Tetrahedron Range

 Today we went hiking up in the Tetrahedron Range with Auntie Ann, Uncle Andrew and the boys, as well as Grandma and Grandpa. It was a beautiful day and the kids did remarkably well hiking!

New Moon Festival

 We went to the New Moon Festival tonight to celebrate Asian pride and heritage. It's an afternoon/evening filled with different Asian musicians and dancers, delicious food and a lantern procession at dusk. Aja who has always loved dancing, as you will see, just cut a rug tonight! 

Buckwheat Zydeco

Who would have thought a band like this would end up in Sechelt? Last night Chris and I got a babysitter and went to our local theatre with some good friends to see Buckwheat Zydeco. Fast forward a ways on this video so you can bypass all the talking and get a flavor for the music. I can't remember the last time I've had so much fun grooving to some cool tunes. It was not an ideal venue as there wasn't a tonne of room for dancing, but as soon as Mr. Buckwheat Zydeco came on stage himself and told us we could all stand up to dance in our seats, the crowd was up and cheering. They were awesome entertainers and had a great way of interacting with the crowd- we were all singing and laughing the night away. My goal for the year is to go see more live music and dance more, so hopefully this is just the start of reigniting something that both Chris and I used to love to do back in the day. I love dates like that- something totally different from our norm!

Row, Row, Row your Boat

 
 
 September Love. It doesn't get much better than this on a Friday night after a busy week!

Cuddling Buddies

 

Yo, W'sup?

 

Search and Rescue

The girls and Owen enjoyed a ride at an Open House the other day. Thanks Grandpa for the fun visit to Cal's.

Birthdays? Christmas?

 Anything goes in the Allen household. We celebrated Grandma Lou's birthday tonight since she's in town (1 month early). Aja also had the reindeer antlers on as Sedona played Christmas music. I overheard her saying to Aja as she dug up the CD "you'll like this Aja. It's really pretty music!" 

Monster Zucchini

Oops! I guess this one got away from us! I actually don't like them this big as they don't taste as good, but Aja enjoyed carrying it around this afternoon.

Sunflower Contest

 
 Sedona entered her first sunflower contest today. They had to plant specific seeds back in the spring and Sedona has been watering it and lovingly tending to it. We thought she had a pretty good sized sunflower until we got to the contest and saw Craig (Chris' stepbrother). Look at the size of the head Chris is holding!!!!!!!!

Tappers!

 Sedona is starting a new class this fall whcih will include hip hop, jazz, tap and ballet.... a little more exciting in my mind than just good ol' ballet. Sedona is very excited about this class. She just received some hand me down tap shoes yesterday and one of the pairs is too small so Aja got her turn to tap away too. I can't wait until she actually learns some moves to show me!

Practicing New Skills

 
 
 
 

And yes, we did get a trampoline. The best part is it was FREE. I can now say that as I suspected, this is the BEST toy possible for the kids. We spend so much time on it and it's good exercise to boot.

Grandma Lou is in town!

Queen Charlottes Picture slide show

You will need a Google account to view the show as its in Picasa. Enjoy. chris

QCI Fishing 2009

QC The final

The highly coveted Captains Club. That is Andrew's from 2o08. Look for mine next summer!

After a 2 hour wait, here is Twin Otter ariving to pick us up to take us back out to solid land. A couple of staff members were also with us. One guy, a cook, told me he had been on the ship for 115 days straight!! I was doing the land dance after 4 days. Flying out was an adventure as we had to climb to 5000 feet to fly above the clouds that had socked us in. On the descent I had the first time experience of flying through thick cloud for 10 minutes staight while on a passenger sea plane. Flying through "cotton candy" is one thing on a big jet liner. For a serious adreniline kick I reccomend trying it in a Twin Otter!

A beautiful take off shot of the first plane out taken by Bob Allen. Until next time....

QC Part 3

I believe this is the rock bluff at Fame where we caught a majority of our fish.

This pic was from day 2. The peak of relaxtion out on the open ocean.

Another pic from day 2.

A bucketful of salmon. Most Coho and a couple of 24 lb Springs.

Queen Charlottes Part 2

8 hours late is better than not making it. The Otter pulling into the dock of the MV Salmon Seeker. Below are the day fishing boats. Boston Whalers with 150 HP outboards. Great boats to handle the waves.

Of course the camera cannot do the swells justice. This pic is from day one, when the first thing I heard the guide say as we headed out in the AM was "are you sure you guys want to go out in this shit?"

Going out in the shit paid off as I landed this 16 lb Coho. This fish elevated me to the lofty "Captains Club" as evidently 16 lb Coho are not that common. Behind is Steve our guide.

Day 2 was the day to end all days. The wind died and the rain had not yet started. Once the sun lit up the inlet mountains and ocean, the true beauty of the Charlottes was lit up. The landscape up there reminded me of Kauai. The high mountain tops that run straight down to ocean edge. I attribute the similarities of the Charlottes to Hawaii based on both sets of islands missed the ice age. Below is Bob's 24 lb Spring. This fish was caught at Fame Point, AKA "Fame".

Queen Charlotte Fishing Trip

Foor those in the know, last year was Andrew's turn to represent the junior Allens on the semi-annual Queen Charlottes Fishin' Trip. This year it was mine. I had heard about the legendary QC weather, but thinking the Charlottes would be under the same weather spell the Sout Coast was under, I figured it would be smooth seas and blue skies. I misjudged. We left YVR to a beaituful morning of blue sky and sun. Pulling into Sandspit, we were met with 140 Km wind gusts. Needless to say, once we landed in Sandspit. We had some downtime as we waited out the storm. Below is a pick of the giant salmon in Sandspit. This iconic atraction reminded me of Australia, where every town worth the dirt it was built on, has a huge "something" in the town center to announce its claim to fame.

Here is the Motely crew that ventured up to the MV Salmon Seeker in Kano Inlet, QC Islands. This was at the float plane dock outside of Sandspit. From here it was a 15 min journey by Twin Otter to the MV Salmon Seeker.

Twin Otter docking and about to load us on.

A random pic taken out of the window enroute to mother-ship.

My Girls

How could you not love coming home to these three every day?