Tag: drink

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 939: Vancouver, BC – Kittens & Ice Cream!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Croissants & A Friend

Curtis went to get croissants for breakfast and once we ate those and Kim showered, Kim went out to meet a friend and hang out in a park for a while.

Kittens!

Kim went to see the kittens that her friend had for a little bit and they were so cute!

Once Kim was done, she walked back home and then we both went out together.

New Shoes, Warmth & Ice Cream!

We went to get ice cream, specifically, at a place Kim went to around a year ago and remembered it was amazing, so we had to try it.

It was 28°C today, so super warm but beautiful! We got a drink when we got there and a light snack and we ate that whilst sat in a park nearby.

We then had a walk around the park and headed to a shop to get Kim some sandals as her feet were far too warm.

Once we got those, we went to the ice cream store, which had a bit of a queue, and waited patiently for our turn.

Curtis got a coffee flavoured ice cream and Kim got salted caramel. The ice cream was super delicious and we took it to the park and sat on the grass again, in the shade, just relaxing.

We eventually got up and had a bit more of a walk before heading back to the car around 17:50.

Fans, Supermarket & Leftovers

We drove back towards home and stopped at the supermarket but also popped into another store to get a couple of fans (it’s getting warm!) And some screws so we can hang the photo we bought a while ago!

We got back home and had leftovers form yesterday’s delicious Chinese food and then Kim had a shower and got herself ready for work tomorrow. It was too hot to have a bath this week.

Curtis is off work tomorrow, he had been given the day off to recognise National Indigenous Day in Canada, which is a great thing that the company is doing.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 520: Vancouver, BC – ANOTHER Application Submitted!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis and a team meeting at 09:30 and then was busy with some tickets followed by some admin and security work before it hit lunchtime.

Once lunch was done, Curtis had some questions and tickets to attend to, then he started a project. It was mostly figuring out what needs to be done for the project, but there was a little bit he got done, too.

He had a quick request from someone on his team for some information so he found that and provided it to them, then it was the end of the day and time to watch hockey!

Kim’s Day

To start her day Kim sent a few emails and set up some meetings for next week. She then joined a meeting to set up a company wide brainstorm.

After the meeting Kim submitted her PNP profile. Then she created a template that she will use for some base questions in interviews. Kim also sent some paperwork to another new hire and ticked a few quick wins off of her to do list.

In the afternoon Kim went for a masked walk with her colleague. It was so fun and the weather was beautiful. Once she was home Kim worked on a few things for the facilities project.

Evening

We had some pizza from our favourite pizza place for dinner, once Kim got home and hockey finished.

We ate that terrific pizza, did some tidying and cleaning for the first set of viewings tomorrow and watched a bit of TV.

We topped of the evening with some wine and relaxing.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Whistler, BC

Place 87 – Day 1: Whistler, BC🇨🇦 – Some Time Away!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Breakfast!

We finally managed to have some breakfast from Small Victory!

Kim had an appointment in the morning and then she picked up the breakfast.

We each had a normal croissant, which was amazingly flakey and buttery, and Kim had her usual coffee (Spanish latte) and Curtis had a terrific cappuccino.

We got ourselves ready and we managed to leave by around 12:00.

Off To Whistler!

The drive up to Whistler was really nice, but it was still smokey, so not too much could be seen.

We stopped in at Canadian Tire in Squamish and got some jump cables after our debacle the other week.

We grabbed a coffee too, of course.

We drop up to Whistler and the hotel was awesome!

We got upgraded to a suite, so we have a table and a sofa etc. Super nice!

Village Exploration

We got our stuff up to the room and then just went for a walk around to see different things around the village and different areas.

We walked through a small forest of sorts and saw a Blue Jay, which is cool!

We took a walk through the village area and spotted a few nice places for food!

Came across a nice bridge with an awesome river.

Dinner

Our legs got tired after a few hours and we began to get hungry, so we walked to a place we had seen earlier called Noodles and we grabbed ourselves a box of food each. Kim got a Korean chicken box and Curtis got crispy spicy beef with rice.

We went back to the hotel room and ate our food and chilled out in the room for a bit, then went out to get some things in the drug store. This meant we got to see the Village at night, which was dark for sure!

Drinks!

We went for a drink in the bar downstairs from our hotel room, which was a very empty bar, and then headed back upstairs to play some card games and watch TV.

We’ve planned the remainder of our time here, we’re here until Friday evening, so that’s great!

It’s Curtis’ birthday tomorrow, too!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 198: Vancouver, BC – Mimosas, Bloodwork & Coffee Explosion!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis got to work and did some admin as usual, and then had his daily team meeting.
After that, he tried to get the nitro coffee sorted, but after doing exactly what he does each week, it didn’t seem to work!

