A couple of pictures of the Prawn boat

I was able to take a couple of pictures of the "Prawn Boat".




As you can see it is a very sophisticated system!!



At least I didn't go overboard!!! Oh yes -- there is a story to that. I came home to his last helper walking around the house in my white fluffy dressing gown -- he went overboard!! Jim ended up rowing the boat - with a foot of water - back to shore with the helper hanging on to the stern --- LOL. Always an adventure :)))

Adventures in Prawning

We have a little rowboat - a small flat bottomed - very hard to row - rowboat - and some prawn traps.

This past winter Jim - and a very strong young man - Zack -  have been setting out from our house - using the little rowboat - which is down at the beach - and setting out the prawn traps.  A couple times a week we get a nice little load of prawns.

Yesterday he didn't have anyone to help so I volunteered to be Zack -- I have been going to the gym - I figure I am much stronger than I was a couple of months ago.  Oh boy - it was HARD work.  The tide was very low and we  had to pull the flat bottomed HEAVY rowboat off the TOP rack of the boat rack.  Carry it MILES!! to the water over slippery rocks.  And then row!  I am not a very good rower - one arm is stronger than the other and I tend to go in circles - and being left handed I sometimes get my left and right confused and then I circle even more - so Jim did most of the rowing.   But I did a LOT of pulling.  We collected 6 traps - two traps per line -- the lines are like 10 thousand feet of wet rope!!  By the end of the almost 3 hours it took  --- we collected about 8 1/2 pounds of prawns -- and we didn't have to share them with Zack and I required a big dose of Advil. 

Here is what the bucket of live prawns looks like -- these are B.C Spot Prawns.




A bowl of prawn tails -- ready for freezing or cooking.  If we cook them fresh Jim likes to leave some of the heads on the prawns so he can suck the heads --ewwwwww...



I have very little to do with the prawns.  Jim prepares them and then he is the one that makes all seafood dishes in our house. 



He made this Prawn and Salmon Red Thai Curry last weekend -- it was fabulous.  And I make really - really good rice!  So for this I am happy to help out pulling the prawn traps on occasion -- but boy -- my shoulders are still stiff this morning. 

On the quilting front I have been working on the Fat Quarter Shop Civil War BOM.  These are the first two blocks.  I have started cutting out the blocks from Month Two.



Happy National Quilting Day.  I am hoping to do some quilting today - although it is a beautiful sunny day here today and it really is such a shame to be inside.  Maybe I can sit on the deck and hand stitch some Dear Jane blocks......hmmmm.........maybe I need a glass of wine......Happy stitching :)))

A bit of quilting

I have been doing a bit of quilting during the past few weeks while watching the Olympics on TV.  Unfortunately I have put my Dear Jane to the side for the last little while -- I really MUST get back to it!!

I have been working on a wool BOM from my LQS --Creative Edge in North Vancouver.  The blocks are from this book.



The wool fabric of the BOM and it is hand dyed from a local person right here in my area  -- Wool Penny Rugs     I have been collecting wool and patterns for a while now and I am finally working on one and quite enjoying the ease of the wool applique.  Ah - well -- what is one more project on the go!

Block One



Block Two  -- there are 16 blocks altogether.




The blocks are sitting on the lovely silk pillows that Anri brought me back from Thailand!

The other project that I have up on my design wall right now is the Fairy quilt for little Phoenix.  I was thinking of putting it together sort of like this - with the blocks around the centre piece on just the three sides.  There are some small flower squares as well that I want to put around as well. 



I bought some more fabric in Portland to go with this quilt and then some of the prettiest fairy fabric for the backing.  I am planning on making a bigger sized quilt -- more bed sized than crib sized - which will be good since she will probably be out of the crib by the time she gets it!!  But Jessica has a some beautiful baby quilts that she is using now so I think this one can wait until she is a bit older.  Although I had better get working on it - knowing me it could end up being a graduation present!

We just finished watching about 1/3 of the movie "Get Smart"  Boy was that a terrible and stupid movie - and it didn't resemble the original TV show in any way what so ever.  I really loved that old TV series with Don Addams.  Well - at least we didn't waste too much time watching it - and it was on the PVR - I just pressed "delete".......

I have had quite the bad cold the past week - but I am starting to feel better finally this weekend... those Olympics just wore me out!!  Finally got back to the gym today after a week of coughing too hard to ride an exercise bike.  Hopefully I don't pay for it tonight....

Now back to real life

It was hard to decide what to say in this post, so it has taken a few days.  I have so many pictures I didn't know which pictures to use.... so many memories.  It certainly has been something we will never see the likes of around here again. 

We have been living under the "what will  happen when the Olympics are here" umbrella for as long as we have been living in our house.  The new highway has been under construction for most of the 8 years we have been here.  We have been "talking" about the Olympics for all these years.... an now they are over.  It is so hard to believe. 
And I enjoyed them much more than I thought I would.  We went downtown on 3 separate occasions and mingled in the crowds.   We did not wait in long lines for much.  We did not have a Japadog.  There are many things we can do when the crowds are gone.  We got downtown on one of the last nights to take some pictures of the city and the flame at night.



The Cauldron was beautiful at night.

The streets were full of people celebrating.  It was a much younger crowd at night.



Bands playing and people dancing in the streets!


We watched many MANY hours of TV.  There was 4 channels completely devoted to live coverage of all the events.  CTV did a great job covering the Olympics.  It was hard at times trying to juggle between so many live events.  It got pretty stressful at times trying to watch two or three events simultaneously!



To watch Alex Bilodeau win that first gold medal.

We went to Whistler a couple of times.  It was fun and easy to get there.







It was so much fun to meet all the visitors.  This is a group from Austria.  The young man on the far left is a huge Vancouver Canucks fan.  This is his first time to Canada and he listens to all the Canucks hockey games on the internet - he has only missed two games so far!!  He is a big fan of Roberto Luongo and was going to get himself a Luongo Canucks jersey.  They were cheering for Canada in the hockey game.

What a hockey game!!  I guess we couldn't have asked for a better ending. 

One thing to clear up..... being that Roberto Luongo was playing on his home ice the local people were all doing the Looooooouuuuuuuu yell that they do so often.  There was a newspaper article that stated that the Canadian fans were nice even when they were booing -- LOL!!  That is because they were all Loooouuuuuuuu ing  --- not booing. 

I hope everyone that came to our city had a wonderful time and took away nothing but wonderful memories and maybe a pair of mittens!  We really enjoyed having you here!!  Thanks for the memories!

Images of Jim and one picture that is not Jim

We have been out and about again.  We are quite enjoying all the activity and all the excitement that is happening in our city.

A big congratulations go out to today's winners -- Yay --  Lindsey Vonn - I was cheering for you and Shani Davis  -- What race!!  Great day for the U.S today!!  Great Day for Maelle Ricker yesterday -- Lucky Andrew was at the Snowboard Cross up Cypress to watch the race live and then won a couple of front row tickets to the medal ceremony last night -- Bare Naked Ladies! 

Anyway as Jim and I are tourists in our own town - we did the touristy thing and take lots of pictures.  I am the photographer and Jim often in the pictures.   So I am going to post a few of our "touristy"  shots.



Where is that torch????



This in in front of Canada Place - The Pan Pacific Hotel - also the media centre.




Years ago when we were traveling in Belgium and Holland it became a bit of a chuckle to see a bunch of tourists posing like this in front of all the monuments - so on every trip we now must have a few posing photos!


Then we decided we needed a few photos of Jim and the competition!!  Anyone in a foreign jersey or the colours of their country was approached for a photo op!!




Norway







A couple of guys from Switzerland.






Russia -- there are a lot of these Russian jackets downtown.  This guy didn't speak a word of English but he happily posed for the picture and could say the word -- HOCKEY!!





Sweden.




Today was Alberta Day at the Canada Pavilion.  So here is Jim with the Mounties. 




They were giving away Cowboy hats at Canada Pavilion.  Jim took a hat and wore it for most of the afternoon but decided he was going to find someone to give it to before the end of the day.  So I needed at least one picture of him in the hat.  They were nice hats -- I kept mine.



Rocket Richard's Montreal Canadian's Jersey.  That is not a great picture! 



Here he is with a couple of guys from Russia -- who have been shopping up a storm. 



They happily posed for the picture and then asked how to get to Pacific Centre Mall. 

He was quite thrilled when Jim told him he could keep the hat!
Off he goes to shop some more -- ready for the Calgary Stampede!




