Tag: snacks

Victoria,BC

Place 70 – Day 34: Victoria, BC – Hot Stone Massage & Mattick’s Farm

Kim & Curtis Hale

Hot Stone Massage

We woke up after sleeping very early last night and felt very well rested.

We had some cereal for breakfast and Kim then went out for a hot stone massage! She really enjoyed it, actually. She felt like jelly!

Mattick’s Farm

Kim got back and we went out to Mattick’s Farm.

This was only about 20 minutes away and once we got there, it was coffee time!

They had a restaurant and tea room, so we went to the tea room and got ourselves coffee and snacks. Curtis got a cinnamon bun and Kim had a tuna and mayonnaise sandwich.

We left here and went to play mini golf! They had a mini golf place at the farm, so we took Linda to play her first round ever!

The game was pretty close, actually, with Curtis coming out with the win in the end.

We really enjoyed that, actually, and it wasn’t really in the sun either, which was good for us.

We drove back toward Victoria and on the way, we stopped at a supermarket which is known for really cheap fresh fruit and vegetables, so we got in there and got some produce there.

Delicious Dinner

We got back home and relaxed for an hour or so and then we went to a restaurant that Linda has been visiting for a long while.

Curtis and Linda shared a ceasar salad and Kim had a French onion soup, which was her first time trying! She really enjoyed it actually, though it was a lot for her!

Curtis had a steak which came with potatoes and veg and Kim had chicken marsala with mushrooms and veg, too.

We really enjoyed our dinner and were perfectly full.

We headed back home and had some strawberries which Linda bought at the veg store today.

Drinks With Another Friend

We went for drinks with a friend of Kim’s from work just down at the brown’s social house in Victoria.

Curtis hadn’t met her before and Kim hadn’t met her in person but we had a good chat and a drink before heading back home to Linda’s.

We’re heading out again tomorrow, so that should be fun!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Advertisement
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

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 991: Vancouver, BC – Beach, Drinks & Snacks!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a company wide meeting at 09:00 which unveiled some very interesting news!

After that, Curtis had a team meeting and then he talked a colleague through how to do something.

Curtis then had some tickets to do, followed by a meeting to help someone with something. The afternoon was mostly tickets and then he also did a bit of security work.

Curtis got some of his Norwegian homework done in the early evening, until Kim got home.

Kim’s Day

Kim had another busy and productive day! She woke up and got ready. Then she had breakfast and started whiteboarding with her managers. They managed to get into some really great topics and iron so much out.

In the early afternoon they left the hotel, popped things in the car and headed over to a nearby cafe to finish the day. Kim was able to get a few things done while everyone else was on a call and then they continued the discussions. Later on Kim did a mini presentation and tour of some research she had been doing and was really happy to know she was on the right track and getting stuff done!

Evening

We walked down to the beach and met a couple of Kim’s colleagues who were down there. We sat and chatted for a little bit but then needed to head to the hotel Kim was at last night to meet another colleague and friend of Kim’s there as they had some drink tokens for the bar! Curtis finally got to meet her after speaking with her a few times on Zoom but never in person.

We had a drink and a snack and had some really good chats. Overall, a pretty fun evening!

We stopped at our favourite Vietnamese place to get a banh mi for dinner.

We got home and watched a bit of TV together and headed to be fairly early, for us.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 931: Vancouver, BC – Wreck Beach

Kim & Curtis Hale

Breakfast & Wreck Beach

We had a good sleep and then woke up and had some breakfast. Kim went out to get croissants and we ate those and slowly got ourselves ready.

We went out to Wreck Beach, which is right by the university campus. This beach, it turns out, is actually clothing optional, though most people that go don’t go for that.

We drove out there and found ourselves some parking and then walked down the many steps through the trees to get to the beach.

The beach was nice and peaceful, with most people just lounging around. There are a lot of logs around, so we sat on one of those after having a walk around and just took in the air and the scenery. The weather wasn’t amazing, but not cold, so it gres to just sit and relax at the beach.

