Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Weekend in Vancouver

Wow, it was a truly gorgeous weekend in Vancouver. Clear blue skies for the four days I was there, temperatures in the 80's...just fabulous! Here's the view from my bedroom at about 6 am, out to the ocean and then to downtown. I grew up with an amazing view.

When I got there some of my extended family was there for my dad's birthday party. His birthday was Sept 3, but this was when everyone could get together. I was really happy to be able to be there for a little bit of it anyway!

One of the reasons I went up was to take my mom her new bike. When they were down here a couple weekends ago we went to a bunch of bike shops to get her a "comfort" bike. It finally came in, so I brought it up. She hasn't ridden a bike in almost 20 years! Well, except for a bike ride earlier this summer in Holland. That really WAS her first ride in 20 years...and it was a 27 mile ride...and she panicked, forgot how to break and hit a tree! Hee hee.

This ride went much better. Dad and I took her down to the high school and we rode around for a while. I gave her some pointers and taught her how to properly stop, turn, change gears etc. She did really well. When we were trying to leave this area she freaked out and jumped off the bike. She'd been heading for a fence and evidently AGAIN forgot how to break! Sigh. That one she's going to have to learn fast. We spent an hour or two just fiddling around on the bikes. It was a lot of fun, and I'm really excited that mom and dad have this new fun thing to do together.
Sunday I went to Randal and Jen's for a block party they were having, and to spend some time with Kai. You;ll have to check my Flickr gallery for those pictures. There was a pinata...but no one got hurt! :)

Last week I was sitting on the couch and Dread jumped up onto my lap. He stood there on my legs for a minute or two, then hopped off. I looked down and this is what I saw. He's lost a lot of weight in the last 5-6 months...but he's still a big boy. I'm worried that he's "winding down."

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