Bachelorette weekend in Canada

Two weekends ago nine other ladies and I made the trek north to Canada to celebrate our friend Ashley with a bachelorette weekend. Friday afternoon we whisked Ashley away and drove up to Larrabee State Park near Bellingham for a night of camping. The park was beautiful and we were lucky to have a 'walk-in' camping site. Which means we were a bit more secluded and only had about 3 neighboring tents who we could disturb with our noisy antics. We cooked up 3lbs of pasta, had a great fire, partook of s'mores and had a great evening full of laughter.

*I did a terrible job keeping my camera with me this weekend, so almost all of the hiking pictures are mine but all the rest are stolen from the lovely Valerie.

10 girls camping = no knife

Strainer was not quite up for the job - two girl task

Mackenzie, Megan, Valerie - Ashley Catherine, Katie

Saturday morning we were up bright and early, packed up camp, and headed for the boarder. After a few directional mishaps (we forget so quickly what life is like without smart phones/cell phones) we all reunited at Mt. Seymour Provincial Park, just a bit north of Vancouver. The park doubles as a ski area in the winter and was full of hikers in the warm sunshine. Somehow, despite the multitudes of people we managed to completely loose the trail and end up on a bit of a scramble. Luckily miss Ashley is friends with a fabulous group of ladies who all have adventurous spirits and we eventually found our way back to the trail and a lovely lunch spot at the top of one of the peaks. As I get to know Canada better this summer I continue to be surprised by how much I love it and this hike was no exception - the water, the city views and the snowcapped mountains that rise straight out of the water were amazing.

Baker in the background if you click to make it bigger

 Vancouver skyline below

Black bear! Click to embiggen

Megan, Katie, Catherine, Val, me, Katie, Chelsea, Ashley & Jill.

After the hike down we were off to downtown Vancouver, where we stayed at Coast Coal Harbor right in gastown. It was a pretty nice hotel and they didn't seem overly thrilled at three cars full of stinky smelly girls piling out but it turned out to be a wonderful place to stay. We did a miracle 9 girls shower/hair/makeup rotation with two showers in about 75 minutes and commenced the festivities. We had a shower for Ashley in one of the rooms and celebrated with some snacks, champagne, and a few themed mad libs.

Dinner was at Sanifer, right off Granville and I would highly, highly recommend it if you are ever in Vancouver. The food was delicious and creative and they have a ton of really great mezzes so that you can try it all. After dinner we headed out onto the town for some dancing fun.

looking lovely

ready to head out for the evening

 Sunday morning when everyone had roused themselves we moseyed over to Granville Island, one of my more favorite places in the city. There are a ton of adorable restaurants and shops, and a huge public market - kind of like Pike Place with more space and less tourists. After coffee, sustenance, and a healthy dose of sunshine it was time to head south again to home. We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Ashley and getting to know the Colorado friends. How many times can you say a bachelorette party involved camping, hiking, hotel, and dancing? This is a great group of ladies and we were thrilled to celebrate her & Steven.

Up next: Ash & Steven's beautiful backyard wedding

Love is all around...

...and I don't have time to write about it, because there's so much more love coming up! Last weekend involved a bachelorette party, a birthday, a wedding, and a (different) wedding shower. Thats a lot of love, no? But work's been crazy and I'm headed off to an undisclosed location (you'll have to wait until next week) for the lovely Ashley's bachelorette party this weekend. You can read about and see pics of all of last weekends love over on Val's fabulous blog here. And someday maybe I'll blog it too, but I'd have stolen all her pictures anyway. Thanks Val! Congrats Ccory & Danielle

A scooter (mis)adventure and (Lake) Serene Sunday

Hi. Meet Scoot. He's my trusty sidekick and former commuter vehicle. And adorable.

Meet 90. He's not so trusty, but oh-so-vintage-cool.

I got Scoot last summer and used to ride him into work and pull him right into my office, back when I worked downtown. Scoot never has any problems, except when it comes to very large hills. Matt got the Honda CT 90 back in high school for free for helping fix some guys other bike. It didn't work when he got it (free, after all) but Matt & his Dad were able to get it running again and it enjoyed a short life in the hills of Medford. Then it got ridden too hard and something went wrong with the engine (Matt could tell you exactly what, but I forget) and it died again. Matt and his dad began rebuilding the top end but it languished in the garage in Medford for years and years until Bob fixed it for Matts birthday last year. It still needed some finishing touches and continued to languish in our basement until a month ago when we got carpet. Matt finally spent 2.5 hours this Saturday morning at the DOL getting his motorcycle endorsement and we were stoked for our scootventure on Vashon that day.

Ready to ride!

It really wasn't all that much of a misadventure, we had a great time. We packed a picnic, hopped on the Vashon ferry, discovered that the main road in Vashon had a speed limit of 50mph (way beyond Scoots capabilities) and spent a few hours wandering the island side roads to get to Dockton Park in Quartermaster Harbor. The drive was beautiful, and  the roads were windy and fun. The sun came out as we arrived at the park and we enjoyed a leisurely picnic. We walked away for 10 seconds and the stupid crows stole my brownies right out of the half-open ziplock bag.

oh hey...

We were all set to head out again and stop by the light house on our way back when, low and behold, a very flat tire. After examining the tire and our options ($65 to have a garage come pump it up for us) a shirtless-Big Gulp-of-beer-carrying man came over and asked if we needed help. He was staying in his boat in the docks and wandered the docks with me asking if anyone had a bike pump. Eventually we found a neighbor who agreed to walk me back to her house to grab a bike pump. That was a no-go. 30 seconds later the tire was very flat again, so good thing we didn't pay the $65. Back at her house she offered us slime but after 30 minutes of work, that was also a no-go also. The afternoon was quickly disappearing and we had dinner plans and no way to get home so we asked the nice woman if we could possibly abandon the 90 at her house until we could get back with a truck. She said yes, and I took off on Scoot to head back to the ferry. Matt wandered back to the park and stuck out his thumb. It involved three different rides and a mile of walking down the highway but -hey, he eventually made it back to the ferry and we were on our way to D&N's for a fabulous dinner. Lesson learned: go on a test ride before going to an island with a 30+ year old motorcycle.

picnic

Quartermaster Harbor

sunshine = happy

yakkers

Matt trying to insert the slime into his very flat back tire.

Heading home on the ferry by myself, enjoying the empty back of the car deck. :)

Sunday we woke ourselves up bright and early and headed up Highway 2 to Index for a hike with Lance & Val. We settled on Lake Serene and Bridal Veil Falls. The sun started peeping out midway up and it was plenty warm. We should have been able to see Mt Index towering above our spot in Lunch Rock at Lake Serene but the god was thick up top and all we got were a few momentary glimpses. Wonderful day out in the wilds with L&V.

Bridal Veil Falls (the WA kind, not the Yosemite kind)

Lake Serene

Lunch rock

Index clears just slightly as we're about to leave

...and the rest are all stolen from Val! thanks!

HEY LOOK. There's poll questions at the very bottom of each post now. My comments section NEVER works for some mysterious reason but its nice to know that people are out there. So now you can say hi or whatever. I'm taking suggestions for additional options.