He ended up, throughout the day, speaking with 2 different people at 2 different companies and it was determined that the nitrogen gas may be too low for it to work, but others were working so it’s a little confusing!

During troubleshooting, Curtis managed to spray coffee everywhere, including all over his face!

Curtis had mimosas and pancakes at work around 10:00! It was fun, the pancakes were homemade and the drinks were great. Nice it chat with the few people in the office (due to the Mexico trip) and have some food and drink.

Post food and drink, Curtis helped someone with the printer, which ended up taking 45 minutes!

Curtis joined in on some games with people from his team and a team close to his. This was for an hour and then he had lunch.

After lunch, Curtis completed an onboard and did some more admin, then met Kim to go home!
Kim’s DayShortly after Kim got in the weekly shop arrived, so she organised all of that and then responded to a few emails that she missed from being out of the office on Friday. She then headed to a LifeLabs centre to let them steal some of her blood for testing. It was very easy, she was in and out within 15 minutes, even though she arrived early!

On her way back to the office Kim stopped by the Youth Centre she dropped the donations off at the other day and handed in some nappies as a colleague had a few spare that no longer fit their babies.
when she got back into the office Kim sorted through some invoices and took a look into one that she didn’t understand further. She ended up having to reach out to the travel agency to see what was going on. Towards the end of the day it became apparent that it was a fair charge, so that is good news.
Kim spent a little of her time today trying to find a venue for a summer party. She had a great idea in mind, but cannot seem to find a venue that would work at all! It’s a little frustrating, but it’ll all come together in the end. Kim also took a look into setting up a blood drive across all 5 offices, but it turns out that it’s not possible as mobile collections are not a thing and Kim just made them up.

In the afternoon Kim spent a lot of her time looking into why a letter was returned. It was rejected by the postal service due to insufficient funds to send the letter, however when Kim ran it through the system again it printed the same amount of postage. Kim called the postal service who said that the postage should easily cover the letter and that maybe it was an issue with the machine, which led Kim to have a 30 minute phone call with no new information at the end of it.

Kim ended up heading to the post office and dropping it off by hand and asking if they know why it would have been rejected and they didn’t believe that it should have been. So the letter is back in the post and Kim is just hoping it doesn’t come back in a few days!

Evening TogetherWe had a weekday evening together today, which seems rare!

Usually Kim’s out at pole or Curtis is doing something, but not tonight!

Kim went to the shop to get a few things for dinner and then made another Risotto!

We watched the film Good Boys and ate some food for the evening, with some TV thrown in there too.

Perfect!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Victoria,BC

Place 70 – Day 29: Victoria, BC – Butchart Gardens at Christmas!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Brunch

We slept in a little and got up around 09:30 to get ready.Linda had already been to the gym and back, but once we got ready we went down to a place called John’s Place, which we had seen before but not eaten at.

There are a lot of photos on the wall of many different things, from sports people to musicians to films.

It was a very unique place and somewhere where each wall is different and something interesting to talk about.We ordered our food and were glad as we were very hungry!

Curtis got eggs Benedict, Kim got waffles and Linda had a halibut burger.All of our food was delicious and helped out by the free, warm, bread we got, too!

We finished up there and were incredibly happy with our decision. The staff were wonderful and so was the food.

John’s Place | Victoria, BC

Our Rating:- 10/10

Once we left there, we went back to Linda’s place for a rest and Kim stopped off at Winners to buy some gloves…and she bought 2 pair.

Butchart Gardens

Linda had lovingly bought us some tickets to take the bus out to Butchart Gardens with her and see all of the Christmas lights on the plants and around the gardens which are meant to be really nice.

Whilst waiting for the bus, Curtis found out that his team won the hackathon! That means he wins an Oculus Rift and he was incredibly proud of his team.

We took the bus which took us around 40 minutes and once we got there, we met with Linda’s friend Dee and her husband, Steve.

It was raining, but it wasn’t too bad and didn’t spoil it at all.

We had dinner when we first got there. Curtis got a vegetable curry and Kim had a turkey dinner (again).

It was great to spend the time with Linda and we walked around looking at the terrific light displays they had.

This was much better than the one we went to in Vancouver with Linda.

Bailey’s!

We got back to Linda’s and warmed up after taking the bus back and then walking up to Linda’s.

We sat around and relaxed for a bit, but then had a Bailey’s to celebrate Christmas with Linda!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 160: Vancouver, BC – Fort Langley, Cranberry Festival & Market!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Fort Langley, Cranberry Festival & Market

We were up at 10:00, had a quick breakfast, got ready, got in the car and headed on up to Fort Langley.

