The Adventures of August (including that time I couldn't eat cheese)

 Hello once again!

So I'm two-thirds of the way through my adventure now... four months today and I shall be landing in Sydney! There's so much to do before then though... like pumpkin carving!!! and a REAL Christmas tree!

I had to go back through my photos to remember what happened in August... it was a super busy month apparently! And it was also really beautiful! After 25/30 days of June were rainy, it's been almost perfect weather since then! Canada does Summer well!

On the 31st of July, Cristal and Ryan went on a trip to Seattle so it was just me and my boys for 30 hours or so. They were so lovely!! And even went to bed without any dramas. The very next day we went on an "Adventure Day" to Science World in Vancouver. We spent most of the morning in the 'Eureka' exhibition, which is a whole bunch of hands on experimenty things with water and balls and things that light up and play music and spin and such. Soooooo fun! We saw the show on 'Air' and L even got to be a volunteer on the stage. Cute cute! We caught the SkyTrain downtown for lunch (maccas). It was their first time on the train so they were so excited! The SkyTrains don't have drivers. Which, like my dad, the boys found amazing. They sat right up the front and pretended they were driving the train, a passenger even thanked them when he alighted.


The next afternoon we went raspberry picking! I also ate my 2nd ever raspberry, the first being the one Lauren made me eat when she was here in May. It was heaps of fun picking raspberries with the boys! J's raspberries didn't actually make it home... he had more of a "pick, smoosh, eat" method... he was covered from head to toe in the sticky red "jam" he had created in his container. Ryan bought a bumbleberry pie...which is basically a dessert pie covered (like literally 15cm deep in the middle) with berries - blueberries, strawberries & raspberries. It was pretty tasty.

A few days later Canada had a long weekend. (this is not super unusual because Canada has a long weekend every month) This long weekend was Cristal and Ryan's build a patio weekend! It was so fun!! We spent the Saturday laying pavers & on the Monday (I think) they hired a concrete cutting machine and we cut all the tricky bits to make the fancy edges. I loved cutting pavers! The element of danger and the power and the 'I just cut a paver' bragging rights!
This is my edge (well one of them, I did some other bits too)

That same weekend was the final fireworks display of the international fireworks festival (The Celebration of Light) that is held in Vancouver every year. It was Italy's turn. Anita, my new friend Monica and I journeyed into downtown Vancouver with 300,000 of our closest friends to see the display on English Bay beach. We got there several hours early to stake out prime viewing - Anita and Monica had done this before, so they knew exactly where to sit so that we would be super close to the front once the tide came in and washed a few rows of people away (or just made them move).
The show was fabulous! (apart from the smell of pot & the annoying drama queen that was sitting behind us)

I think most of this week was swimming lessons and such.

The weekend of the 12th the family went to Seattle to spend the day at the zoo. I went to Vancouver. I caught the train into town and walked a few kilometres along the south side of False Creek to Granville Island.
Granville Island has a whole bunch of markets and cute shops. I bought lunch and a bear puppet for Cass.

I walked a bit further to the Museum of Vancouver, which was a pretty interesting look at the history of the city. They were having a special exhibit on neon signs which was not something you often see an exhibit on. It was fun to look at, but the buzzing of the signs was boring holes into my brain so I didn't stay there too long.

On the way back I decided I needed to catch one of these cute water taxis. So cute! I got my own private trip!


The next week Cristal and Ryan had a bunch of family things, so I got to hang with the boys some more. One afternoon we went to a free 'Family Night' at the Langley Demonstration Gardens. It was so good! There were free (organic) hot dogs and snacks and the boys got to paint a brick, make a pine cone craft and we built our very own scarecrow! I can't believe the exciting things you get to do in this town. There is seriously something happening all the time!

Oh! Then that week Ella also came back! It was fun to catch up with her for a few days before she flew home to New Zealand.

So, this brings us to August 23rd. It was a Thursday. That night I had the second worst pain I've ever had in my life. After two hours of my whole insides hurting Ryan got home from work (at like 1:30am) and took me to the hospital. There I bought my most expensive souvenir of my whole trip - a $930 hospital bracelet, which entitled me to a consultation with the doctor and blood and urine tests.
By the time I actually got to see the doctor I actually felt fine (except when she poked me really hard on different parts of my belly). She said I probably had a gall-bladder attack which happens when you have gall stones in your gall bladder (I really don't like the word gall) (I also really don't like that I probably have an old people thing... thirty is a ridiculous age! I am falling apart!). So she gave me some Tylenol #3 for "next time" (ooh can't wait for that), an order to get an ultrasound and strict instructions to stop eating cheese. SERIOUSLY?!?! I actually said "but it's my favourite food!!!!" (in the kind of tone you can only muster at 4am) and she replied "yes, there are reasons that these things happen." pfft. So my cheeseless existence has begun (actually I have found absolutely tasteless cheese that has a tenth of the fat of normal cheese... so I have decided that that counts as not eating cheese).
Apart from the horrible pain and the horrible hour, it was kind of exciting to have my first ever emergency hospital visit with a proper hospital gown and arm band and such.



The next day I slept. Oh and I watched The Dark Knight.

The next day I went to Vancouver to hang with my Amy Adams friend Andrea (who becomes a real lawyer today! Yay Andrea!!). We watched The Dark Knight Rises. It was such a good movie!
After catching the train and a bus home I was bored of public transport so I skipped the last bus and walked the last few kilometres. But my new shoes made my feet bleed, so I just wore my socks. Needless to say my feet hurt for several days after this.

A few days later we went for a walk at Campbell Valley Regional Park. It was so beautiful! Cristal and L both held out bird seed so little chickadees came and landed on them.



Before August was over we went to the PNE. Which is just like the Easter Show, but not at Easter and without show bags. There were a lot of different shows and displays and animals to look at. It was heaps of fun! It was so fun to watch the boys' faces as they watched the Chinese acrobats and the Superdogs. They also like the motorbikes (there was even a snowmobile doing flips and things...that was a bit ridiculous really), except for the pirotechnics - bursts of fire that came out when the riders did a crazy jump, it scared them a bit because you could feel the heat.
There were even deep-fried poptarts! Crazy! It is tricky trying to eat low fat when you are at the PNE. And they had one of those lottery houses that you could win. The house was actually set up there so you could walk through it, then afterwards they move it to the location.

That's pretty much how I spent my August. How about you?

Oh wait! I also built a yellow bird pinata for L's party - which isn't for another 2 weeks yet, I was ready so early!

I hope things are going swell for you wherever you are.



Happy September!
Kaye

PS sorry about the photos being everywhere... I really wish I knew how to make photos behave on blog posts.