Tuesday, August 2, 2011

A Weekend Comprised of What Dreams are Made of....

I can't believe how some people, 
can say that on any given day,
that there is nothing to do,
in the city of 
Vancouver...

I find myself having to actually schedule down time,
and having to cancel already made plans to do so...

We may not be an old city,
but we do have a lot of character,
which makes us shine brightly as 
one of the best cities in the world!

This weekend was no exception to this theory,
as I jam packed my weekend with amazing events, 
and only now am catching up to myself...

Thursday and Friday
Were spent celebrating my lovely man's 37th birthday!
We dined out with close friends on Thursday night for nachos and fun drink times.
Followed by a night of trying my darnedest to stay awake whilst watching :
American Werewolf in London!
Then Friday we rode our bikes downtown to this adorable cafe called
Aphrodite's Pie Shop and Cafe for an amazing birthday brunch!
(I had the boysenberry cream cheese stuffed french toast!)
The bike ride took us about two hours in total, 
and all in all was the perfect way to go about starting our weekend!

That night, we had friends over at Nate's place for his birthday BBQ shindig,
where we connected with old and new friends, 
and got down with our bad selves till the wee hours of the morning!


Having to work on Saturday morning 
was brutal
as my head felt like it was literally made of lead...
but alas so is the life...

Work came and went,
and then it was time for Luminaries with my roommates!

Luminaries is the festival of light in Vancouver
put on by the Public Dreams non profit society
which is pretty much just a giant lantern festival
and darn good party!

There were giant paper lanterns, 
lantern making workshops,
life sized jenga matches,
an centering prayer tent,
and oh so much more.
I mostly hung out by the DJ stage,
located at the end of pier,
where all the hippies
young and old were joined in dancing.

The really amazing thing about the sound system and lights 
down at the end of the pier,
was that they had all been powered by 
solar panels that had been charging all day on the dock.

Then when the sun went down,
the fire troop Radiant Heat
grabbed their fire swords, whips,
fans, hula hoops, staffs (etc), 
and put on an amazing show for us.

My roommate Terri is in the troop 
(she is featured in the last two photos)
and it was great to see her perform in public 
as I have only seen her perform in the back yard for us before.
She is crazy talented and oh so beautiful!




On my way home that night,
upon my new green stead...
I treated myself to an ice cream,
at the famous gelato joint near my place which has
518 crazy flavors like...
Nutmeg, Pineapple Poppy Seed,
Baileys Cheesecake,
Basil,
Birthday Cake (with bits of actual white cake in in),
and Curry Peanut Butter.

I chose to dive out of my comfort zone a little bit and
order the Marzipan flavor, 
with a scoop of Garlic on top :) 
Don't knock it till you try it :)

I also ended up bonding with two lovely female teachers
who were there for a midnight treat,
and who apparently met each other teaching 
at the same elementary school that I taught at...
how bizarre!
I ended up talking up my female empowerment group to them 
(as I can never really shut up about it these days),
and not only were they interested in the group, 
but they also paid me a very high compliment by saying that
"its nice to know that Seaview Elementary kids can make a difference,
and go on to do something amazing!" 
I was so flattered that they would think that
and it make me want success for my group even more!

Sunday morning I woke up fairly early 
and got all gussied up to be part of the 
PRIDE PARADE!
As it is already apparent, 
I am not gay myself, 
but I am a huge supporter of those in my friend circle,
community and family who are. 
And I think it is very important to support them,
not just once a year but every day in their endeavors, 
as they do us!
So when my darling friend Stephanie Sciencequeen :
asked if I would either like to go and simply watch the parade with her,
or take part in a Jungle themed float with her,
I couldn't resist the urge to dress up and party with the best of them!




Such a better way to experience the parade!

That night : 
I made my way back over to Nates for yet another 
birthday BBQ for two of his room mates,
which was epic as always...
 The Ladies (Birthday Girl : Martine in the middle)!
The Boys (Including my adorable Birthday Boy: Nate on the end)!
The Birthday Boy: Luco




There were awesome salads,
exotic drinks,
singing songs of records we could not play,
dance parties commencing with "Vogue",
and partying hard in trailer until the early morn...


And to top it all off
today (Monday)
continued on my ongoing cycle of awesomeness
as I got off work at 4 to be greet by the warming sun,
with cat naps on quilts and the task of weeding our extensive garden!




You can't really see it in this picture but we discovered
that our zucchini plant is bearing gorgeous
mini veggies that we will gobble up when the time comes :)
Very excited!


To cap off the evening 
my friends and I also met for our first monthly book club meeting,
taunting us to read them,
and got to collectively look through our stash and then vote on our favorites,,,
The chosen book for the month of Aug is:
"Americana" by Don DeLillo 
Has any one read it before?
Do you have any books on your self that have been taunting you this 
summer, spring, year, decade? 

Hope you all had a great weekend! 
And
Happy Pride
Happy Birthday 
And Happy BC Day!

Love Nymph