Rosemarie and I went white water rafting with Liz and Tom on the Thompson River (near Lytton, BC).

It was lots of fun. It wasn’t that XXXXXXTREME, I was the only one who unintentionally fell out of the raft, but we still had perma-grin the whole time. It was a nice hot day so we jumped in and swam at every opportunity, and took turns sitting right on the front for maximum splashability. There was even one rapid we got to go through in the water hanging on to the rope on the sides of the raft.

Liz gracefully getting back into the raft, probably after Tom pushed her in.

A classic Rosemarie picture on our lunch break. +1000 points for them having dinosours for dessert. :D

Like I said, I was the only person that fell out of the raft… out of the whole group of rafts… hahahha oops. I swear it wasn’t on purpose, I just fell out! It wasn’t too scary, at least I felt like I really got my moneys worth. ;)

We camped at a BC Parks site for the night and then drove home to Vancouver the next day, via the Othello Tunnels near Hope, and Hope Diner. Another very hot drive home with no AC, ack.

Jill and Joe had a long stopover in Vancouver on their way back to Adelaide so we met up with them for dinner downtown at Forage. Everything was super delicious and it was awesome to catch up again. I had seen Jill a few months ago when I went to Adelaide, but I hadn’t seen Joe in a LONG TIME!

The waiter suggested the cheese puff for dessert and it’s a good thing we listened to him because it was SO DANG GOOD. It was a profiterole with neufchâtel cheese filling, with ice cream, gin soaked blueberries and some kind of cordial sauce all around. MMMMMMM. The other dessert there was berry adult jello panna cotta that was also very good, but almost forgotten after the cheese puff.

Forage is cool because ALL their ingredients are locally sourced. We really enjoyed all the dishes we tried… octopus, carbonara, stinging nettle risotto, mushrooms… highly recommend.

Thanks to the Dafoe’s to treating us to a great meal!!

Forage Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

I redeemed by birthday voucher for a Picasso pedicure at Bloom. Those are hand painted lemons!

Lesley, Stephane, Scott and I went camping for one night at Cultus Lake. We played many games of Settlers (of which I lost all of them), and ate tacos and burgers and generally lazed around. We took the party island out for another spin. Cultus Lake is so warm!! Camping is weird when there is a fire ban though, you sort of run out of things to do when it gets dark.

More skeleton push practice at the Oval. Note to self, bring bug spray for twilight sessions because there are SWARMS of mosquitos. Who’s bright idea was it to have so many still water features around the facility, yeesh. I seriously got about 30 bites in half an hour. But this was a useful session, I now have a few new technical things to focus on for a bit.

Other unpictured fun stuff that happened:

  • We went to Charles and Ankie’s wedding at the fancy Terminal City Club downtown. Open bar, woot!! It was a fun wedding, although we couldn’t understand a fair chunk of it because we don’t speak Cantonese.
  • Our board games group tried an escape room, and failed. It was hard!! We got through the first two rooms but ran out of time trying to figure out the half dozen puzzles in the final room. The operator guy did say we got further than average though (does he say that to everyone?). We also came back to our place to play a few games of Seven Wonders.
  • Stephane made bacon wrapped cheddar stuffed burgers for Burger Friday. I thought they would burst into flames on the BBQ but they were fine!
  • Mary Ellen and Paul came over while they were in town for a wedding. Mary Ellen wanted to try purple yam and cheese ice cream but unfortunately Shoppers Drug Mart was out!! They only had plain purple yam, so Scott got that instead. It is Barney purple and tastes like… those cheapy styrofoam cones imo. The debate of the month is what type of cheese it would be in the yam and cheese variety. So far Kraft Singles type is leading. EWWW.
  • Work drinks at Tap & Barrel. We have to make this a more regular event!
  • The worlds smallest blogger meetup. We ate yummy tacos from La Taqueria and then went to Rain or Shine for ice cream. I had malted milk chocolate honeycomb in one of their delicious homemade waffle cones. Yum.

I somehow convinced myself (and Scott) that we should hike up the Chief. I regretted the decision after the first 15 minutes of climbing. But, after 556,434 breaks, we made it up to the first peak. Most of the hike is forest stairs, but the top made of wide open smooth rock, and then you get a sweet panorama view of the Howe Sound and Squamish.

Speaking of sweet panoramas… Scott was pretty pleased with that idea, haha.

Quote of the day: “I’D RATHER DIE THAN DO EXERCISE!!”

It got really hot in June. I went to Kits Pool a couple times after work to cool off. I like that pool, it’s nice that it doesn’t have so much chlorine (it’s a salt water pool).

We also got our own pool. Our balcony rules.

Confetti nails. I love ~negative space~ nail designs.

This one is actually from like 6 months ago, but who cares. Zoya Pixie Dust is so easy to work with. You can make gradients and blend colours really easily. And as the nail grows out, you can just fill in the new part with another colour because it’s all textured. Like ceiling spray texture, haha.

