The first weekend in November was one to remember, and all for good reasons. It started off on Friday morning with me rolling in to work very early, and seeing this:

It wasn't much, but there should not be snow on the ground in Vancouver in early November.

I've been in Vancouver for over 17 years, and this is the earliest I can remember there being snow. It had been cold and rainy for a few days, and obviously it was enough to put some snow on the ground. Crazy. As the day progressed, the weather cleared and the clouds started to lift a bit. I had an appointment downtown in the late afternoon, and it afforded me the chance to get a first look for the year of the snow covered north shore mountains.

A panoramic look across to the first snow of the year on the north shore. Click to see it big...

That evening, we were attending a rugby match between the Canadian team and the Maori All Blacks from New Zealand. We walked over to the game along the seawall, and the clouds had cleared leaving us with some amazing views of downtown and the local mountains as the sun set.

The rugby match pretty much went as expected, with the slight twist that Canada was competitive for the first 20 minutes. They play well, competed hard but the quality of competition was just too much in the end. We had attended the match with our friends Stuart and Katie, although I think we're going to have to disown Katie as she was cheering for New Zealand, having lived there for a while. It still seemed like a bit of a weak excuse to me.

We went for a couple of drinks after the game, then called it a night.

Saturday morning I was up early to get a run in before another busy day. It was cold but clear, and as a ran along English Bay I was blessed with more amazing views that required I stop and take some pictures.

That's a lot of snow for so early in the year, for the mountains on Vancouver Island

The real excitement for today was getting to hang out with my goddaughter Alex and her parents. Alex is attending the University of Ottawa, and is on the men's rowing teams that were competing in the National University Rowing Championships being held this year at Burnaby Lake. I hadn't seen any of them in ages, so Justine and I went out and spent the day hanging out in the cold beside the lake, to watch Alex's team row.

Alex's first race was the Men's 8s time trial. This was the first boat to come through, from UBC.

We loved this dude's hair...

Alex and her team on their time trial.

Alex, keeping the boys in line and on pace.

And just like that, the first race of the day was over.

Alex, helping take the boat out of the water.

A local spectator

Her second race, later that afternoon was the lightweight Men's 4s.

Crazy set-up - she's lying down inside the hull, facing forward but away from the rowers, yet still is able to tell if they're on in sync and on pace

After a busy day of racing, we let Alex get warmed up, and then met Alex, Carolynne and Graham (as well as Alex's new boyfriend Nick) for dinner near their hotel in Burnaby. We had a fun evening, but had to wrap it up a bit early as Alex and Nick (who was competing against Alex on the Carleton team) had their real races on Sunday. Justine and I had other plans for Justine's birthday, so we couldn't join them.

Still, it was great to see everyone - it had been way too long. It sounded like Alex enjoyed being out here, so maybe we'll tempt her back.

Monday was Justine's birthday, so I had booked a little excursion for us on Sunday morning. We took a mushroom foraging class, where they take you out in the forest, and explain how to identify edible mushrooms. It was interesting, but not really what we were hoping for. We spent the afternoon at Stu and Tammy's, hanging with the family. Quite the weekend!