"The Playground"

This is the playground that we all go to everyday. It is within Minoru Park, which is huge, and is such a sanctuary, given that the part of Richmond we are staying in is a bit of a concrete jungle otherwise. Minoru is literally across the street, but you can not see it from the road, so stumbling upon it was quite a lucky find. You can even watch a cricket match on Saturday afternoons, if you are that way inclined.

Minoru Chapel

This chapel is at the edge of Minoru Park, within it, but not within it. It is a lovely sight. Minoru Park is actually behind a really big hospital, and on fine days patients are often seen being wheeled around in wheelchairs by carers or visitors. It is such a peaceful place.

Minoru Lake

This is a really tranquil part of the park, many wild ducks and geese with their babies waddling around. The "Grumpy Geese" do tend to hiss a bit. Best of all are the squirrels, which Alex loves to chase. Last week the park even had a couple of raccoons, which was exciting to see. We were pre-warned by another park user that they were a bit hostile, so I didn't show the raccoons to Alex and Olivia when I spotted them, for fear of rousing the dogs. The raccoons were much bigger than I had imagined.
The park has many areas to sit and contemplate. There is a waterfall and lillypads with beautiful large pink lilly flowers floating everywhere and paths that go this way and that.

Alex on the Ladner Wharf

This was taken on Ashley's birthday. We had the building inspection for the house that afternoon, so we went to Ladner early and found a nice restaurant to celebrate his 32 years. Alex loved seeing the boats, it was very pleasant there indeed. Ladner is referred to as a village with 20,000 people. It is part of the municipality of Delta, which also includes Tsawassen on the Canadian US border, and North Delta. Ladner has farm land on one side, the ocean on another and the Fraser River on the other side. Ladner was originally a fishing village, mostly populated by early Chinese migrants. The quickest way to get to Ladner is to take the tunnel, which goes under the Fraser River.

Olivia at Whytecliff - May 2005

Whytecliff is in West Vancouver near Horseshoe Bay. This was a particularly chilly day with a definate wind chill factor. We were rugged up well enough, so we were actually feeling nice and cosy. Whytecliff was very beautiful with lovely cliffs and little bays. There was a marina there and a park for BBQ's, and a lookout telescope which enabled one to look out to the islands that were only a stone throw away. Horseshoe Bay is very close, and on of the places where ferries leave to Naniamo onVancouver Island, and the Sunshine Coast. It was a nice drive up there and the houses were also very grand (with the price tag to match, I am sure).

House in Ladner

While we took 3 days to find a car, we took 3 hours to find a house. We had told everyone that we were going to live in a place called Cloverdale (which is part of the municipality of Surrey), but when we went to check it out, we really couldn't see ourselves living there. It was also quite a distance from Ashley's work.
Ashley has gone to Ladner while on his trip in January and had liked the place. When he took me there, I did as well. We contacted a realtor that Ashley had bumped into on his last trip, and he took us to all the houses in the area that were within our price range. I can tell you for free, we had been spoilt in Adelaide. The house prices in Greater Vancouver and the neighbouring Fraser Valley region are steep.
Nevertheless, we were shown a grand total of 4 houses (the rest were out of our conceiveable price range). The other houses we looked at were shockers. This was the only suitable one, and it still needs quite a bit of work before we move in. I have taken some inside shots, but I intend to do a before and after piece when we move in, so as not to scare too many people with the colours inside; carpet in particular.
The house is close to an elementary school and next to a pre-school. There is also a sport field and playground next door. It should be a nice area to live, and is only 20 minutes from Ashley's work, which is the other attraction of Ladner.
Unfortunately we will only be moving in mid-August. Meanwhile we will be in the apartment for two months - the remaining 4-6 weeks will be spent in a basement house in East Vancouver, which belongs to a guy from Ashley's work. He is renting one floor to us for practically nothing. I consider ourselves very lucky.