This is a small ‘township’ out east, fairly close to the USA border.

Fort Langley, BC

It took us around 1 hour to get there and then we had to find some parking as there were a lot of cars parked everywhere!

We managed to find a spot next to a school which was luckily just a short walk from the middle of the town.

We walked to the town and the first thing we saw was their farmer’s market, which they seem to do every Saturday. This was full of some jams, cheeses, booze and trinkets, all home made!

We smelled and saw a perogie stall which was busy, but they only took cash, so we walked down to (the only) bank in the town which there was a large queue for!

We got some money out and then went back up to get perogies. They had a few different things cooking, so we got a plate each with everything on!

There were perogies, a sausage, onions and some kind of hamburger meat wrapped in lettuce in a spice sauce, all topped with a cream sauce.

It was all ok, but Curtis had liked the sausage the most and the lettuce wrap thing the least.

Kim really liked the perogie and disliked the sausage the most.

Once we finished eating, we went over to the cranberry festival market.

This was a whole street rammed with stalls, a lot selling cranberry related items, such as cranberry beer,chocolate and bakery items.

We walked around looking at this for a while and trying a few samples, and then went to find a place for a coffee.

Cool Alleyway!

Curtis got a large cappuccino and it tasted odd. Kim wanted an ice cream so we found an ice cream place and she got a creamy salted caramel cone.

We watched the dragon boat race as someone from Kim’s work was apparently competing, but we didn’t see her.

After the race, we finished our food and drink and saw a couple of antique stores, so we had to go in! The town was old and quaint, so perfect for an antique store.

We spent probably far too long in there, but some of the items were super cool!

Work Stuff

We drove back home which didn’t take too long and we got back in perfect time for Curtis to watch the Leafs game.

Whilst he did that, Kim had to go to the city and do stuff for work, on a Saturday!

She rewarded herself by going to a few shops whilst she we in the area and managed to get us both dressing gowns too.

(Bad) Katsu Curry

Kim got home shortly after the leafs game finished and we decided it was dinner time.

We wanted Katsu Curry, so found a couple of Japanese restaurants and picked one.

We picked wrong!

This was a Japanese pub of some sort and was falling apart and was not busy at all.

We eventually ordered after waiting for a long time. We each got a chicken curry and we ordered a vegetable donburi to share.

All of the food was mediocre and the service was awful. We left and almost certainly won’t go back there again.

We got back home and snuggled on the sofa to watch some TV.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 132: Vancouver, BC – Whiskey Flights & Fancy French Meal!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Shopping & Coffee

As with every weekend, we did some shopping and grabbed a coffee before anything else!

We had breakfast, got ready and then went out to get something from London Drugs. Then, after that, we went to Homesense to find some perfect whiskey glasses to have for home, which we did! We had to queue for a while but eventually got them purchased and then went to Starbucks to get a coffee.

We had our coffee in Starbucks for a bit, but then went back home so others could sit down. The weather was bad, so coffee shops were busy!

We got back home and Kim took her shoes to the cobbler to get the. Heals re done. Whilst out, she saw a few dogs, one of which was a collie mixed with a German shepherd which was very cute! She then had a hug with a kitten before going back to pickup her shoes.

Whiskey Flights!

Once Kim got back, we started getting ready to go out.

We took the train down to the city and walked for 10 minutes up to a pub which has a whiskey bar out back!

We got in and got our flights of whiskey. Kim went for the Scottish, where as Curtis went for the recommended one from the barman which was the cherry aged whiskeys.

Along with our whiskey, we had a meat and cheese board, which was phenominal!

Shebeen Bar | Vancouver, BC

Our Rating:- 10/10

We had some great chats with the bar staff but then had to leave so we could make it to our dinner reservation, but we had a Jameson Mule before we left!

Fancy French Meal

Kim booked in a French meal, which we were very excited for! We each got a glass of wine and then some free bread, just before our mains arrived!

Jules Bistro | Vancouver, BC

Our Rating:- 9/10

Kim got a tenderloin steak with scallion potatoes as well and ratatouille, and Curtis had a terrific rack of lamb which came with potatoes and corn.

For dessert, Kim had a chocolate & caramel pudding and Curtis had a cappucino, which was the best he has had in a while!

We finished our food, paid up and walked back home.

Once we got back home, a little tipsy, we got some admin done and then watched the latest Suits episode before going to sleep.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 111: Vancouver, BC – Ice Skating & Lion King

Kim & Curtis Hale

Ice Skating

We got up at 11:00, which was a great sleep in for us.We had breakfast and then got ready for the day.Curtis wanted to go ice skating to test the ice skates he bought before the hockey season starts just to see if they fit right, he can skate in them etc.We took the car for its first drive, driving out to the Botany 8-Rinks arena which took us about 25 minutes. The car drives great and we didn’t crash, which is a positive.We got to the rink and paid just $5 each for 1.5 hours of skating as well as $3 for some skates for Kim.The arena has 8 rinks, surprisingly, and we were on the figure skating rink. There weren’t too many people there and we were able to get our skating on!

