Vacation

I'm back after a little vacation, and then a week of just getting back into my work routine.

My mom was visiting for a week, and I took a few days off. I barely opened the computer at all, so I haven't been making my rounds.

We had a nice visit. Here's what we did.

The Brackendale  eagles are famous. You may have heard about the annual eagle count that is done in early January.

This year the count was on the low side (956). On average there is around 1600 a year. Imagine at the peak what it must be like!

We started in Squamish at the official "Eagle Viewing" site, and then we drove further along one of the roads to see if we could see others.

That's where we spotted this one atop a tree.

Then these two (a juvenile and an adult) were perched next to a creek.

We drove along Paradise Valley road where all of the trees are loaded with moss. It's not that uncommon to see trees covered in moss on the we(s)t coast, but this whole area is unique because it had tree after tree after tree covered. It turns out that it's a protected area funded by the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

 

On the way back to the highway, we spotted another eagle. It's near the top of one of the trees on the left.

I zoomed in as far as I could with my camera and tried to steady it on the car to snap some photos. I did get a few nice ones. I tried taking a video, but whenever I selected the film option, the eagle would stop moving all together. I swear he knew what I was up to.

They are beautiful birds, and I feel very fortunate to have seen so many in such a small area.

Near our place we see them occasionally, but they are soaring so far above that we never really get to admire their beauty. At our last place we would see more because of the sloping green belt that was fairly open, so I think the eagles like to hunt there. We're more enclosed by the forest where we are now. I do love watching them soar high above in the sky though.

Thursday we went to Seattle. We started off at Pike Place Market. I think mom really enjoyed it.
Here's the flower area. In the summer it was full of fresh flowers. It was nice to see it was still vibrant full of beautiful dried flower arrangements. I think if I lived in Seattle I would buy my flowers here, and always have an arrangement in my home.

I didn't really take many pictures in Seattle. The weather was pretty damp, and we were more about getting to and from places. Plus, I had taken so many pictures of the market and downtown last time we were there. I guess I should put them on my flickr page. I'll do that after this post.

I did, of course, take pictures of our food. We were seeking out a vegan restaurant on Broadway Ave, and couldn't find it. We finally went into the grocery store and asked if someone knew of it only to learn that it was now the grocery store!

So we went back to Pizza Pi, which was fine with me. Mom had never been, and db and I were ready to try something else on the menu.

db had a calzone, and I had this lovely pizza with a sundried tomato cream sauce topped with olives, spinach, and artichokes. Of course they use teese on all of their pizzas.

Mom had one of their sandwiches. It was very good food.

Mom asked why they didn't use the daiya cheese, and they said it didn't work well with their ovens. I'm kind of glad in a way because teese really is a good product, and daiya has taken the vegan cheese world by storm. I'd like to see teese continue to thrive as well.

We did bring back a dozen donuts from Mighty O donuts (I really like their website as well so check it out). I mean...vegan donuts! Need I say more? They also serve a very nice coffee. If you're going to the coffee capital, you should at least have coffee. There is of course an obscene number of Starbucks (it's Starbuck's hometown after all), but there are also numerous independent coffee shops serving their own roasts or a local roast.

I really like Seattle. Next time we go, I'll take more pictures. I guess you can just go to Google Maps and wander the streets on the street view, but I like the personal photo better (not my photo by the way).

Of course it wouldn't be a fun vacation without the girls. Prima and Gigi loved having mom here.

Prima sometimes gets a little overwhelmed when there are too many people to keep track of. It's mostly just db and I so she hops from one lap to the other. She likes to be the center of attention all of the time. With mom here, she wasn't the center of attention, but did still get a lot of pets from all of us. She's very needy. 

Gigi particularly liked having the sofa bed open in the living room. Some days we never made up the sofa because we knew we'd be out all day, and the girls liked having the bed out to lounge on.


Even after mom left, I kept the duvet out for them to sleep on.

The cats had a nice vacation as well, and they really deserved it after the craziness of the holidays with trees in their room, people for dinner. They really needed the break! Ha.

Back from Vacation

I'm back! I had an amazing vacation and I never left home! Well, we left the house, but we never ventured more than a day drive from home.

It was the best birthday (should I say ever?). My family spoiled me rotten, which was fab. They all pitched in a bought me a beautiful new camera with so many bells and whistles I'm going to take a course on how to use it. For now I've got it on an automatic setting for the most part and that takes great photos.

There's so much to post about the vacation that I can't post it all at once so I think I'll just do some random days and photos to go along with it.

If you didn't know from the photo above that's Seattle. db & I went to Seattle on Saturday. Even though the family left on Thursday, we still wanted the vacation to go on. We've never been to Seattle and it was overdue. It's only a 2 1/2 hour car ride from Port Whoody (plus the border wait).

hand-blown glass outside of the Pike Place Market

The market is a main attraction right downtown on the waterfront. It was packed with mostly tourists (including us). I found the crowd a bit overwhelming, but the market was worth it. I especially loved the flower alley with nothing but flowers on table after table after table.
It's a great city to walk in and we did a lot of walking in several neighbourhoods. I really like the University district. It was less polished than the downtown and had a relaxed easy-going feel. Plus, there are several vegan restaurants and shops to check out.

For dinner we found Pizza Pi , a vegan pizzeria with everything a pizzeria has to offer and it's all vegan. We each had our own choice. I selected the Olive lovers pizza with a spinach artichoke cream sauce. db had the Aloha pizza with some additional jalapenos. The woman who made the pizzas was very nice and made wonderful pizzas. Another bonus was that they had a gluten free crust that I tried. It was so so so incredibly good.
When I go back, I'm going to Pizza Pi.
Oh and then there was Mighty-O donuts. The vegan donut shop! Everything on the menu is vegan. The shop is in a renovated garage so there is the garage door that opens up for an open air cafe feel. The coffee is delicious and the selection of donuts seems endless.
Did I mention that they are delicious?
We brought a dozen home. It's a good think we don't live closer to Mighty-O. It could be very dangerous.