is well.

Mr And Mrs Hale

Advertisement
Victoria,BC

Place 70 – Day 35: Victoria, BC – Day Trip To Sidney

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up and slowly got ourselves ready. We didn’t sleep well at all last night, so it was a slow morning.

We had some breakfast after we showered and then we relaxed for the rest of the morning.

At 12:30, we left to drive up to Sidney. Linda wanted to go back there after not being there for a while, so we took her there for a wander.

We got a coffee and a treat from the bakery and enjoyed those before walking to the waterside and enjoying the weather and the sea.

We managed to see a beautiful seal, until someone scared it away!

We then sat for a couple of hours facing the water just enjoying the scenery and enjoying people watching. There were a lot of kids playing around us, so it was fun to watch them.

We eventually got hungry so we headed back to the car and got on our way to the place Linda had booked for dinner.

We had planned to meet Linda’s friends, Dee & Steve, there (we know they read the blog…Hello!) But they were unable to attend, so we just went with the three of us.

Kim got a chicken burger and Curtis got a burger and they were alright!

Kim had a chocolate brownie for dessert and then we drove back home.

Curtis was pretty tired as he didn’t sleep well at all last night, so he had a little lay down and Kim did a bit of research for some things.

We didn’t do too much for the rest of the evening, just relaxed and chatted, really!

Kim did go out and check out Ogden Point, which she likes to do when here.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Victoria,BC

Place 70 – Day 33: Victoria, BC – Beacon Drive In, Another Friend & Delicious Italian Food

Kim & Curtis Hale

Beacon Drive-In

We woke up around 08:30 and we got ready to go out for breakfast.

We both walked up to the Beacon Drive in, a staple for us when we come here, and got ourselves some nice breakfast and relaxed there for a bit.

Linda came and joined us and we chatted whilst Kim ate an ice cream and then we left for a walk.

A Nice Walk

We planned to go into the petting zoo that was in the nearby park, but unfortunately it was closed! We were able to see some goats and other animals through the fence though, which was really nice.

We did a bit more of a walk around the area and Linda pointed out a few new places and points of interest nearby that we’d not seen before.

A Friend

We headed back to Linda’s place and then after a while, we both walked down to meet a friend of Kim’s for a coffee and we got to meet her child who is now nearly 1!

After a great long conversation, we walked back to Linda’s and got ready for dinner.

Delicious Italian Food

We met a couple of Linda’s friends at an Italian restaurant across the street which we had been to once before. It was AMAZING food! Kim had mushroom pasta and Curtis had lasagne. Both were phenomenal.

We got profiteroles to share for dessert and then we were truly stuffed!

Fisherman’s Wharf

We managed a nice evening walk to Fisherman’s Wharf just down the street, though it was pretty cold, so we came back to Linda’s and relaxed before heading to bed.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Sidney, BC

Place 90 – Day 1: Sidney, BC 🇨🇦 – Animal Sanctuary, Malahat Skywalk & Italian Dinner

Kim & Curtis Hale

Breakfast

We woke up and had to check out at 09:00. We got ourselves ready, checked out and hit the road.

We drove until we got to Qualicum Beach, which had French Press Coffee Roasters where we had breakfast! Kim had bruschetta with mushrooms and arugula. It was very nice, though a little small. She had that with a pretty tasty mocha and a chocolate chip cookie.

Curtis had a sandwich with egg, tomato and some really nice bacon in and a cappuccino which had some very nice coffee in, that was roasted in house!

We had this and then got back on the road and drove onward.

Animal Sanctuary

We drove to the animal sanctuary called North Island Animal Sanctuary which was a really nice animal rehabilitation center which also had animals that could not be released into the wild, mostly due to injury.

Before we got there, though, we stumbled across a small old looking town that had, for some reason, some goats on the roof! We had to stop and check them out

We then started driving again, only to find an antiques store just down the road!

We went in there and Curtis managed to talk Kim out of buying an old sabre, though there were some cool items there.

