Back in Business and Girls Night In

I haven't posted in ages, sorry. I've been busy all summer and had forgotten my log in details!

Si got a new job recently, construction at BC Place, and he's been working serious overtime. The stadium opened yesterday but he's been on site for the last 11 hours (on a Saturday!) as there's a lot more to do.

As a result, I've become a "construction window," and since I wanted a relaxing Saturday I spent today cleaning the apartment and doing laundry, whoop whoop! Also watched lots of Family Guy. 

I made salmon marinaded in soy sauce with jasmine rice and spinach for dinner. Then for desert, a glass of Blasted Church wine from the O' Kanagan Valley. I just love the labels on their bottles!

Also made dark chocolate mug cake, took 3 minutes in the microwave, yummy!

Abhaile!

Some photos from my holiday back to Dublin during the summer - found it kinda difficult looking at these again, I miss home! Still, I'll be home for Christmas so not long now :)

 

Kilmore Quay

 Mum's amazing homemada Pavlova!

 Marilyn Monroe Exhibition at Newbridge Silver

 Yoda

The brother's epic dinner in Eddie Rockets

 Necessary shopping - Vancouver clothes suck!

 Teppan-Yaki food

Fancy Gordon Ramsay plane food 

View from the plane somewhere over Canada

Beautiful Victoria!

Some  photos from our weekend spent in beautiful Victoria, BC!

  Seafood Chowder

 Government Buildings

 Houseboats at Fisherman's Wharf

 Kayaking

 Fresh Oysters, yum yum!

 Victoria by Night

 Spoooooky Photo Taken on the Ghost Walk

Craigdarroch "Castle" from the late 1800's. Pah, call this a castle?!

Victorian Vancouver

There's a Victorian museum near where we live, Roedde House, and I've wanted to go there since we moved here. Finally, we went this weekend. It was beautiful!

It's a late Victorian home built in 1893, part of Barclay Square, which is a heritage block that still contains all it's original Victorian homes, divided into apartments. I would LOVE to live in one of them!

They do "Victorian Christmas" events every year, so I'll definately be going.

I hiked the Grouse Grind this Saturday!! It's a trail up Grouse Mountain 1.8 miles long - doesn't sound too difficult right? Well factor in 2830 steps and an elevation of 2800 feet and it's easily the most physically difficult thing I've ever done. Luckily, I went with a great group of people and we helped each other through it.  My legs ached afterwards but it was brilliant.

 This weekend was (another) Vancouver 125th birthday festival, this time with open air concerts and events in Stanley Park. We went for a wander and to see the Vancouver Symphony orchaestra.

The Vancouver photo archive had a stand at the festival, and they had prints of photos from their archive. They reproduced loads of copies of each photo and were giving them away for free! I chose three of the photos I liked and plan to find some antique frames for them. 

Dinner Time!

We try to cook the majority of the time, but at least once a week we succumb to one of the restaurants near us for take-out. If I were in Ireland, I'd never be getting take away frequently because of the cost and fatty content of takeaway food, but there is so much variety here that we can eat healthily, and its all very reasonably priced. We have a ton of restaurants near to us - Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Ukranian, Italian and good ol' Canadian food.

 Take-away sushi - BC rolls, Dynamite rolls and California rolls

Mexican prawns (and chilis I mistook for green peppers, scarfed down and nearly died from), tortilla chips and a giant margerita!



I really enjoy cooking though, and recently, I've tried to experiment and cook new things. I LOVE potatoes but decided to try sweet potato chips for a change with our dinner of soy sauce-marinaded pork and peas. 

 

We bought two huge sweet potatoes but quickly realised we'd need only one between the two of us - you get a lot of chips from them! I just tossed them in olive oil and stuck them in the oven.

I've also started making home-made pizza (from my Mums recipe) and garlic pizza bread

One of my favourites to make is egg fried rice. This one has prawns, green beans, peas, onions, garlic, beansprouts and soy sauce.

Unfortunately, it doesn't photograph very well, but trust me it's yummy!

Summer on Commercial

 Finally went to Commercial today - I’ve wanted to for ages! It didn’t disappoint, lots of nice places to eat and lovely buildings.

We went for Poutine (chips, gravy and cheese curds) - I had Montreal smoked meat poutine and it was impossible to finish. So good though!

I could definately live around Commercial-Broadway, although I love where we live now - a few blocks from English Bay so we’re at the beach every weekend in this amazing weather. Our landlord finally sorted out our buzzer so we know when people come to visit us, only 8 months after we arrived (although in fairness we haven’t asked him to do it since we moved in)! He also wrote our name on the directory - makes me feel strangely more at home.

 

Going to settle into an evening of watching The Closer and An Idiot Abroad, then back to work tomorrow. What a great Canada Day weekend!