We walked a little more and then headed back up the many steps to get to the car. As we walked back to the car, another car drove very slowly beside us, trying to wait for us to leave our parking spot so they could take it. This was much to the dismay of other drivers who got very annoyed, so we intentionally just walked away and let the guy drive off so he didn’t hold up traffic.

A Surprise!

On the way home, Kim surprised Curtis by driving to the British shop, where we were able to buy a lot of British snacks, similar to what she did for his birthday!

We bought a lot of stuff there and then drove home.

Homemade Pizza

After relaxing at home a little, we went to the supermarket to buy everything we needed for a homemade pizza. We bought the dough this time, though, but it was fresh dough.

We made the pizza and it came out great, though quite soggy in the middle, so that’s something to work on, but it was very tasty!

After eating, we watched a film and had some of our snacks. After that, we watched some more TV but Kim also ordered herself a blanket she wanted to get.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 401: Vancouver, BC – It’s All Broken!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a message from a colleague in another office that someone had to head into the Vancouver office to help fix something that broke during maintenance.

Curtis said he would go, so once he was ready in the morning, he walked to the office.

When Curtis got there, he found out that the was stopping people from accessing some websites and no one could use their desk phones.

To fix this, Curtis found a special cable which he plugged into the server and then into his laptop.

His colleague then took control of Curtis’ laptop and attempted to fix whilst explaining a bit about how it all works.

This lasted for about 2 hours and then another issue arose once the main part was fixed! Phones were back working but no one could call out to external numbers.

This took another hour to fix, but eventually it got fixed!

Curtis walked back home, had his first coffee of the day at around 12:45, did some tickets and then had lunch.

After lunch, Curtis had a long team meeting and then did a couple more tickets after that before finishing up for the week.

Kim’s Day

Kim had a nice long lie in this morning and then she watched Parks and Recreation while having some breakfast. She then had a massive spur of thoughts for her CV so sat and wrote down a lot of notes before getting ready for the day.

Once she was ready Kim finally added her latest job to her CV. Then she worked on cleaning up the formatting of the document. She wasn’t 100% happy with it, so she also saved another version that has a few amendments and she will revisit them and see which she prefers after a break away.

After lunch Kim went back to her old office to drop off her IT equipment and pick up a few things she had forgotten. She stayed and had a quick chat with her colleague.

Kim then went to a rooftop bar nearby where she met her colleague and two other friends she used to work with for food and drink. It was amazing. For the few hours they were catching up Kim managed to completely forget COVID and the fact she lost her job. It felt like a lovely evening out Pre-COVID and it has done Kim the world of good. Kim got some flowers as a gift which was lovely, too!

Evening

Once Kim got back from being out, we had some chicken & mushroom pasta with hoisin sauce.

We watched some TV for the evening and that was it!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 274: Vancouver, BC – Checking Out The New Neighbourhood

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up and had some french toast for breakfast and then we got ready for the day.

After we were ready, we spoke with Kim’s family and gave them a little tour of our apartment, even though it is not ready yet!

We finished the call, had a quick snack and then went out to walk around and explore our new neighbourhood. There seemed to be some cool places around and we even found an open Starbucks, so we got our first Starbucks in months!

We then walked back home and relaxed for a while, as well as looking at beds and other things for the apartment.

We then got hungry, so decided to make pizza!

We had a pizza dough already, so it was a case of just getting the topping sorted. We went with mushrooms, cheese (cheddar & mozzarella), red onion and sweetcorn!

The pizza was pretty tasty, though we don’t think it was enough for 2 people.

We watched the film Prospect whilst we ate dinner.

We had some cookies and other snacks throughout the evening and just generally did very little.

Comox,BC

Place 86 – Day 3: Comox, BC – Snowboarding & Spare Tyre!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Snowboarding

We were up at 07:00 to get up to the mountain at a good time.

Brody drove up to Mount Washington and there wasn’t too many people there when we arrived.

We got our snow gear on and walked up to the slopes!

Neither of us have done skiing or snowboarding before, so we were in new territory.

