BC Day Long Weekend

Just one of many activities in Victoria this BC Day weekend. Symphony Splash at the Inner Harbour. The Victoria Symphony performs in front of thousands of spectators finishing with fireworks as the picture shows. Lots of other activities for BC150. We have a few things (painting etc) to do around the house before we leave for Europe on the 8th.

Mexico Trip Photos

Our home for a week - July 19 - 26, 2008

The U17 Gorge FC team

Seatbelts - not here!

Clayton's hand with the camera usually yields a good artistic result

The Mayan Palace. Nothing ever seems to be "finished" in Mexico. Almost everywhere buildings, houses, streets etc are under some stage of construction.

Back of the amphitheater, every night there is some type of show or contest

A little corner store?

Iguana tree in the background. We counted over 20 at one time sunning themselves on the branches. These are full grown iguana's.

Flea market in Puerto Vallarta

Flea market in PV.

At the Canopy tour - aka Zip Line.

Clayton getting unhooked after a successful zip down

At "The View" zip line which is 2000 ft long. Just after the 1800 foot zip line.

The Tequila house

It was a toss up which was more fun, the ATV's or the Zip Lines.

Nice evening sky at the beach

In Bucerias, a 20 minute walk from the resort.

New resort being built on the beach in Neuvo Vallarta. VERY impressive.

Mexican family fishing. Notice the sting ray and the blowfish.

Our adult only pool in the courtyard of Building 5

Mexico Trip

I will post a bunch of pictures here shortly with a brief synopsis of our trip. Needless to say it was a whole lot of fun! The temperatures were around 35 degrees during the day with very high humidity. At night, it cooled off only a few degree's. We had lightning every night and one very nice rainstorm on Friday afternoon for a couple of hours.

Click on the link to see some pictures of one of our soccer matches posted on www.vallartadeportes.com which is the website of the Puerto Vallarta soccer school who arranged the friendlies.

Soccer trip to Puerto Vallarta Mexico

Clayton's soccer team is taking a trip to Puerto Vallarta to play a couple of friendly games with local Mexican teams. The team leaves Vancouver on Saturday for a week at the Royal Decameron Puerto Vallarta (all inclusive resort). I imagine a lot of time will be spent on the beach.

No rain for a while now

The lawn and gardens are thirsty

Saturday morning home office

Working on a government funding proposal due next week. The weather is so nice that I couldn't work inside (Debra's great suggestion). Coffee is almost ready! Life is good.

Our daughter is home!!

Trista is home healthy and happy. She slept for most of the long flights but was still jet-lagged. A little story: as we left the parking lot, I made a comment of how the woman turning into our lane was going the wrong way. Trista laughed and told us that is NOTHING compared to traffic in Vietnam (See below) She really enjoyed the people and found them to be very friendly. The travel bug has hit, as she said on the ride home her next trip would be either a) Holland or b) Japan, to work and maybe go to school. This morning she added Australia as a possible destination. Who knows what the future will bring.
We have not seen photos yet as she needs to get the ones downloaded to one of her classmates laptop and then the show will begin. I can't wait.


"They certainly have destinations in mind. They'll just take ANY route to GET to those destinations. Basically, people in Vietnam have not grasped the fact that scooter does not equal person, and scooters cannot fit in the same tiny spaces that people can. But they attempt to do so anyways! And people will switch into the lane of oncoming traffic to get ahead of the person in front of them. And there's a total hierarchy in traffic in Vietnam. Semi truck/enormous bus is above small bus is above truck is above car is above scooter is above pedestrians/ants."

Trista arrives home early on Wednesday

Trista, along with a number of others in the field school has decided not to extend her trip as planned past Vietnam. She had been hoping to be able to go for a week into Thailand as opposed to the initial three weeks, but due to re-entry visa requirements, airline hassles and cost, she will be returning directly from Ho Chi Minh leaving Tuesday Jul 8 and arriving around 3 pm in Victoria on Jul 9. It is a bit disappointing for her, but as she is feeling somewhat homesick anyway, she is looking forward to seeing us and sharing her stories and pictures. We cannot wait, she has been missed!

Finishing off with a win - finally

Saturday's game v Kamloops Blaze was closer in the balance of play, but again had we finished the scoring chances created, we would have moved on. Two defensive blunders and a 3 - 1 loss.
Kamloops moved on to play in the Gold medal game (which they won). We played Nelson Selects in the 7/8 game Sunday at noon. It took until the final 20 minutes of play for Gorge to finally apply some finish. The match ended with a 4-1 win. It is a bitter pill to swallow to know that you were the strongest team at the event and end up in 7th.

No medals this year

Well, we will not be playing for medals on Sunday. Despite totally dominating the first two games in possession, corners, free kicks, shots etc, we dropped both. The game today against Kamloops Blaze will determine if we are playing for 5th or 7th. Very disappointing as we went into the tourney as the 2nd seed. In the first game, we had a minimum of 12 corners and 5 free kicks but could not finish the opportunities. Bulkley Valley had two opportunities (mistakes on our end) and scored both. We clawed one back, but could not get the tieing goal. The second game against PoCo Rage (we defeated them 3-2 in the Coastal Cup semi-final) we again created many scoring chances in the first half (playing much better than the previous day) but could not find the back of the net. They scored their first on a corner and put the second one in on a nice volley. Again, they created maybe 2 other chances all game, but came away winners 2-0.
Oh well, at least we will be on an earlier ferry back tomorrow.

Notes from Vietnam #6

July 5

We are in the middle of a monsoon!

Oh sure, there's been rain here, several times. It comes on suddenly, like any tropical storm, and disappears just as quickly after coming down hard on all the unfortunate pedestrians and tourists who are not as prepared as the Vietnamese, who all magically pull ponchos out of who knows where and manage to cover themselves and their goods within a matter of seconds.

There was a fairly intense one the other day. I was in my room, with Jenn and Jason, and suddenly realised that I was hearing a noise out of place. It sounded like... the roaring of water, maybe the ocean. Ridiculously, the first idea that came to mind was, "Is somebody playing one of those ocean tapes really loudly on speakers?"

In any case, I looked out the window of our room into the inside of the hotel - the windows look inside the open halls instead of outside the hotel; isn't that strange? - and saw many people gathered outside, standing at the railing and looking up at the glass ceiling. I opened the door and the roar was louder, and several people told me that it was rain!

I ran back inside, grabbed the headphones out of Jenn and Jason's ears, and dragged them back out to listen to it.

We thought that was pretty amazing, until today.

We first realised that it was a different kind of rain when there was actual thunder. There's been plenty of lightning here, but this was thunder. Loud, rumbling, crackling thunder that continues and crescendoes until it ends with a loud CRACK!

Leslie, Jenn and Claire are sharing a room, which has a window to the outside, so most of us dashed over there to watch the storm come in. It started out slowly - well, as slowly as a tropical storm can - until we were literally seeing waves of rain sweeping through the streets. We're seven floors up, so we had a great view. Four young boys valiantly continued playing badminton - or a sport similar to it; I don't know the name - outside, until even then they were forced inside.

As of a few minutes ago, water was sweeping through the streets in a flood. People on scooters are desperately trying to just find a place to get out of the way or to get home, because the water easily makes it halfway up their tires by now. I can still hear the rain from in this room, unrelenting, and who knows how deep the water on the streets has gotten by now.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is by far the coolest thing that nature has had to offer so far in Vietnam.

In Richmond July 3 - 6

We are with Clayton's soccer team in Richmond for the BCSA Cup Provincial Championships. They play in the U17 Division and today will play Bulkley Valley Rapids at 4 pm. Tomorrow (Friday) is against PoCo Rage at 11 am and Saturday they face Kamloops Blaze at 6 pm. Depending on how they fare in the round robin determines when they play on Sunday. Last year the team took home Silver and the drive for Gold is on. We are staying at the Coast Tsawwassen Inn for the balance of the tournament.

Our 25th Wedding Anniversary

Today we celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We have been blessed with three wonderful children, good friends and a loving family. In August we have a trip planned to the UK for just the two of us.

Foxglove and others in the garden

Very nice Canada Day. Pleasantly warm and sunny with a nice breeze.

Happy Canada Day

I hope that wherever you are in Canada that you enjoy your holiday, hug someone and be kind to those around you.