And the last picture is Howie Mandel -- who was just standing next to me at the Roots Canada store!



I asked him if I could take his picture and he said - sure.  Not a bad picture of him!  And then I told him it was so crazy busy in Roots that we were going to go and come back to shop when it was a little quieter.  I should have told him how much I liked him in St. Elsewhere.............................

Images of Vancouver

It is pretty exciting downtown Vancouver right now.  We spent yesterday wandering around the streets - having a great time -- along with a couple hundred thousand others!!

It was so much fun to see so many people downtown enjoying themselves. 

These are just a few of the pictures I took as we wandered about.  Yesterday was more of a fact finding mission -- to find out what exactly was going on and what we needed to see at some point during the Olympics.  We found out it was VERY busy and we walked miles and miles and my feet hurt today.  Jim calculates 5.4 Kms -- it felt like at least 6.8 kms!!  LOL

These are the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery.  There is a free Leonardo da Vinci exhibition in the Art Gallery - there was a bit of a line up so we didn't go in - but we will go back and see it before to long.  I really want to see it.



There is a free zip line that goes from the Vancouver Art Gallery to Robson Square - with a huge line up of course. 



This is Robson Square.  There is a small skating rink in Robson Square - a few young children skating but it was not too busy on the rink. 




This is LiveCity Vancouver - in here is Canada House and Manitoba House and a few other things.  There is a quilt on display in Manitoba house that I want to see.  There is also a First Nations Pavilion - "The Four Host Nations"  which has some live performances through out the day which we will go back and see if we can get in to see one day.



This is Granville Street.  There are a bunch of Olympic themes down here as well as the lanterns and displays set out for Chinese New Year. 







These are lanterns for Chinese New Year.  At night they are all lit up - it is supposed to be beautiful down here at night.  We plan to go back in the evening to see the crowds and the lanterns and maybe catch a few live performances or try to get in to see a medal ceremony. 




A picture of the massive crowds.




Here is a street performer on a unicycle juggling -- I was a little concerned he might electrocute himself if he wasn't too careful of the streetcar lines just above his head.



We saw many - MANY Canada hockey jerseys --lots of whole families decked out in them.




Lots of uniforms and jerseys from countries all over the world -- lots of Russians.  This is just outside the "Olympic Superstore" at The Bay  - there was a line up to get in there as well.



And lastly the Torch.  The torch is on the waterfront and those are the North Shore mountains in the background.  Cypress Mountain is on the far left of the picture.  West Vancouver is straight ahead and North Vancouver and Grouse Mountain would be to the right - not in the pictures.

Valentine's Day 2010

We have been very busy here with the necessary watching of the Olympics. We also were away in Portland Oregon for 5 days.  Jim had meetings in Portland and I was a tag along.  I visited the Japanese Gardens - which were lovely and of course Fabric Depot!! 

We are now right immersed in Olympic mode here in Vancouver.  It has been quite fun so far and we are early on...

Last night we had a nice Valentine's dinner as we watched the Olympics on TV and most excitedly watch Alex Bilodeau win Canada's first Gold medal.

Dinner was a Belgium theme as Jim tried to re-create the meal we had in Belgium 16 years ago when he proposed to me in a little cafe in the centre of Bruges



Belgium endive with goat cheese and shrimp with a bit of spicy lime hot sauce -- nothing to do with the dinner in Bruges - but very tasty!



Jim was very busy most of the day cutting up vegetables and making a chicken stock - I think the chicken stock took 4 hours!  Although he said it didn't.



The meal -- it was a dish that was sort of like a chicken stew but it was made with chicken and chicken stock and angel hair pasta baked with Gruyere cheese top.  He really did a good job this time.  We have tried to re-create this dish before without success - it is hard to keep the angel hair pasta from becoming over cooked and clumpy.  It was very good - well worth 4 hours of chicken stock cooking!



My contribution to dinner was a plum cake - make from plums from a plum tree we have out the back of the house.  I froze a bunch this year - I am often too slow to get any plums as the bear usually beats me it. 



Then the highlight of dinner was the Men's Moguls -- with the gold medal going to Alex Bilodeau.





We spent today downtown again immersed in Olympic fever!!  What fun - and I have some great pictures to post - which I will do in the next post.