The slopes were 50% off for the day and we just needed a pass for the easy slopes. We got a half day pass each, which cost us around $15 each…Crazy cheap!

We got started but not very well. Brody was patient with us and taught us well, but it took us some time to get used to it.

We eventually got down the first bit of the mountain which is basically the ‘highway’ to get to a bunch of different slopes.

We went down there and headed into the easy slopes. These take you up on a conveyor, which makes things a lot easier than a ski lift!

We got to the top of the mountain and had some terrific views. The weather was impeccable today, with no cloud whatsoever!

We got to about halfway down, very slowly, but Kim had started figuring out some good techniques.

We got up to the next section and decided we would just stick with that short section of the mountain, which was also great as there wasn’t many people there.

We headed back to the main area, but you have to snowboard down on a fairly flat trail, which crossed over some of the mountain, so people were flying around at all directions.

Curtis got stuck and couldn’t get moving again on the flat part, so had to shimmy his way to the end.

At the end, there’s a large hill that you have to go down. Kim got down fairly easy, but Curtis did struggle a little, taking quite a while and getting a little frustrated.

We bought a drink and ditched some clothes and then went right back up to our preferred part of the mountain.

Kim started to really get the hang of it and gave Curtis some good pointers which helped him and before we knew it we were both doing pretty well.

Kim did a couple of runs from the top of the mountain all the way to the bottom which she felt great about.

We ended up spending way more time than the 1\2 day there, pretty much going non stop from 08:45 to 14:30!

We were tired and hurting but had a great time. We feel like we’d really like to go again and improve some more.

Light Snack

We got a light snack at a pub with Brody and some of his friends and Curtis got a well deserved beer too.

We then headed back to Brody’s place and got showered and changed before hitting the road to leave!

Puncture!

We made it a bit down the road and the tyre pressure light came on and it turned out we had a very flat tyre! We had filled it with air last night so we knew it must have an issue.

We started to get the spare tyre and jack from the back of the car but the jack was very rusted on so the gas station we were at gave us a few things to get it out.

The guy was really nice and gave us a bit of help with it and we were able to get that changed fairly quick (it was mostly Kim).

Back to Vancouver

We headed down to Nanaimo to catch the ferry, after our quick pitstop to change our tyre! We took it slow and made it with plenty of time.

We went for a walk and got some food and then headed back to the car and got onto the ferry.

The sailing was easy and then we got to the other side and drove back to Vancouver, which didn’t take long.

It was an amazing weekend but it’ll be nice to be home and back in our own bed.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 171: Vancouver, BC – Ramen With A Friend

Kim & Curtis Hale

Chill Morning

We had a chill morning and had some cereal for breakfast.

Kim was going to go out for lunch with a friend, but they decided to have dinner together instead, so Kim didn’t have to rush!

Kim got ready to go out and got in the car to drive up to North Vancouver to pick up a board game.

Curtis watched hockey whilst Kim was out.

Board Game Pickup, Shopping & Lunch!

The first thing Kim did was head out to get the game Taboo from someone selling it on Facebook.

After this she headed to Burnaby to meet a friend for dinner and do a little shopping.

They started by wondering around some shops, then went for a lovely Ramen.

Kim went for chicken ramen and her friend went for creamy vegan! They loved them.

After dinner they spent time walking around the shopping centre and having a great catch up.

We continued to watch the show Sex Education in the evening after Kim got back and we had some snacks and relaxed.

We booked a hotel somewhere for a couple of nights, too! Kim booked the wrong dates but luckily she was able to change it!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Las Vegas,NV

Place 77 – Day 11: Las Vegas, NV – Night In The Valley of Fire

Kim & Curtis Hale

Finishing the Race

Tom was up early to get a couple more laps in before the finish of the race.

He really enjoyed doing it as the sun was rising, though it was cold!

The race finished up and we were pretty much ready to go. We treated ourselves to showers and then got packed up to go.

Coffee!

We got going on the road, heading towards a coffee shop we saw, called River Rock Roasting Company. Everyone seemed to head there at the same time, so it was quite busy, but we sat outside with amazing views whilst we had some coffee and snacks.

