Canada Day 2: Stanley Park

For our first full day in Vancouver, Connor and I were up bright and early - at 4am! I think we are still on UK time pretty much.

Breakfast isn't served until 6:30, but we managed to fill the time having baths and putting clothes away/playing Nintendo.



We had brekkie about 7ish, and killed another hour,and then set off for the Stanley Park aquarium in a yellow cab.

We got there bright and early too, at 9, unfortunately it doesn't open until 10 :)


So we walked round the sea wall some and went to see the totem poles. These were the highlight of Connor's day, he was fascinated by their stories and symbolism. He even spend $12 of his precious holiday money on a little totem pole of his own in the gift shop,who he has named "totey" :)



He also bought himself a new little friend, a Canadian racoon, who he has called "Furry"


After the totem poles we went back to the aquarium, which I thought was excellent but Connor, like his big brothers before him, appears to be entirely disinterested in fish :) He had to be forcibly posed for this photo: :)



The Beluga whales were amazing, as were the tropical exhibits and the gorgeous Bill Reid orca statue outside - called Lord of the Under Sea. The Lord caused us a slight crisis though when Cons decided he wanted to take a photo of me by the statue, and stepped back, and back, and back, and fell straight down 3 stone steps - eek!!! He was absolutely fine though, thankfully, and so largely was my camera, although the lens cap won't stay on any more.








Then it was back out into the park for more walking, saying hello to the very tame (and black!) squirrels - never seen squirrels that colour before, admiring the gorgeous views, and of course, a spot of geocaching :)



We launched Connor's Dora the Explorer travel bug out into the wild, wonder where she will end up?



After all that walking (it's the next morning now and I can barely move :)), it was back to the hotel on the bus (significantly cheaper than the taxi ride we took down to the park this morning, and very clean buses with very friendly drivers), to the restaurant for a well deserved meal (yummy veggie burger and a trough full of fries), and then a swim.

I started trying to blog after that, but fell asleep half way through, so thankfully managed to miss the end of the Nucks Yotes game in which we got shut out by Bryz (who is hard to stay mad at cos he is so darned cute! and very slightly mad-as-a-brush)



We should be nice and hungry for the win on Monday,now, though :) So I am looking forward to that game even more.

I have more yet to blog, but my tour of GM Place is calling me - yippeeee - catch you later....

Greetings from Vancouver :)

Woohoo, we are finally here :)

(if the Canadian immigration man had had his way we would be half way back to London by now, but that's a whole other story - but just a word of caution for anyone reading this who have children with a different surname to yours - don't try to get into Canada!! Unless you have legal documentation to prove that you have full custody of the child. What a total palaver....)

Anyway, we did finally escape the clutches of the Taser carrying immigration officer, and emerged from the airport into glorious sunshine.

We got a (surprisingly cheap) cab to our lovely hotel, bought some (surprisingly expensive) groceries to stock up our little kitchen, took a walk up and down Robson, and have now retired to the hotel to play Nintendo (Connor) and blog (me), before we turn in.

Given that it is now coming up for 2am at home, Cons has lasted amazingly well. He didn't sleep at all on the plane.

The photos are 1) Greenland out of the plane window,
2) the Rockies, ditto
and 3) Connor completely ignoring the stunning scenery outside :)

Not sure yet what we are doing tomorrow, maybe some geocaching....right now all I want to do is sleep....

This time tomorrow, I'll (almost) be here....

give or take a couple of hours :)

Woot - can anyone say kerrrrrrrrrlutch??????

Game tying goal less than 3 minutes from the end of regulation


Game winning goal 46 seconds into overtime



Only beaten to the first star by the lovely Dan Cloutier - Sylvain's bro and beloved ex Canuck - who took a hammering in goal all night

WELL DONE KES!!!



and thank god we managed to avoid a clean sweep against by the Kings, that would have been kind of embarassing....

---

Oh, and while I'm catching up with Kespics - nice to see Ryan taking his helmet off when Barret Jackman asked nicely :D





and a gorgeous pic of Kes and Lou from the same game (Nux vs Blues 9:3:08)



Right - now I REALLY need to STOP blogging and START packing!!!!

I will miss my paints when I am away...

...I wonder if I should take a few art supplies with me???

hmmmmm..... I'll see if there's any room in the case....

In the meantime, here is the last thing I'll make for a while, maybe :)

This is another entry in the UKS (I think, losing track) stampers' CJ.

I know it's Efemera's journal, and I love the gothic arch shaped pages and the funky Zetti stamp she chose:

It's a pity I had to chop off the cool headgear, but I wanted to go for the obvious on this one and go "goth" on the gothic arches, especially as nobody before me had, and I don't know that many goths who wear stripy turbans, do you??

This is one of those pieces that's impossible to photograph. So I'll have to describe it to you.

The background is made from scrunched up black tissue paper stuck over purple card with PVA glue, left to thoroughly dry and then lightly swiped over with interference paints in red and violet.

A B-Line wrought iron railings stamp was used at the top of each arch in silver, to define the shape a bit.

The letters at the bottom were really good fun to do - I cut up an old gothic script plastic stencil, that I had picked up at a boot sale about 3 years ago for 10p and never used, and made the 3D letters using moulding paste.

Once dry, I painted on and around them with crimson paint, and then highlighted them with blue patina perfect pearls.

What else? Oh yes, the goth lady herself (at least I think it's a lady, kinda hard to tell). She was simply stamped with black Stazon onto white copy paper, and cold laminated. Then I stuck her on and painted her hair freehand with black acrylics.

I really enjoyed making these pages, and I bet the book will look fabulous once it has been completed and bound, lucky Ef!

Canada is very much on my mind......

....so much so that I actually called Connor "Connorda" in Tescos yesterday completely accidentally, which had us both in fits of giggles :D

But can I translate this excitement and anticipation into the motivation to get organised and pack my suitcase?? Of course not lol

I set this afternoon aside to do just that, got bored after 5 minutes, and went out geocaching with Cons :)

Good one today, the other cache up at Coate Water that we didn't get last time. Huge great ammo box stuffed full of quality swag (well quality from a kiddy's point of view anyway).

Gorgeous day for a walk.

Finally

John's been in hiding all year - this is the first pic of him that has made it onto the internet since late 2007.

And now we know why - he has been cooped up growing a crazy homeless dude beard :)

Bless him

Nice to see you, Mr F :)

Yes!!! yes!!! yes!!!! One team has a playoff spot CLINCHED, one more to go....

All the Wildcats had to do tonight to ensure our spot in the playoffs, was sit back and let Chelmsford lose (which they did, by the way, 8-2 :))

But sod that, just because we were playing the cup winning Bracknell Bees, and just because we were missing a couple of our best players (Wheats and Matty Davies), doesn't mean we should roll over.

Oh no, we won tonight, and we deserved that win so much, and ENJOYED it so much!!!

We came out of the traps slowly, and were 0-2 down at the start of the first, boooooo. The Bees fans were looking 10 shades of smug.

But from the 2nd period onwards, we were on fire. The lads threw themselves into the game with heart and soul, and it paid off big time.


By the end of regulation we had pulled it back to a 3-3 tie. Into overtime we went. And we didn't let up the pressure once during that 5 minutes. Even had a couple of almost goals (unfortunately disallowed). We so deserved to win. We wanted it so much more than the Bees, there was real passion at work on the ice.

And the shootout was a beauty. First time we have actually won one this season, I think. Well done to Joel, Crazy, and most of all Ciaran Long who deked the Bees goalie gooooooooood before winning us the game with a very pretty goal indeed.

You should have seen the team celebrating the win on the ice, all of them, and Pete Russell too, jumping up and down like excited schoolgirls.


And they weren't the only ones, I was certainly jumping too.

Great game, absolutely great game.

And the icing on the cake? It was Janak's turn to do autographs after the game, along with Jan Vrtik, so I got my jersey signed :)

Tomas was in such a great mood, all laughing and joking about, he kept tickling the kids, and he drew all over Ben's face with his (permanent, oops!) pen :)


He also really took his time with the signature on my jersey, which I really appreciated, he usually just does a little squiggle and the #41

I bet the lads are still celebrating in Blades Bar, and they absolutely deserve it.

Gutted I am going to miss the last game of the regular season :( But I have PLAYOFF games to see when I get home - yeee haawww!!!!

Now all we need to do is get the Canucks to clinch their place!



And this just in....some helpful soul has posted video of the shootout up on Youtube:

If you can't sit through it all, at least fast forward to the last minute or so to see Ciaran's purty goal ("why is he taking the shot???" that's why :D ) and the team group hug - brilliant :)

Get well soon everyone :(

It's a worrying time right now.

Both my best mate and my ex's daughter, who I am extremely fond of, are seriously ill in hospital.

Another one of my close pals has to go into hospital for an op soon too.

And with all this going on, to be honest, it's barely relevant that Kes has gone and got himself injured just before I head out to see him play - because at least we know he'll be better soon enough, and to be fair it's an occupational hazard.

But I am doing my level best to send healing vibes to all 4 of them (and most of the Canucks D)

Wishing happiness and health to everyone I love

and even those I don't

even farmers :)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

a little Kespic catch up

I haven't done one of these for a while.

Ladies and gentlemen, probably mainly ladies, may I present:

A wibble-inducing anthem pic (that I had to edit the giant NHL watermark off of, yawn, so don't look too closely as I did a bit of a botch Photoshop job)

FINALLY a full size version of his current roster pic (HOW long have I been looking for this???!!!)

A couple of really nice ones from the Canucks Place open day

And some in game pics

Oh - and a couple of vids, a relatively new, nicely made fan tribute. And a re-upload of the CDC highlight reel from last year that I originally uploaded to Youtube but which disappeared when my YT account inexplicably died a death.





If anyone has any of those last little pics full size without the watermark (no way could I Photoshop these out), or has a Getty account and could get them for me, I would be forever in their debt.......

Especially the one where you can clearly see BULL 17 on the stick, that one I would pay good money for...Year of the Bull, and all that jazz.....

One week and counting......

Vancouver here I come!!!!

Isn't it breathtakingly beautiful???

I can't wait to get out there

And I get to see my beloved Nuckies not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES

(they'd better win some of that hockey, or there will be trouble!!)

Let's all do the Frudance....

...because it's John's birthday :D

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!!!!

A to Z Journal - D is for DNA

I'm up to date with the A to Z journal for the first (and probably last) time - yay!!

My D page is for DNA - and very appropriate for Mother's Day - as it's about my three boys, and how they will, hopefully, carry my genes forward to the next generation.

Background is gesso and paints over stamped cardstock. The handpainted squiggle is supposed to be a DNA double helix (I know it looks nothing like one, but hey, art doesn't have to be perfect lol).

The boys are printed onto transparency and stuck on via the magic of Xyron.

That's about it, nice simple one this week.

Bittersweet Mother's Day

Seems like an odd thing to say, but it really hit me when all the Mother's Day blurb started going up in the shops, that I don't have a Mum any more. The first year ever that I haven't bought or made a card. Its weird. You expect them to always be there, somehow. Miss you, Mum, hope you are happy. Have a good Mother's Day, wherever you are.

On the other hand, Mother's Day reminds me that I am blessed with three wonderful boys, who I love very much, and who love me too.

Connor went into the shop all by himself, chose this bear for me, and took it to the checkout. Such a grown up little fella. And I love the card he made on the computer, digi art is maybe his future :)

The big boys will no doubt lavish me with gifts when they finally get out of bed (yeah yeah, course they will :D)

Geocache recommendation

If anyone is visiting the Swindon area on a nice day, especially with kids, I can thoroughly recommend this cache.

It's a really good fun puzzle cache, just like a traditional treasure hunt, roaming around the Lawns (a gorgeous park/woodlands) looking for clues. All the co-ords are spot on, you get a good long walk (but never realise you are exercising because you are having too much fun), the clues are nice and easy so the kids really get to join in, and the cache hiding place is a good one.