janice's mash-up

glee: opening yourself up to joy

So this may be surprising to some of you...Cory Monteith's death rocked my world kind of hard. With my obsessive tendencies, I think I have now read every online article about this event. Of course I did not know Cory Monteith and the obviously very different life he led from the character of Finn he played on Glee. I will miss Finn on the show. 

I never watched Glee regularly but since Cory's death, I have watched all the episodes of all four seasons of Glee. Yes, crazy town. I regularly get iTunes giftcards as gifts and used them to buy all the episodes. I am using them as my little reward system to get through a very big writing project this summer. Work, work, work...then a little Glee time.

I was a musical theatre girl and again enjoying performing in Songfest when I was at UBC. Singing and dancing takes you to another place and I remember often feeling truly joyful when performing. 

As I have watched Glee this month, I have been reminded about the importance of finding and holding onto those things that make you feel joyful, and the importance of letting joy in.

"By its very definition, Glee is about the opening yourself up to joy."

~Lillian Adler

wordless wednesday: a macro look at what's growing in our backyard

all photographs taken with my iPhone 4S using an olloclip macro lens

wordless wednesday: richmond raspberries

wordless wednesday: strawberry season

 

kelowna getaway: more cousin time

We spent three days in Kelowna with my sister and niece and nephew. Unfortunately, the cousins from Philly couldn't join us as they only made a short trip out to Vancouver this year. Adam feels this annual trip isn't the same without ALL the cousins there but we had fun times nonetheless!

The weather was amazingly hot. So hot. We had the air conditioning on in the villa we stayed in and actually got shivers a few times because they heat change was so dramatic as we moved from outside to indoors. My sister found a lovely place for us to stay right on the lake and our deck had this view...

The boys did their favourite Kelowna things:

wakeboarding

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tubing

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paddleboarding

swimming, eating ice cream, visiting the Ogopogo, etc.

Duncan and Colin also did a ton of skateboarding this trip.

Adam taught my sister and her kids how to play poker and we had fun game nights both nights.

The lake was so quiet on Thursday morning so I took a kayak out for some time to myself out on the water.

After checking out, we headed out to another Kelowna tradition - H2O. 

And then we stopped at our favourite farm market for some specialty treats for my kitchen, their yummy fruit rolls and Okanagan cherries.

The weather was amazing and the drive to and from Kelowna was beautiful. I could have stopped every few kilometres to take photos but chose to just capture them in my mind! We truly do live in #beautifulbc and it was a perfect week for a #roadtrip!

Canada Day 2013

We were up early on Canada Day, making our annual pilgrammage to the Steveston Salmon Festival. Colin was once again in the parade, fencing with the Dynamo Fencing Club. It was the hottest day of the year so far and Colin was so so hot in his equipment. Neil and I followed him along the route with a bottle of water.

While Colin was fencing in the parade, Adam was volunteering as a parade marshall, helping getting all the groups and floats falling into order and then taking down barricades afterwards. He didn't "officially" volunteer but got swept into it by a few of his school friends and came home with a Canada Day volunteer shirt.

After de-sweating and changing after the parade, Colin, Neil and I walked back to the festival for our traditional lunch that we have every year.

It was SO hot and SO crowded that we decided to head home and cool off. We were like salmon swimming upstream, trying to get back to our car while everyone was walking towards the festival. There were so many people we knew and so many decked out in red and white...such a celebratory event for our little village.

We capped off Canada Day this year with a big family dinner at my sister's house and I made a Canadian Pavlova for dessert. Lots of family stories, games and time together.

Happy Canada Day!

cousin time

It's been a LOOOONG time since the boys have seen their cousins from Philadelphia. They use to visit two or three times a year and stay for weeks at at time. Things change. The boys hadn't seen my niece in almost two years and only saw my two nephews briefly at our family reunion last summer. They are here for five days and we are maximizing our time with them. We drove out to see them at my parents on Thursday night and then on Friday afternoon we spent the afternoon at Centennial Beach with them, using the skimboards my parents gave all the grandchildren two Christmases ago. My other sister's son joined us for the day too.

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We had dinner together, went out for icecream and then called it a night.

Saturday morning we got up early (for us) and joined my sisters and her children on a day trip up to Whistler. The kids wanted to visits lots of their favourite places. We had fun at the Base of Blackcomb and then went to Cows, the village, the Great Glass Elevator and Carumba's for dinner.

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It was such a beautiful day for a drive to and from Whistler!

On Sunday I took my niece, sister at mom out for tea at Adorabelle's in Steveston while my boys and my nephews stayed at home and recovered from a late night sleepover. My niece was literally squealing with delight. Somehow we forgot to take a group photo although my niece and I instagrammed the event!

Monday brought Canada events and a family dinner out at my sister's home in West Van. There was the required cousins group shot...

and lots of fun swimming, playing on the trampoline, playing lemon juice pong and table tennis with Grandpa.

There was lots of cousin time in a short time! Hopefully it won't be so long again before we see them!