Valley of Fire

We have been to the valley of fire before, but Tom has not, so we decided we would camp there!

We drove all the way there after our coffee and got there at a pretty good time.

We didn’t really have plans for the evening, just have a look around, adventure a bit and then relax and play some cards.

This blog is up a lot earlier due to us being unsure if we will have any internet connection tonight at the campsite.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 114: Vancouver, BC – Bake Off’s Back!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis arrived at work and had some admin to do, as usual and then he finished setting up an old mac.

After that, Curtis replaced someone’s laptop and ensured that all worked for them.

Curtis then did a few tickets up until lunch time.

Post lunch, Curtis ststted setting up a new laptop, which took most of the afternoon, and then he had a brief 1 on 1 with the HR team about his first 3 months at the company.

Curtis finished the day with a bit of project work, as well as a bit of security work.

A fairly slow day but varied non the less.

Kim’s Day & Evening

As there was a new hire starting today, who came all the way from the UK office, Kim ensured that she was in a little early as he was due to arrive at 9ish. It 9.10 he is introduced to Kim be her colleague as he arrived before Kim and had done the tour already! Kim was also greeted this morning by an email from the close by hotel to say they have rooms available and the price was much lower than any competitor! What a great way to start a day!

Kim used her new extra time to catch up on emails, that she had neglected yesterday! She approved items, saved invoices and whizzed through!

To be prepared for the meeting taking place later in the day Kim went and stole all the best mugs and cups to ensure they would be nice, clean and easily available later in the day. She also hid 2 of the water jugs and our the frozen cut up lemon in one to allow it to thaw and infuse the water! She also put a load of soft drinks on a tray ready for later too!

Kim then went back to the hotel / meeting room booking she has been working on and organised with the building to have the 25th floor for 2 of the days and then organised internally to free up the boardroom on their floor for the 3rd and final day.

Before Kim started the boardroom preperations Kim collected and gift wrapped some company swag for the external visitors. She didn’t go full Love Actually gift wrapping but the thought was there!

As it was suddenly midday Kim started preparing the meeting room by making sure all the chairs were the same and at the same height and perfectly placed around the table. She then set the glasses and water jugs up before helping giving the windows a quick clean. Kims colleague then ran out to grab some snackables for the meeting so Kim set up the drinks she set aside from earlier and made a start on a coffee urn. When her colleague came back Kim plated the biscuits and set everything up.

Just as they were putting the napkins in the boardroom the external visitors arrived so Kim contacted the meeting organiser while her colleague made a coffee.

After the meeting was underway Kim took some time to have lunch and take a breather. She had a lovely catch up with a few colleagues and it was lovely.

After lunch Kim spent some of her afternoon organising meeting invites for the new hire meet and eats coming up. Then she spent her time catching up on more emails and reorganising meeting rooms.

Kim ended up sticking around later today to make sure that the meeting didn’t need anything else. While she was waiting, she stole a bookcase from a meetingroom and is keeping it at reception for storage!

Kim was then asked to call cabs for the meeting to head out to dinner. After the meeting left Kim then sorted and cleaned out the room!

Then she headed home, got changed and went directly to her class.

Then she headed home, got changed and went directly to her class. Today’s class was lyrical so they spent some time at the beginning learning 2 moves and then they were incorporated into a routine. It was so much fun!

Kim then was heading home and popped to the supermarket to pick something up and realised that she did not have her purse. Luckily Curtis was home so bought it to her and then they did the mini shop together

The Remainder of Our Evening

Curtis didn’t really do anything whilst Kim was out. He did a few things around the apartment, but mostly just played some games and relaxed.

Once Kim got home after going to the supermarket, we were both very hungry! Luckily, Curtis had done most of the salad and Kim just added the fresh roasted chicken from the supermarket and some caesar sauce and hey presto a simple yet delicious caesar salad.

We finished up by watching the first episode of the new Great British Bake Off and then went to bed at a reasonable time.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale