Long weekend.

We had quite a good August long weekend. Mark did some work on the van. We've had a couple of issues...besides ridiculous parking fines and getting towed. Oh yes, I may have neglected to mention that a week or so ago our van was towed from the beach parking lot. Admittedly, we were parked in a No Parking spot...but so were 1000s of other cars! Last Wednesday the car had a dead battery and I had to call out BCAA. River missed his last speech therapy session for a while (he takes a 3 month break every so often) which I was quite peeved about. The locks had also been acting up. One minute they were trying to lock themselves up and down and the next we couldn't open or unlock the passenger side door...etc., etc., no need to bore with the details of the van-locking problems. I'm starting to wonder about that van...it better not be possessed like our Subaru was. I may have to run around splashing it with holy water yelling, "I CAST YOU OUT! UNCLEAN SPIRIT!" Anyway, Mark managed to fix it so that was good.

We walked up to Broadway and got Sushi for Saturday's dinner. There is a local sushi place called Jun Sushi where we go for cheap (I've heard it called "lunch-grade" sushi). Nothing fancy, just good, fresh, and cheap sushi. Super friendly owners and food that is ready when they say it will be. There are almost as many sushi places in Vancouver as there are coffee shops, but it is key to find a good one in your own neighbourhood. It reminds me that it has been a while since we made our own sushi. We really got into that for a while (I think it was back when Mark made a decision to cook more...back in 2008..eh eh...sorry Mark - but it's true :) Anyway, Mark can make sushi, gyoza and chicken teriyaki, complete with all sauces and dips, to rival any restaurant. We even tried tempura....but it set all our smoke alarms off so we gave that one up. This was at our old place where we had a red light outside our apartment that began flashing every time our smoke alarm went off so that all our neighbours were alerted to that fact we were the idiots stood on chairs with cushions pressed against the ceiling while smoke billowed out the open door and windows. But I think a sushi night is in order. Best not to let new-found skills get rusty.

The rest of the weekend we went down to the beach. Bronwyn was desperate to show Mark how she could swim. Here she is. I love the concentration on her face.

River seemed much more relaxed and was able to stay at the beach with us. He even took another dip in the water. We're all getting pretty tanned this year. It's so great to be able to get out to the beach and the temperatures have been perfect.

Mark and I had a bbq on the deck on Sunday and Monday....delicious. It's fun to have a meal by ourselves now and again instead of the chaos that often accompanies eating dinner with the kids.