We had a really good time but only did about an hour as we got a bit tired. Curtis’ skates are a little stiff, which is expected with higher end skates, but he was able to skate really well in them, so he is hoping they will work great when the season starts.

Coffee & Shopping

We drove from the rink to Metropolis, just 10 minutes down the road.We parked in the free underground parking and then went in and headed right to Starbucks.We each got a caramel iced latte and just sat and relaxed for a bit.After that, we bought cinema tickets for the Lion King and then went to a few shops before the film started.Kim needed to get some items for exercise, so we found some of those which was successful.

The Lion King

We got into the cinema just in time for the trailers and then watched the Lion King.We thought the animation of the film was amazing and it was quite funny at points, but Kim wasn’t too happy that they missed some parts out!

The Lion King

Our Rating:- 8/10

We Lost The Car!

We left the cinema and wanted to head home.The only problem was, we couldn’t find the car!We walked around for a while and eventually found it. We swear it was a maze in that carpark.We drove back home and we were actually very tired. We weren’t meant to do anything today and were out for 7 hours!Kim walked up to Canadian Tire to get some supplies and then when she came back, we watched some TV.Weirdly, neither of us were that hungry, but we did have snacks at the cinema. Therefore, Curtis had some toast and Kim had a pop tart.Tomorrow, we REALLY plan to do nothing.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 86: Vancouver, BC – Long Walks, Granville Island & Fancy Dinner

Kim & Curtis Hale

Long Walks

We woke up fairly early, had breakfast and then did some chores around the apartment.

After we finished, we walked down to meet Linda at her hotel.

It was hot again today, but we decided to walk along the seawall. We walked all the way to the seawall from the hotel and then down to the seabus where we caught it to Graville Island.

Granville Island

When we got there, we scoped out a coffee place once we found one, all three of us got an iced latte.

We had a bit of a wander around but then wanted to get out of the crowds, so we continued around the seawall and towards our apartment.

We stopped in at our apartment to have a sit down and some water as well as to show Linda around.

We had only been walking around for about 1.5 hours in total, even though it felt like a lot more!

We relaxed here for a couple of hours but all started to fall asleep so thought it would be best if we went outside again.

We went for a walk down to the city, to the hotel Linda is staying in, where we had a dinner reservation.

Amazing Dinner

Kim had been to this restaurant with work before and knew it was tremendous so she recommended that we go.

We got there at 16:30 but our table was booked for 17:00. We were so hungry after all our walking, so we decided we would sit and have dinner then!

We got sat and got a cocktail each. Kim and Linda had a Piña Colada and Curtis had an Old fashioned.

We waited a little bit but then ordered our starters. We had chicken wings, amazing sourdough with butter and honey as well as some tempura salmon.

The salmon wasn’t great, but everything else was so good. (We forgot to get photos of that as we were so hungry!).

For mains, we got Korean chicken, a salad and mac & cheese. All of these were great, but the mac and cheese was phenomenal.

We had such a great night and whilst we were full, all three of us shared a dessert because it would be rude not to.

We got a chocolate mousse with lemon creme and some ice cream of some sort and it was incredible, but we are glad we only got the one!

We said goodbye to Linda as she leaves early tomorrow and we waddled home.

Showcase Restaurant | Vancouver, BC

Rating:- 9/10

Once we got back, we watched some TV, did some admin and had an early night. It’s been a great weekend, but we are tired!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 78: Vancouver, BC – Study, Study, Study

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up without an alarm for the first time in what felt like forever and it was around 10:00 so a perfect time.

We had a pain au chocolat each which Kim picked up from Urban Fare. they’re great, covered in chocolate and big!

Kim then spent most of the day studying for her first aid course she is doing this week coming, whilst Curtis played games.

At one point, we did speak with Kim’s parents, briefly, and then we went to Starbucks (one we didn’t realise was there and is closer!) Purely so we could order off our phones and get a deal for a free drink!

We went out the house to the shop to get stuff for dinner and for the week.

Once we got that and then got back, we got our food started.

Curtis found a recipe for a simple yet delicious dish with minced beef.

This was a mix of a soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic, chili flakes & probably some other stuff other than that, it was delicous though!

Kim did a little more studying and then we had a small glass of the wine we had left whilst watching some TV.

Not a very interesting day but Kim only got the study material end of last week and needs to know it for this week!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale