Although Its Been Said Many Times, Many Ways...

Merry Christmas!

The Annual Salmon Run At Goldstream Provincial Park

With the scent of hundreds of visible wild chum salmon literally rotting in the water, we made our way from our parking spot at the mouth of the park and walked down Goldstream river. We hoped to bare witness to nature's raw spectacle of life and death- the annual salmon run.

We first visited under the bridge where we could see a handful of pale dead chum floating lifelessly in the water. However being the furthest the salmon travel upstream, there was many more living, rowdy, mating salmon than dead salmon. You see, it is the wonderful cycle of life and death that plays out here before our eyes. The male and female salmon swim up stream from the ocean to mate, lay eggs, and then die.

More downstream was a mass grave of fish carcases just floating in the water. The birds were huddled around the banks gorging themselves on this once a year buffet. Although there are a diversity of different salmon species that spawn in Goldstream, chum outnumbered all others, being the most visible and abundant of those salmon spotted. After having had enough of this interesting event. We walked back to the car and made our way to Mount Douglas.

Trying To Remember Remembrance Day With Tieghen

Teighen came up over Remembrance Day long weekend last month with the main objective of getting us organized on our wedding. Beside doing a bunch of wedding related stuff we also had great fun around Victoria. On Remembrance Day we partied hard in remembrance (of course) and funnily enough can hardly remember that night!

We took Teighen on a walking tour of Cook Street Village then walked along the seacoast and along Ogden Point Breakwater then to the Fisherman's Warf and the Inner Harbour. After recharging at home we went to our favourite oyster place, Pescatores. We ordered 48 oysters and rounds of drinks and never looked back.

The night spanned the downtown hopping from place to place before things got a bit cloudy. Anyways, the next morning there was a friendly Japanese man from Osaka named Naoto sleeping on our couch. Later he sent me these shady photos of how the night went!

The Change of Fall To Winter In Victoria

Have been getting some flack for no recent posts. We have both been quite busy... too much work and not enough fun. The leaves fell off the walnut tree just outside our window and soon it was bare and covered with snow. Winter came early to Victoria as there was a whole week with snow on the ground for much of it in November.

Some of the highlights of the past few months have been Alissa passing her last exam for her bus licence, Matt finally finishing all his exams, going to a Stuart McLean Christmas show, a few Christmas parties/ pot lucks, and Teighen's visit in November (more on that one next post).

There have also been lots of wedding stuff that we have been trying to squeeze in. Oh yeah, Alissa bought her wedding dress and tomorrow we meet with the Catholic wedding prep people.

Cousin John Vicker's Pumpkin Art

Every Halloween Matt's second cousin John Vickers puts on a fundraiser in Victoria. He displays hundreds of carved pumpkins in all sorts of cool themes. He carves all of them from plastic pumpkins and displays them annually for charity during Halloween. He has garnered international fame from his pumpkin carvings which have gone on display in NY and at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

John also is the current director at The Victoria Truth Center and is currently putting together the first Victoria International Buskers Festival which will début this summer.

Here are some of our favourites pumpkins.

Halloween House Partying In Victoria: It Got A Lot Crazier Than This!

Cookin' With Cassie: Traditional Thanksgiving Meal Done By A Chef

This fall we have been quite busy. Some of the highlights of the last month or two has been the removal of all of Matt's wisdom teeth, Aunt Eileen's Visit to Victoria, Matt's Half Marathon, and Alissa getting her school bus licence (get off the road kids!).

Thanksgiving was also a very interesting one this year. We spent it with Alissa's work pals. The meal was, sorry Grandmas and parents, the best home cooked Thanksgiving meal we've ever had!

Alissa's co-worker is a fully trained and experienced cook (not to mention a perfectionist) she was hosting us in her mother's house a few blocks away.

The meal was a week in the making. Everything was made from scratch and purchased from local farms. Alissa was the acting sous-chef so met with Cassie, the head chef, to pound out the details of this epic giving-of-much-thanks meal a few times during that week.

The pumpkin pies were probably the most tedious as they involved slow baking, pureeing, setting, curing, crust making, and baking. They turned out phenomenal though- a few traditional pumpkin pies and a few not-so-traditional pumpkin torts. The crust was perfect the filling was fluffy like a cloud but with depth. MMMmmmm...

The turkey was juicy, not a dry piece of meat on the whole bird, the stuffing a flavourful addition that also was far from being dried out, the buns were fresh out of the oven. Everything turned out perfect, that alone is something to be thankful for.

A Quadra Island Party

Matt took a weekend in September to head to Tony's cabin on Quadra Island. Jess packed the car up and we all headed down. The ferry ride from Campbell River was made nice by the colours of sunset. Matt spend a day as Tony's sidekick, preparing a clearing in the forest for the big party the next day. There were projected images on a screen, a D.J. booth, a dance floor, and, of course, a fire pit. Great times. These pics were snapped as we were leaving.

Hye Jung's Last Visit (For A Long Time)

At the end of August our good friend Hye Jung left Canada for a few month long backpacking of Europe then home to Korea. She came up at the end of August for one last visit. We went for fresh local oysters at Pescatores, then took in some live music at the Scottish pub, Bard & Banker. The next day we chilled out at the Oak Bay Marina, then had some sustainable seafood at the ultra popular, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

Have a fun, safe trip Hye Jung.

A Cougar In Our Driveway

Upon coming home from a late night run the neighbour across the street stopped Matt. She said that she just saw a cougar come out of our driveway and had phoned the police. Apparently Vancouver Island has the highest density of Cougars in North America and they commonly come into the city to find food at the end of summer. Our new place is truly a page out of Natural Geographic.

Whale Watching With A Friend: A Bunch of Orca and A Lonely Adolescent Grey Whale

Alissa and her good friend Ali went whale watching a few weeks back. A friend of a friend of a friend worked for Five Star Whale Watching so they got the family and friends (very distant friends) discount.

Alissa and Ali had a wonderful experience that foggy morning. They saw many killer whales and even a lonely teenage grey whale that was hiding behind the rocky coastline. The naturalists on board said that he is likely feeding and gaining energy for his migration out at sea where he will find his first mate. Who would have thought the odours emitted from the grey whales blow hole could be so revolting.

They enjoyed the sounds of these giant mammals taking in deep breaths, the mist from their blowholes dampening their on looking faces. Very cool.

Check out some of the pictures they saw that morning here.

Just Outside The Window

Our new place is quite scenic and purveys the feeling of being in the forest. Last month we came home to two adolescent female deer in our parking spot. Last week the old, lichen covered walnut tree outside our window was constantly busy with a variety of different coloured squirrels stripping the tree of its nuts. Our entertainment for the week was watching the gorging just feet from our big windows. With the windows framing the action. it feels like we were watching some kind of nature documentary.