This weekend was our last weekend at home before our trip back to Ontario to spend time with our families over the Christmas break. The weather wasn’t looking too bad, and we were hoping to sneak in a couple of activities on Sunday - a trip to Reifel to see what birds were about, and a last trip to the Christmas market. There are a couple of other random things here as well…
Read MoreUpdates from Vancouver and Galiano
It’s been a while since I posted any recent updates. I’ve been trying to catch up on posts from the Netherlands, and I’m most of the way through those. It’s been slow for a number of reasons, which I’ll go through in this post. There are some interesting updates from Justine’s birthday, mushroom foraging, and our recent “bomb cyclone”.
Read MoreRandom Vancouver and Galiano Updates
Work is insanely busy right now, so I’m having a hard time getting to updates from the Netherlands trip. We’ve also had some fun days here in Vancouver, so I thought I’d do a quick and easy update from the last trip to Galiano and recent photos from Vancouver - we had another amazing Northern Lights display!
Read MoreHiking on the Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish
I just got back from a 10-day work trip to Nashville and Boston. And then had knee surgery, and so I am falling further behind on posts. This one is from before the trip, when Justine and I did a hike up on the Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish. We needed to get another day on our season pass, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. So it seemed like the right time to do it!
Read MoreA Great Day at Reifel - Owls!
I’m still way behind on posts, so this one will be mostly photos. We had a spare day on the weekend, and Justine was able to snag us a spot at Reifel. This time of year is good, with lots of interesting birds on migration. But we’re always secretly (or not so secretly) hoping for owls, and this trip did not disappoint!
Read MoreCancun - For Work, Honest!
I’m taking a short break from the Netherlands posts to do a more recent update. I got to add a new country to my list - Mexico. Oddly enough, it was a work trip for a Partner Event, so there was very little beach time, and mostly it was just way too hot. But the weather ended upbeing good, and I got a round of golf in. There are a few Vancouver updates in this post as well.
Read MoreA Last Full Day in the Netherlands
Today was our last full day in the Netherlands, and it ended up being the perfect combination of exploring the country a little more and spending time with family, which was the thing that drew us here in the first place. We were spending the day with mom‘s cousin Ton, and his wife Lenie.
Read MoreOn to Eindhoven, with a Stop in 's-Hertogenbosch
Our second to last full day on our exploration of the Netherlands! We were starting in Utrecht and heading to Eindhoven with a stop in Den Bosch along the way.
Read MoreGouda and Delft - Exploring More of the Netherlands
Today we had decided to explore a little bit more of the Netherlands and do a bit of a day trip out from our place here in Utrecht. We were up at a pretty good hour, had a little bit to eat, and got ourselves organized to head out for the day. We were going to be driving everywhere, and so we were able to take everything with us that we would need for the day. We were heading west, with the ultimate destination of the town of Delft. But rather than heading straight there, we decided to make a stop in the town of Gouda, along the way.
Read MoreDe Haar Castle and the Dom Tower - Exploring Utrecht
Tuesday was a full day exploring in and around Utrecht. We had two locations on the agenda - De Haar Castle in the morning, and the Dom Tower in the afternoon. Both looked like amazing sites to visit, and we were excited to do some exploring!
Read MoreBack to Exploring - Zwolle and Utrecht
It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been in the Netherlands for over a week, but the time has flown by, and here we are. Today we left Edwin’s place and continue to explore the country on our own. Our destination for today was the city of Utrecht, with a plan to take out time and explore. We were stopping at a smaller city called Zwolle along the way, as I had seen that they have some amazing architecture to explore.
Read MoreFamily Reunions
Today’s post focuses on two days of meeting new family - well new for me anyway. Saturday was the main reunion that we had come to the Netherlands for; and Sunday we visited with my Grandmother’s sister, who had been unable to make the trip on Saturday, as her husband is dealing with some medical issues. It was amazing to meet everyone, and once again I’m blown away by how well everyone speaks English!
Read MoreA Few Days in Sellingen
For the next few days, we were staying in Sellingen and mostly spending time with family. These days were pretty low key, so I’ll combine a few days into a single post. Thursday was spent mostly hanging out, and Friday was the first of the family reunions.
Read MoreVisiting with Edwin and Family
For the next part of our Netherlands adventure, we were crossing from west to east, along the north of the mainland and heading to Sellingen, to stay with Edwin and family for a few days. This was going to be the “family” part of the trip, with lots of visits over the next few days. Plus we got to hang out with the sheep!
Read MoreA Last Day on Texel, and on to Alkmaar
Today was spent exploring Texel for half the day, before starting our drive south to the town of Alkmaar. Alkmaar has a famous cheese market that runs on Tuesday evenings in the summer, so we had planned some of our trip around this one stop to check it out.
Read MoreTexel Island
Here we are, almost two months removed our our trip to the Netherlands and I am just now getting back to the posts. Hopefully I can pick up the pace and get caught up a little more quickly. The next couple are from our short stay on Texel Island in the North Sea, at the north end of the Netherlands. We had a great, relaxing stay on the island and got to do a bit of exploration!
Read MoreDen Hague and on to Texel
After a brief hiatus, I’m back to getting some of the Netherlands posts togather. This post covers departing from the Hague and headng up to Texel, an island in the North Sea. We were spending a couple of days there as it was a spot that Mom really wanted to see. We had some fun stops along the way, as we headed as far north as this trip would take us.
Read MoreNetherlands: Leiden and The Hague
We arrived in the Netherlands and picked up a rental car for our couple of weeks of exploration and family visits. Our first stop was less than an hour south of the airport in Leiden. Leiden is a university town where a friend of the family lives, and who invited us to stop in and visit for the day before we headed on to The Hague for a couple of days.
Read MoreOff to the Netherlands - Pre-trip Check In
My big trip for the year was to be two weeks in the Netherlands with Mom and Mackenzie. We’ve been planning this trip for over a year, focused on some family reunion plans in the Netherlands that Mom really wanted to attend. It seemed like a great opportunity for me to spend some quality time with Mom and Mackenzie, and for me to meet some of our Dutch relatives that I have either not met, or not met since I was very small. I’m going to have a huge number of posts, as we had two full weeks and visited lots of cool places!
Read MoreNorthern Lights, Bioluminescence, Whales and More! 2 Weeks on Galiano!
We headed over to Galiano on Sunday morning for what was to be our longest ever stay - two full weeks. I had to head back for work for one day in the middle, but other than that we were working from the cottage and trying to enjoy the end of the summer. We had a rangle of adventures, including seeing the Northern Lights, bioluminescence while kayaking, whales on numerous occasions and more.
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