Summer Days

The weather has been perfect summer fare these days.  I can feel myself gently settling into full on summer mode as every day passes.  I am loving getting up in the morning and not rushing anywhere, just hanging out in the backyard in our jammies and enjoying the slower pace.

This Saturday Paul's Mom, Sydney's Bubbie, is turning 98.  I love that Paul has such great longevity in his genes!  Sydney and I went out to buy her some new nailpolish as a gift and Sydney made Bubbie the most special card as well.  We are so looking forward to celebrating this great milestone with her on Saturday!

I made my annual batch of raspberry jam the other day using the berries that Sydney and I picked at Emma Lea farms.

Got seven full jars of jam from one batch with a bunch of raspberries left over to freeze for other treats later.  Yum!

My sister brought Sydney and I some special things when she came to visit earlier this week.  She has been on the lookout at garage sales for any china and crystal that Sydney and I can use for tea parties and found some amazing china tea cups and crystal for us!

We've been using a few of the crystal goblets as vases for the many bouquets of wild flowers that Sydney picks for me!

Sydney and I picked up a very special package the other day, a personalized story book with Syd's name woven throughout and pictures of the two of us inside.  It is so precious and we are enjoying reading it at bedtime together.

Sydney has been spending a lot of time with Alexa, her summertime babysitter, in the backyard working on various crafts.  She painted some beautiful flower pots with patio paint the other day, can't wait to find some plants to fill them!

As is always the case with my little artist, she didn't stop at just painting the pots, she found a huge leaf and painted it so beautifully as well!

Yesterday we met up with some of the families from preschool at the Chaldecott Spray Park to play and have a visit.  It was so lovely to see everyone and catch up on the happenings from the first couple of weeks of summer.

We had a picnic lunch and relaxed in the sun while the kids played.  It was great!

Love this shot of Syd and her buddy Sophie holding some fake flowers that Sydney brought to the park with her!

After all that sun and fun I decided that a takeaway dinner was in order so we grabbed some sushi and dined al fresco together in the back yard.  Summer pleasures!

Sydney found a bunch of photographs of flowers at Urban Source the last time we were there.  She decided to glue popsicle sticks to the back of them and 'plant' them in our garden, it was very cute!

Syd is still adjusting to life without preschool.  She literally talks about the kids and teachers from school every day, I think she's really missing them!  Last night while she was in the bath she wrote "To Carmey" in foam letters on the shower door.  She wanted me to take a picture of it to send to her preschool teacher Carmen, love it!

This morning we broke out something I've had tucked away in a closet for a few months waiting for a summer day to use it.  It's an instamatic camera that prints out pictures right away and this afternoon Syd and I are going on a hunt for things to take pictures of.  Stay tuned for the final result!

We are enjoying summer days.

A Cup of Tea and a Day at the Beach

We are slowly getting into the groove of summer around here although the days seem to still be busier than a typical lazy summer day!

The weather has taken a turn for the best, super sunny and hot blue sky days, we are spending tons of time outside soaking it all up.

Yesterday we met up with my sister and headed to Jericho beach for a picnic lunch and some beach combing.

We had a lovely lunch and visit and then spent more than an hour wandering the beach looking for sea glass.  What luck we had!  We literally found hundreds of pieces in all shapes and sizes and colours.  Sydney even found a piece of red sea glass, very rare!  She was pretty excited!

In the end she had about half a sand pail filled with treasures which she lovingly sorted into jars by size when she got home.

This afternoon Sydney and I had a special time together at Capstone Tea House on Robson Street for high tea.

Sydney enjoyed a special blueberry infused fruit beverage with fresh fruit floating in it!

The treats were decadent, we so enjoyed them!

Seeing we were downtown, we decided to head to the aquarium to check out the newly renovated space that they just unveiled.  It was amazing, so beautifully done and lots of new and exciting things to see!

There was a polka dot piano outside the entrance, Sydney couldn't resist taking a few moments to belt out a song or two!

We're making summer memories, loving it!

A Day at Westham Island

Sydney and I spent the day today crossing yet another item off of her summer bucket list.  We drove out to Westham Island in search of some raspberries to make jam and stopped along the way at the Westham Island Herb Farm, somewhere we'd been wanting to visit forever!

What a lovely little farm this is!  They have a beautiful little greenhouse where you can buy potted plants and flowers and, of course, herbs galore along with a little farmer's market and shop where they sell what they harvest from their farm and make on their own.

They even have a few farm animals around for the kids to see.

Sydney had such fun exploring a new farm, we will be back for sure!

We headed from the Herb Farm to one our favourite spots, Emma Lea farms, where we picked raspberries with glee for the afternoon.

In no time at all we had filled our huge bowl to the brim with the most enormous red berries.  Sydney ate her way all the way to the pay stand sitting in the wagon with the bowl in her lap!

Of course no trip to Emma Lea would be complete without a stop for ice cream, this time we had strawberry sundaes with fresh berries all around, it was divine!

What a lovely summer day together!

A Day in the Garden

This morning started off in kind of a surreal way, Sydney and I went to buy her school uniforms for this fall.  I still can't believe that in two short months Syd will be starting Kindergarten.  We had such fun trying on the different items that she'll need as part of her uniform, she looked so sweet all dressed and ready for school!

We headed straight from the uniform fitting to the school garden where, every Wednesday throughout the summer, we are able to help out in the garden with weeding and harvesting.

We met Lesley, the garden's caretaker, and got to work quickly picking Calendula flowers which the girls will dry and make into tea for a tea party in the fall.

Then we set to work harvesting Fava beans, what a bounty! 

Sydney loved that she could harvest the beans and then break open the pod to reveal the treasure inside.  She must have worked on this for the better part of an hour in the garden before sitting down with me to have some sun tea that they had made with fresh chocolate mint herbs from the garden.

Then we set about harvesting what we could take home for the day, a bag stuffed with salad greens, potatoes, turnips, shelling peas, carrots and, of course, Fava beans.

Sydney was thrilled to take her bag stuffed with veggies and edible flowers home!  What a wonderful morning in the garden, we look forward to many more as the summer unfolds.

We spent a wonderful day together yesterday celebrating Canada Day.  We had every intention of heading to Granville Island or downtown to take in some of the day's festivities but somehow all three of us just felt the need to be at home, serene and enjoying the amazing weather and each other's company.

We went for an early morning walk together into Kerrisdale, it was a lovely way to start the day.

Sydney wanted to stop at the community garden and take pictures on the "Lego blocks" as she calls them!

She brought home another gorgeous bouquet for me.

Then midday, while Paul napped in his easy chair in the back yard, Sydney and I walked up the street to the endowment lands for a nature walk.

Syd brought the kitchen tongs with her to pick up various items that she wanted to collect and bring home in her little basket.

What a perfect day together, it felt just right and I could tell that we all felt refreshed after our day together at home. 

Welcome July!