Scavenger Hunt

I had the pleasure of tasting the food for the California Wine Fair this week. The Shaw Convention Centre held the tasting, and it was paired with 4 California Wines. It was a delightful way to spend a Thursday lunch - loving this corporate world malarkey!!

I've been experimenting with textures in Photoshop thanks to Kim Klassen's Cafe tutorials (see button below).  I'm really enjoying playing with her free textures and I have found a great online site that gives them away for free.

Enjoy, and have a wonderful week! Can you believe it is the last week of February already?

1. Chocolate

2. Numbers

3. Canned Food

4. Music

5. Stack

Touch-Up Tuesday

Before: Dark and not very interesting...

 After: Too light and still not very interesting! I need to practice adding layers!

Macro Monday

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge

Innocent Wonder...I think Sam's eyes say it all!

Mutton Dressed Up As Lamb

Last Christmas, we had a little family photo shoot. My aim was to finally get a photo of my pop smiling...a harder task than you think! I told some dirty jokes while snapping away. It helped that he'd had a few home brew beers prior to the shoot. After wards, we began mucking around with Photoshop and we decided to try to take 30 years off of them. Not that they need it; they are in their 70's and are looking pretty sharp for a couple of old ducks, but nevertheless, it was quite amusing to play around with the clone stamp; it is one of the easiest tools to use and produces instant results - who needs a dentist or Oil of Olay when you have Photoshop!

The SOOC shot: Not too bad at all and he is smiling!

Post Production: Wrinkles smoothed, teeth lightened!

It's going to be good to see them in 3 weeks!
 

Shutter Love Tuesday: BROWN

I Heart <3 Brown

Brown is my favorite colour, so I couldn't resist this week's Shutter Love Tuesday. Only, I have so many photos in sepia/featuring the colour brown that I couldn't choose just one picture. I'm not in it to win, so I will share all my favourites. Again, my camera is still out of action, so I am pulling from the archives (all photos are from 2010).

#1: False Pretense Story True

Very cool installation at Kits beach, Vancouver

 #2: Oh Myles

Myles the french bulldog. He looks sweet and innocent, but packs a punch.

#3: Tunnel of Love

Jenn and Ali getting down in a tunnel. I love this picture because they look like young, innocent children (they're not).

 

#4: Movember

Posted the spirit of Movember. Chad is growing a mo to support Prostate Cancer research. His moustache will probably end up looking like this by the end of November.

Donate here to support his 'stache!

http://ca.movember.com/mospace/1034422/

Last Days of Autumn in Vancouver

View from Chamir Chalet

It is so much more fun to be a tourist in Vancouver than to actually live in the city. I'm not saying this to make it okay that I moved away from Vancouver, but when you are in the daily grind and commuting in heavy traffic it leaves very little time to just enjoy the surrounding environment and the seaside vistas.

This trip wasn't really a planned holiday. It was more of an 'escape to save my sanity' adventure. The Edmonton honeymoon period is over; life is getting boring and mundane. I have run out of intellectual Vampire novels to read. Cleaning while watching The View is more glib than convincing.  One day, I found myself in Chapters scouring the self-help section flipping through novels titled 'How to live a Happy life' so I decided to book a trip to Vancouver while Chad went to San Antonio for a conference. Lucky that I did. It gave me a chance to collect and rebuild my sense of self, spend copious amounts of time inhaling the sea water and eating good Dim Sum and Japanese food whilst reflecting on my time spent in Edmonton so far.The more I leave a place, the more I can put my time there into perspective, to see what I have and what I haven't done yet. I came back more excited about living on the Prairies and experiencing a different Canada.

But before we get to enjoying the snowy prairies, Vancouver treated me to its final days of Autumn - blue sky days and colourful leaves, spectacular 'pee your pants' sunsets and sunrises. Staying at the Chamir Chalet overlooking the water and mountains gave me ample opportunity to run on the sea wall and to reconnect with moisture. My Edmonton dust cough dried up. My hang-nails disappeared. JJ Bean and Intelligensia coffee kept me lubricated and energized. Fig and blue cheese martini's from Chambar revitalized and soothed my weary soul. Kirin Dim Sum and Shiro Japanese satiated my hunger. 

I took almost 1000 pictures in 4 days. It was a good trip. Here are the some of the photos I took. The rest are posted to Flickr. Enjoy!

 Enjoying the Peruvian Pan Flute

Fig and Blue Cheese Martini, Chambar

Tapas plates from Chambar

Sanity Restoring Evening at Chambar

Lighthouse Park

Jenniwa from Suweto

Lighthouse Park: Taken by Tamir

Oh Myles.

Yay for Autumn!

Building Inukshuks

False Creek

Cool art piece at Kit's Point. It is meant to be frozen water.

A choice moment in time.

My attempt at an impressionist piece.