Van Dusen Gardens

While noa’s mother was visiting us this summer after NYC, we decided one day to go visit the Van Dusen Garden’s here in vancouver. we practically live next door to them, but have never went in. anyways, it was a semi nice warm day, and off we went to go explore all the plants.

Recently they built a new visitors center, and walking in i really loved what they did with the walkway.
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as soon as you walk inside, this is the first view that greets you
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the first plant i saw walking in, are pitcher plants!! they were flowering just like mine are right now.
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look how beautiful they are
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there were so many amazing flowering plants and trees
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i love gnarly bark
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ohh yeah, standing next to a maple in my flip flops.
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the park was huge. i think we wandered around for a good hour before noa got fed up with us saying, uhhh, look at that next tree. uhh, look at that one.
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uhh, look at that cute brook!
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i even tried some hand held hdr’s to try to capture the splendour all around us
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here is by far one of my favorite plants from the west coast. look at the size of those leaves. i really started noticing them when we were in tofino last year, and now i see them all around. they are so prehistoric looking. i just expect a triceratops or something to come crashing thru them.
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this is a great idea for succulents
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and the water lilies!!!
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and we finished off with a bang, my prehistoric plants!
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what a park. anyone in vancouver who has never been, i highly recommend it. its serene, and beautiful when you get in. you would never think its in the heart of a major city.

MacBall wedding

around the end of july, Kristi and Jamie got married. marissa came to town for it too. around this time of the year, we were having another short heat wave, followed by a cold spell. the day of the wedding, it was actually a nice sunny day, but a bit chilly. i was wearing my new suit, which is going to be a whole separate blog post at some point. the wedding was held down in kitsilano, at the brock house. what a wonderful venue. noa and i had considered it originally for us, but as they didnt allow us to serve our own liquor, we quickly discarded it.

here is where the ceremony occurred
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noa and i super excited (me in my new suit)
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this is the view
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we “weren’t” allowed to take pictures during the ceremony, but i never listen to rules, and snapped this quick picture, so thats all i have of the official ceremony part.
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the bride and groom happily married
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after the reception, we stood around on the lawn and had wonderful snacks, while the newly married couple took some photos.

during this time, i did my thing and went and took pictures of all the people i could. the lighting was so great too. i ran into derek and his girlfriend, so i took some pictures of them
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they came back out to greet and talk to people, and have some photos taken
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the table
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i like this one, marissa and noa acting up while im trying to take their picture
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there was a paper airplane toss to see who got to eat first
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and lots of good food.
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this is me trying my best creeper through the window shot
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and then things quickly devolved into dancing and more drinking, as it should
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the whole day and event went off without a glitch (at least from our point of view), and it was such a great wedding. again best wishes to you both.

there are many more pictures on flickr as usual, if theres interest.

NYC June 2012 Recap Day 4

Here it is, the final instalment of my trip to new york this year for noa’s birthday. lets get right into it.

were on the ferry!

here i am relaxing on the ride over. thanks for the great picture noa
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both noa and I
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me again. by noa again.
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noa
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and then were in town. i liked the look of this building.
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we went to go have a juice. my kale and apple was good!
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a sign that i liked.
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some city shots
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so by this time it was lunch again, and this time our target was a place called the spotted pig. this is what it looks like inside
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there were cute little pigs everywhere
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and this is the food we got. it was amazing. a perfectly cooked hamburger.
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noa’s sister got this amazing cuban sandwich
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and these were gnudi. which are ricotta and spinach. crazy delicious
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after lunch we went out to walk around some more. here are a few more scenes from the street
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then we took a break for some sweets
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at some point we took a subway

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this is for my abandoned stuffed animals collection
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this yellow building facade was great
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I liked this shot quite a bit
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so that day it was noa’s birthday, the main reason we were in new york all together. we had dinner reservations at Craft, tom colicchio’s restaurant. it was such a fantastic experience. every starter and main was perfectly cooked, and so delicious. i had a perfectly cooked fish. ill have another post about the food we ate in new york, i asked noa to keep a list of everything, and i really can’t remember all the good food i ate this trip. but this was for sure the highlight. and wow, we finished off with a bang. we had these little donuts with a chocolate and raspberry dipping sauce. omg.

so overall, it was a great dining experience. and as we left, they gave us each a scone to have for breakfast the next day. and that scone saved me the next day.

from dinner we took the ferry home again. we got some pictures of noa and i thanks to her dad

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and a picture of the ladies
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i finished off the night with taking some long exposures of the city from the new jersey side.
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the following morning my flight wasn’t till 1. but i left the city a little too late, and had to rush to my airplane with was boarding, only to sit on the tarmac for an hour while they replaced a part. this is when tom’s scone saved my life then i finally got to LA, where i had a 5 hour layover. i didn’t get into vancouver till midnight, and i wasn’t asleep till 1. and i had a photo class the next day. but i handled that beautifully, spending much of my time talking about new york and b&h. :)

What a great trip. great company, amazing food, and not bad scenery. what a way to celebrate a birthday.