The Dog Days of Winter

Inspired by our first big snow this year, Kiya sat on the bridge at the creek and made up a poem...

Nobody knows
how much it snows
on a Husky's nose
Until it's froze

Lotsa snow brings out the Huskier side of Kiya and she was leaping around at the creek and inspiring Baileys to become a sled dog, too!










Baileys, however, is a red dog --- known more for her pensiveness and dedication than ... well .... for her outdoor survival skills.

She sure poses nicely for a camera, tho!

Old People's Weekend

Spent the weekend at.... The Cove Lakeside !

No... not our unit yet (still isn't finished but, apparently it might be ready by Christmas).

It was Timmy's treat for my post-birthday weekend and it gave us a chance to pre-check a few things so that we know what to look for & ask about when it comes time to go through our suite.








Took nice autumn walks through the "nut farm" --- man, there's cool trees there...

And I got the collector's edition of the BBC series "Pride & Prejudice" plus collector's set of "Fight Club" --- probably two of the most opposingly different movies imaginable!

At the end of the weekend we went home & picked squash before the coming frost kills 'em all.

Our Mitchy Witchy Weekend

There should be a whole heckuva lot more photos on this post but --- our witchy ways musta blowed up my blogger because it just won't accept any more pix.... (blast!) Go HERE for more photos...

Even the photo at left is a fake (!)--- taken from an earlier Vic trip. But the right end of the human sandwich (pictured) was our purty-party-hostess for Thursday eve and we got to see her rad pad & drink wine & eat cheese with her at The Mint restaurant (not that I have any photos to prove this claim, but....)


Day Two of the Witchy Weekend was spent checking out the bunny-ful UVic campus.

Boys & Bunnies held our focus fully, but we also found time to buy some "athletic gear" (ha ha!) at the campus bookstore -- not to imply that there was any athleticism attached to the weekend's activities, aside from our sauntering between the hotel & restaurants & clothing stores & the fact that we wagged our tongues so much during marathon gossip sessions that we almost needed resuscitation!!


By Day Three, shopping fever struck.

Luckily, Dr. J was in the house and cured us (quickly) with a trip to Patch! (not that this *$&% blog will accept the killer pix I took there or anything....)

After negotiating some sweet deals in the clothing & jewelry departments, we mentally jogged out to lunch for our imagined health-food indulgence (Noodlebox had a line-up.... damn!).

The last eve (my birthday!) was spent in the presence of the lovely ladies below (not the one holding the massive water bottle, tho...). They graciously treated us to sups at this funky Italian restaurant called Zambri's --- where we accidentally (but happily) munched on fried octopus & spicy tapas - why couldn't our Sicilian companion translate the menu?

After a nearly fatal final night of female chatter, we awoke on the fourth day, looked around for a Noodlebox (.... noodlebox?)... packed up, jumped in the car and promptly got lost.

Octopus musta made us a bit smarter, tho, because we finally found our way to the ferry terminal and the long (mathematical) drive home.

The weekend count was: wine bars visited (3), restaurants pigged out in (4, maybe 5), clothes bought (lots), beans spilled (50), noodlebox eaten: (0). Warning Noodlebox: we shall return!

Ya Ya Wine Weekend

Ya-Ya SisterSpeak: "Which Way to the Wine Festival?"







I'm thinking that this weekend will go down in our family history books as one that required mucho recovery (ouch)!

Present for this wine-0-rama were... my mum's many zany sisters, plus Wunderfull Winnipeg cousins & kooky kid, plus Awesome Ottawa cousin, plus Ever-Lovely Edmonton friend, plus a few fun tagalongs here & there, as well! Phew. Needless to say, wine flowed all weekend, along with conversation and food and craziness (did they really dance to Bryan Adams on Saturday night??)....

On Saturday, the requisite day-o-touring was performed here in Kelowna -- with visits to Summerhill Winery, St.Hubertus and Cedar Snobby Creek (the last winery being too damned uptight to even bother tasting there.... seriously, a reality check for folks-working-at-local-wineries: it's Kelowna fer gawd's sakes...as in, l'il ol' Canada! not the snotty south of France! )

Then it was off to Carmelis Goat Cheese heavenly cheese shop for delectable samples of their extremely wine-friendly products (which we later consumed in mass quantities at home!). Then a quick trip up to Mission Hill Winery to see if we could make their wimpy wineshop staff cry (I won that competition in record time, too!!) and Quail's Gate for a last stop on the Kelowna arm of the tour.

By Sunday, we poured our remains into a few cars and drove down to Oliver, at the South end of our Okanagan grape growing region, for the annual Festival of the Grape and Grape Stomp competition (note, a few pictures up, that even the youngest generation was enticed to smush grapes between his toes!.... which, by the way, were not washed at all for the rest of the weekend...!)


Grape Stomp is a festival that's growing in popularity down here, due mostly to the fact that, well, it rocks. Killer music all day (see funny, "puffy" photo of The Nylons above), awesome & various food, lotsa hippie-inspired clothes & jewelry and, of course, wine wine & more wine to slosh into your glass & then gulp down yer gullet (as demonstrated by this hairy pair at left!)

And somehow, our livers and this little fella below survived the whole weekend. Which begs the question: will Grape Stomp become an annual event for the Ya Ya Familyhood? I know that if we buy just a few more cap-guns, that one little critter will already go out & buy his plane tickets tomorrow!!

Hum for the Holidays

Lesson One: "How to be Tourists in your Own Town"

First --- make sure that your hometown has a big lake, and is gorgeous and relaxing with a lovely climate.


So, last weekend, thanks to t-gold's ol' Famdamnly Bizness, we did a little boating around our local Okanagan Lake.

Lesson Two: Retain Friends in High Places

We happened to sail past a few new homes on the lake.... (did I miss a sweet stock investment or something....?) I'm pretty sure that every single NHL player with a new contract over $5 mil has bought and constructed a home on Okanagan Lake.

It certainly makes for a lotta examples of structures that we'd like to add to our house (next time we sign a longterm NHL contract, that is...)

We extended our holiday-around-home into the last few days & headed up to a quiet provincial park right on Okanagan Lake.

There, we parked Shaggy & then hiked the hills & lakeside trails and just generally hung out, eating cheese & chocolate and enjoying the late autumn sunshine Then it was back to ol' Allison place for some last minute, Sunday gardening in preparation for the week ahead....

Next weekend is the 1 millionth Okanagan Fall Wine Festival! (well... maybe it's only the 23rd festival or something, but it'll feel like the one millionth when WE'RE through!)!

Go Gramma, Go!

So, I think my little mummi is getting right into the groove of being a gramma now. In fact, she's quite obsessed.

However, we took a "day off" from the baby today (because there was a big party yesterday for Sao Mai's one month birthday celebration), but - still - when we drove past Bill's condo this evening (on the way to a concert) my mum waved excitedly toward his building and yelled out: "Hi Sao Mai! Hello Baby!"

I let her have her fun.......

Today was really just a chicks-hangout-day --- which of course meant a trek to my favorite spot ..... OB!!

We walked the sea wall from my dad's house to the OB Pier (see photos above), past white-sand (but surprisingly garbage-free) beaches, down to Newport Avenue.... the main hangout & last haven for hippie-treehuggers in these parts.

Both mum & I scored beautifully at various stores.

We picked up embroidered purses from "Lola Luna Boutique" and crazy jewelry from "Rags Fashion Exchange" and -- my fully favorite haunt --- many items of groove-clothing from "Sunshine Daydreams".... a store that actually occurs in my daydreams frequently ..... (see multiple bags of purchases below)....

Then, tonight, we headed up to Balboa Park for an outdoor Organ Concert under the stars.

At one point the organist got up & said that the evening was dedicated to a gentleman (in the audience) who was celebrating his 95th birthday... AND that he'd been coming to that particular park since he was four years old.

Sorta Cool in So.Cal.

So .... "Auntie Kristin" is finding good ol' southern california a bit more palatable this time around.

Maybe baby makes things easier to handle after forty years on this earthly sphere.

Ocean Beach (where dad lives) is much more than acceptable, too (!!) --- the weekly Wednesday street market being one hella cool event to enjoy (witness the fully awesome band, Old Man Hands, below ---- complete with accordian, violin, standup bass, mandolin AND they were playing wicked tunes, too! WooHoo!!)

On my daily trek into OB today I FINALLY saw the San Diego Parrots --- after many years of trying to locate them! This is a group of about 20 parrots that escaped from a pet store many years ago & have been hanging & cawing (loudly!) and surviving in the area nearby my dad's house. I was walking back from the market today & was pretty sure that I was in their general vicinity when I heard an insanely loud amount of bird noise and noticed these gregarious green fellows at the top of some palm trees.




Went to see the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" with my dad the other night at The Ken Cinema (voted "best movie theatre snacks in SD) up in the Hillcrest area... a section of town that my dad calls the "artsy fartsy" (translation: gay) part of San Diego.

It was hard to argue with his definition when, once in the theatre, I noticed that they sold "vegan cookies" and whole-leaf infused herbal teas. The movie rocked (!)--- even tho' I didn't partake of all the herbal offerings that could have been shaken onto my popcorn......


At right is a stained-glass peace symbol that is mounted on a small rock island just up the road from my dad's beach-house (in case you didn't guess how much of a hippie-haven my dad lives in......)

Not so bad here in So.Cal. this time around.

Not everyone is a Bush-loving, conservative, dreadlock-hating, dog-beating chowhound. S'nice, I guess. But.... it's still not Canada.

California Curiosities

California really just becomes curiosier & curioser everytime I visit here ..... Witness the above "Planned Parenthood EXPRESS" that my dad & I drove past today. I mean... what part of their birth control planning, exactly, is "Express"? Is there a drive-thru window somewhere? Can one just run inside & grab a handful of condoms from their vending machines?

My dad suggested that perhaps this branch is geared toward counselling people who prefer quickies & one-night-stands. Makes sense to me.


And then there was the Organic Manicure & Pedicure shoppe. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a local garage advertising Organic wheel alignments or a San Diego bank offering Organic chequing accounts.

We also passed a place that had a big banner advertising "semi-live entertainment". I guess that's better than "half dead entertainment", but I sure wish I had my camera anyway...



So, we hoofed it past the express birth control & organic salons & headed to visit Sao Mai at her quaint condo in San Diego's Little Italy section of town.


Her home is within spitting distance to San Diego's harbour with its lovely sea walk --- along which we enjoyed a sunny stroll.

Believe it or not, the photo below is of a shark that we encountered on one of the harbour docks.

Baby shark for a baby girl.....

Sao Mai did lots of sleeping today -- which inspired her grampa to join in (see evidence below).

She's officially three weeks old now and is quite cheeky about it, sticking her tongue out at her auntie and just generally being so d*%$ed cute that it's nearly criminal! AND - best of all -- she's Organic!