We drove onward to the sanctuary and once we got there, we wandered around to take a look at all the animals. We took no photos here as it didn’t feel appropriate but the animals seemed well looked after and we got to see some awesome animals there, such as eagles and hawks. There was apparently a bear there but it must have been hiding as we didn’t get to see it, but it was actually a really nice stop along the way.

Little Mountain Lookout

Kim had noticed a place on the map called little mountain lookout which was meant to have some great views and it didn’t disappoint!

We drove up to this which was a VERY steep hill and once we got to the top, it didn’t look like anything. However, a short wander through the trees took us to a sheer cliff edge but with stunning views!

We left here and drove to get another coffee. We got this in a cafe in a small town.

Whilst there, we decided to check our reservation only to find out we had only booked one night and it was tomorrow, not today!

Luckily, we contacted them and were able to sort that out, though we did panic for a second.

Malahat Skywalk

We drove to a place that was suggested to us by Linda which is a new attraction.

This is a skywalk, a wooden walkway through the trees, and then a large spiral structure which gives amazing views and there was also a slide to go down from near the top!

We wanted to do the slide, so we queued for about an hour for that. Unfortunately, we got near to the top where the slide was and Curtis really needed to pee, so just had to hope that didn’t happen on the slide!

It was quite a large and fast slide, but it wasn’t bad at all, other than the bumps for Curtis! Luckily, he didn’t have an accident, which is a positive outcome.

We did the slide and then walked back all the way to the top of the structure which had a see through netting floor which could be walked on.

Kim decided this would be fun to roll on instead, so she did that, but did regret it a little after, due to the sheer height of the tower.

We took a look at the beautiful scenery, technically this area has a fjord, and it really was beautiful.

Nice Hotel & Italian Dinner

We drove onward from here to Sidney, where we will be for 2 night purely to relax and sleep! We have had a busy few days and a busy few weeks before now, so we wanted some time to just…chill.

We got to our hotel and it was around 19:00. We checked in and got to our room which is beautiful.

We were very hungry, so we went to a restaurant super close, which is an Italian restaurant.

We had to sit outside, which is good for COVID, but we were a little chilly. We could forgive that though, as the view was stunning.

We had to wait a while for our food but once it came, it was delicious!

We were pretty hungry by the time it arrived, so we ate it quickly and then decided it was relax time, so we went to the shop to get snacks and then went back to the hotel to chill out for the evening.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

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 980: Vancouver, BC – A New Barber

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up around 11:00 and Kim went to get us some croissants and coffee for breakfast.

We ate that and got ready slowly and then Curtis went out to the barber. His usual barber has moved back to Australia so Curtis had to use another barber from the same shop.

The barber seemed to do a good job, so he was happy with that. He walked back home after getting that done and then we went out for a walk to the beach.

We walked down to the beach, coffee in hand, and once we got to the beach, we got ourselves some ice cream! Curtis had mint chocolate chip ice cream and Kim had honeycomb ice cream. We sat on a bench and ate that, just watching the world play out.

Once we walked back home, we both had cold showers and then accidentally had a nap! After our nap, we had leftovers and a few things from the freezer for dinner.

We watched TV for the evening. There’s a heat warning this weekend and although it’s not as hot as last time, it is muggy.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 951: Vancouver, BC – A ‘Kinda-Work’ Day!

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up around 09:45 and Kim did a bit of work whilst Curtis had some breakfast and got showered.

Curtis was off work today and Kim had a ‘kinda work’ day.

Curtis played some games whilst Kim worked and then Kim showered and we went for a short walk and got coffee.

Kim went out in the afternoon to run a few errands for work. He had done a decent amount of work at home and then went out to do these few things.

The errands took a couple of hours and when she got home, she was hungry and so was Curtis, so we ordered some dinner.

We got Thai food as it looked really nice and once we saw it we knew we wanted that!

We ate our dinner and then headed out for an evening walk to the beach!