View from the apartment window

This shows some of Vancouver airport and a section of BC's coastal mountains in the background. These were the mountains with the most snow on top. When we were here in June 1999, there was heaps more snow than that. Aparently this year, the winter was quite moderate by the usual standards. Greater Vancouver even had water restrictions last summer.

Big Red Car!

We are staying on the 13th floor in an appartment in Richmond, which is about 20 minutes from the centre of Vancouver and 5 minutes from the Airport where Ashley works. Apartments are not ideal living conditions when you have dogs, which makes life interesting. Consequently, we have to take the dogs with us whenever we leave the place. Many of the hotel staff are petrified of dogs and so even if they were model dogs, we would not be able to leave them home.
Many will say we were crazy, but it was our aim to get all our bank details and other necessay paper work sorted; purchase a car; organise insurance; and to find a house before Ashley started his job. That gave us exactly two weeks.
Toward the middle of the first week we thought ourselves organised enough to go car shopping. We didn't even know what we wanted, but we knew we didn't want a loan (we were ineligible anyway given that we had been in the country for five minutes) and we didn't want to spend very much money. This requirement limited our choices somewhat. So with our massive stroller and dogs in tow, we headed for the "Auto Mall" to check out what was on offer - not much!
We did decide upon a four wheel drive, since we could chuck the dogs in the dogs in the back and leave them there if necessary. We did some research and searching, and ended up buying a 1997 Honda CRV through private sale. After running the car through all the history checks, we discovered the car had had a jaded past. But we felt good vibes from the car and felt it wanted us to look after it. So with that in mind, we took it to the car rehab (mechanics) and got the tyres and brakes done and fluids drained and topped up again. Hopefully now, it is as good as new.

Fresh Faced and Naive.

This picture was taken on the eve of our journey to Vancouver Canada - Mothers Day 2005. We were in a park across from our hotel in North Adelaide.
For those who do not already know. Our flight to Canada was a bit of a nightmare. We woke the kids at 3:30am, cranky and bleary eyed (kids too). The past week had been crazy - selling the house and car, getting our stuff in a pile, and packing our whole life into a sea container and waving it goodbye.
We arrived at the airport with our million bags at 5:30 am, just us and the crickets! Who else would be crazy enough to turn up at that hour? Only the best mates out, that's who (thanks guys, you know who you are)!
First stop, Adelaide to Sydney, flying good old Qantas - no sweat, piece of cake. We had a one hour stop in Sydney, which was just enough time to check-in before boarding our Air Canada flight to Honoloulou - or was it..... No, it bloody wasn't. Air Canada had gone and over-booked the flight and there was a band of us that were "not happy Jan". We were rescheduled on an United Airlines flight to San Fransisco, but that was not leaving for another 4 hours.
On the flight itself, there was no scheduled food for the kids, because United Airlines needed 72 hours notice to serve kids meals, (Air Canada had assured us it was "all taken care of"), and so Alex and Olivia snacked on whatever was in our carry on bag (very nutritious); shared our one hors de'ouvre sized "meal"; and were provided with a mini bag of Smith's potato chips that business class had reluctantly donated to the cause. But wait, there were more joys to come.
10 hours into the 12 hour flight, Alex began vomitting, and for the queasy among us, I will not go into any further detail, other than to say there was heaps of it spread far and wide, and it went on for 5 hours!The positive to come out of that experience was our apparent whizz through American Customs. For some reason no one appeared willing to accept vomitt on their strip of carpet or shoes, and so we were moved through the process fairly swiftly.
The 5 hour wait in San Fransisco was monotonous and tiring, and when we were finally able to board, Alex was just starting to recover. None-the-less, he was very resistant to the idea of boarding the next flight, and ultimately he was dragged onto the United Airlines flight to Vancouver, literally kicking and screaming.
Finally, eight hours after our intended time of arrival into Vancouver airport, were finally able to step into the welcome brisk Canadian air for the first time - shattered, but thankful the journey was behind us. Mental note to self - Air Canada flights are cheap for a reason!