Other things that happened, with no pictures (so did they really happen??):

  • I went sled pushing with Matt and Grant on Grant’s DIY skeleton sled at a nearby track. It’s pretty realistic compared to actual skeleton, including the fact that we don’t have a good way of slowing down. We rolled on to the grass or dragged our toes (a good way to ruin your shoes). I VERY nearly took out an elderly man, but luckily Grant ran in at the (very) last moment. The man had no idea. Note to self: look up.
  • Our check engine light came on and I got really stressed out. I was looking for OBDII code readers online and found a guy on Craigslist who said he had two types of scanners and would pull the code for $10. So we drove out to Coquitlam and got him to do it. Turns out Scott just didn’t screw the gas cap on tight enough. The dude cleared the code and we haven’t had any problems since. I wonder how much that guy has made from doing that. It totally make sense, it took him maybe 10 minutes tops to make a quick $10! You’d pay off the scanner in no time.
  • Lesley had a birthday and we went to her house and drank a lot of sangria.
  • Scott and I used our Scene Points to go see Jurrasic World at the fancy schmancy VIP theatre in Coquitlam (I went to Coquitlam more times in the last 2 months than I did in the last 5 years (zero times)). We ate burgers and fried pickles and drank alcohol in our comfy seats while watching people get CHOMPED by dinosaurs (I almost wrote dinosours, mmmm). It was cool, although I would never pay the real price for a ticket.

Sooo let’s just ignore that some of these pictures are like three months old……

Rosemary Rocksalt bagel with salmon, avocado and cream cheese. How can you even improve on this?? Perfection.

Two kinds of ceviche, guacamole and pico de gallo at La Mezcaleria. OM NOM NOM. With a ludicrously expensive margarita. (Best margaritas in town though).

GIANT VOLCANIC BOWL OF MOLTEN CHEESE AND CHORIZO. So greasy, so amazing. This is a once-a-year (or less!) food.

Pork tenderloin kebabs with vegetables and halloumi. Homemade tzatziki and tortillas. This was a team effort meal with Scott, Rosemarie, Lauren and I that magically all came together perfectly despite little planning.

Rosemarie and I finally did the crayon art project that she gave me for Christmas/AFFH. Making the crayons melt was so addicting.

The Jornas, at the PNE this year. Lesley took this picture.

I had a jalapeño popper grilled cheese. It took them like 30 minutes to make. Le sigh. But it tasted pretty good, it had cheese, peppers, cream cheese, corn chips!

Me broad jumping at the bobsleigh/skeleton summer tryouts. I did pretty bad, it was sort of embarrassing. But still fun, kind of. I think I was a lot better at running this year compared to last (still too slow though) but I actually got worse at broad jump (down to 1.75 m from 1.78 m). Yikes. And I was HORRIBLE at the underhand medicine ball toss. It kept slipping out of my hands!! Lots of work to do if I ever plan on being competitive.

So many more people than last year!! It was nice seeing some old friends from last season, and great to see some new faces! I am hoping that the group of recreational (and BC development) sliders gets bigger this year. It would be fun to have races with more people, especially girls!!

Manicure from last week. Stained glass/negative space. I did my left hand. Scott had to help me with my right hand. Maybe Rosemarie will post a link in the comments to the Salon Jorna picture she took.

A made pie! Peach pie! We had picked a dozen or so giant freestone peaches in Osoyoos last week at a giddy u-pick session. I whipped up two pies with homemade crust and everything. I usually don’t like pies because I hate cooked fruit, but peach pie is pretty good. Maybe because the texture of cooked peach isn’t very different than raw peach? This was my first time making crust and it went… ok. It’s a little tough. I think that happens when you overwork the dough? But overall the pie tastes GREAT. Making pies is very satisfying.

I thought I was going to have a few days off work so I painted my nails on Saturday morning. Turns out I’m actually working a whole bunch. Ha. Plus we went trampolining. Well anyway it’s Day 4 now and I still don’t have any chips whatsoever!

I’ve always liked the Complete Salon Manicure line of nail polish. I like the wide brush, the formula, and the cool colours. I was pretty happy to be selected for this Influenster box.

Pat on the Black and Red My Lips had full coverage after 2 coats, but Jaded was quite sheer. I did 4-5 coats and it’s still not completely opaque, although it is really pretty. I topped my manicure with Essie Good To Go (my HG top coat) and it looks nice and shiny.

Disclosure: I received these nail polish samples from Influenster for review purposes. I was not financially compensated for this post. All opinions are my own.

Working at the data centre has been fine. It’s very boring and repetitive but it’s also very easy and low stress. My audiobooks get me through the day.

I already finished:

  • Gulp by Mary Roach, a book about the entire alimentary canal, from eating to pooping. It was interesting, and at times gross.
  • The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, a book set in 1790 about slavery and stuff.
  • Freakanomics by Steven Levitt, a book using economics to explain random stuff. It was interesting I guess but I can’t trust anything anyone says if it’s only based on one person’s research.
  • Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris, another one of his usual books. Entertaining.

and I started Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn today.

I seriously love love LOVE that part of the job. Who else can say they finished four books in four days?! If any of you readers have boring jobs I highly recommend audiobooks.

Although fingers crossed I get a nuc med job soon…

Until that happens I will continue to paint my nails multiple neon colours. Those awesome food nail decals are from my internet friend Sara M Lyon’s Etsy shop, btw. They were pretty easy to apply and are super cute! I love everything that she makes.

The week ahead:

I’m going to the Fraser Valley Food Show this weekend, as a food blogger. I get to be driven there by a car service. FANCY. Hopefully we make it in time for the sausage making competition. I haven’t been to this food show before but it sounds pretty similar to Eat! Vancouver and Eat! Vancouver is AWESOME. So I’m excited.

I also need to figure out how to accomplish things around a 10AM-6PM shift. I meant to go to the gym in the morning before work but I’ve been semi-sick all week and it’s only happened once. I love sleeping in! Problem is, by the time I get home from work and eat dinner and check my internets things it’s dark and late and I’ve wasted away the whole day. Hopefully next week is more productive. I woke up before my alarm today so that’s a good sign.