We got back home and watched some TV and relaxed. We’re still very confused as it feels like it should be Sunday, but it’s only Friday!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 932: Vancouver, BC – French Patisserie

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up and had a nice breakfast at home and then got ourselves ready for the day.

The weather wasn’t good today, but we wanted to go out to a cafe or patisserie, so we found one and drove out there.

It turns out, we actually went to the wrong one! That being said, we did get to have a delicious chocolate coffee cake there!

Chocolate & Coffee…A delicious combo!

We did have a coffee each with this, too, but unfortunately they were no where near as nice as they looked. We plan to come back out and go to the other patisserie we were meant to go to, which was only a block over!

We were parked at a mall, so it made sense to go there to do our weekly shop but also a few other things. We picked up a frame and some other items from Homesense and then went to the supermarket.

We drove back home after a pretty successful day and then when we got home we did some relaxing then Kim made a veggie lasagna for dinner!

We watched a bit of TV and then Kim had a bath and watched a film.

We watched some more TV after Kim’s bath and then headed to bed. Another busy week is coming!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 921: Vancouver, BC – We Can Now Use It!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a meeting at 09:00 to discuss a few things about the office and people returning post COVID and what his team needs to do to prepare for that.

He got some tickets done and then had a quick team meeting for 30 minutes to discuss projects.

Once the meeting was complete, Curtis had to disable and offboard an account so he got that done then he had to review some security documents.

Curtis finished up a project that has been active for a while, which he was thankful for, and then after lunch he had a quick team meeting followed by a meeting with one of his colleagues to create a document that is needed for a process.

Curtis got some mandatory security training completed at the end of the day and did some more admin, then he was done.

Kim’s Day

To start her day Kim had a quick check in with a teammate before joining two meetings with marketing. The first was general support and working on stuff together and the second was the regular recruitment meeting. She then joined her weekly team meeting before having another donut date with someone from another department.

Towards the end of the morning Kim joined an interview and then had a quick review and chat with the hiring manager. It was so great to catch up and just hang out for a bit.

In the afternoon Kim had organised a meeting with a couple of hiring managers to get her new team members up to speed on how recruitment has been for the past few months and just set aside time for everyone to meet, ask questions and hang out. She then had an end of day check in with a teammate and then joined another interview.

In the early evening she had a mini check in with a couple of her teammates and then that moved into a meeting with a department head which turned into a lovely chat and 1-1 catch up.

Evening

We had pasta for dinner and then we went for our usual evening walk. The weather was beautiful today, 28°C, so we made the most of that in the evening, when it was a little less baking warm but still beautiful weather.

We tested our enterphone setup and that seems to work, meaning we can actually get deliveries now, which is exciting!

We got home and just relaxed.

We have our first vaccine tomorrow! We have to be there for 10:00 so we’re getting up, having a decent breakfast and then walking down to the convention centre.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 918: Vancouver, BC – Finally Exploring A Little

Kim & Curtis Hale

Kim went out to get croissants for breakfast and we ate those and then very slowly got ourselves ready for the day.

Here in BC, we are able to travel within our health region, which is quite large, and they no longer suggest not doing so, so we went a little further today!

We drove out towards where we stayed when we first got here, near Burnaby, and walked around a park we’d been to a couple of times.

We walked through the forest areas and almost all of the park. We were met by many squirrels and birds and the weather got way hotter then it was meant to be, which was lovely!

We walked around for a while and then started to need a drink and got a bit too warm, so we headed back towards home.

We needed to go to the supermarket, so we stopped in there on the way back.

After we got home, we did some laundry and vaccuming and then Kim made the teriyaki chicken burgers that she’s made a few times! She made a decent amount of them so we can have them whenever we want without having to make them again!

Kim cooked up the burgers and we had that with sweet potato fries and corn on the cob. A delicious dinner.

We ate and relaxed and then Kim went for a nice relaxing bath.

We watched a little TV after that and then went to bed, ready for work tomorrow.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale