Brent Mountain Birthday Hike

Sunday June 27th was Tim's 46th birthday and for the second weekend in a row (previous weekend was Father's Day), he was treated like a king. I guess that would make me a queen but I certainly didn't feel like one. The birthday person at our house gets to choose what they want to do that day and what they want to eat. This year Tim chose to go hiking up Brent Mountain with our friends Glenda and Eric. These are the friends from the Sun Run and we will also be going hiking with them in the Bugaboos in 4 weeks.

Brent Mountain Trails lead into undisturbed rolling sub-alpine/alpine areas which include Brent Mountain at an elevation of 2200 m - offering outstanding panoramic views of the Monashee Mountains and the Okanagan Valley. Due to the excellent view there is an old forest fire lookout tower at the top. It was a beautiful day, just the right temperature and according to my nifty gadget the hike was 10.1 km with an elevation gain of 490 m.









This is a picture taken near the beginning of the trail showing Brent Mountain in the background (just to the right of me).








View of the forestry lookout at the top of Brent Mountain.


















At the top of the mountain we were able to take a small detour to check out a plane crash that occurred where 2 men were killed. These 2 pictures below were taken by some of the wreckage left behind.

Both Tim and I had a great day and are looking forward to our Bugaboo trip. It is going to be a bit more strenuous (especially once I add a 30 lb pack to my back) but I think it will be an amazing experience.

July is going to be a very busy month for us. This Thursday I am doing the 5 km Peachland Beach Run. My goal is to beat my time from last year but I would be surprised if I did. I've been running regularly for the past few weeks and my nifty gadget is telling me I need to pick up the pace if I hope to beat my time. I guess I should just be happy I'm out there doing it.

Our friend Steve is visiting us this weekend from Victoria and he is bringing along his fiance who we haven't met before. That should be a good visit and I am sure she will meet our standards to be Steve's wife.

Cherries are ready. Tim had planned on picking some tonight but it poured at dinnertime so it was a little too wet to pick. Hopefully he will pick a few tonight so I can have my cherries and frozen yogurt. We usually pit and freeze a hundred pounds so I will be quite busy pitting over the next few days. Thank goodness we have a skookum pitter but it still is a lot of work. Tim is also very busy with his bees. He took a queen rearing course a few weekends ago and has already made 23 new queens and nuke (spelling?) boxes. These are small hives with only a few frames and we now how 23 of them in the orchard along with all his other hives. He is anticipating a bumper crop of honey which makes our customers very happy. Some of them have been waiting a long time for honey.

Tim has his GST trip (Glen, Steve and Tim trip) the second week in July, Tim's parents are coming the next week and then the week after that we are headed for the Bugaboos. Right after that it will be August and it won't be long until summer is over and hockey season starts again.

The Canucks are Coming To Town!

It was announced today that the Vancouver Canucks will be holding their training camp in Penticton at the South Okanagan Events Centre. The camp starts on September 12 and I bet you can never guess where I will be! Oh, I am excited to say the least.

More news on the hockey front, with the Chicago Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup, Duncan Keith will be bringing the cup to Penticton this summer. Last year he helped organize a charity game in the summer and there will be another one this summer. Last year Duncan Keith, Jarome Iginla, Shea Webber, Danny Heatley, Chuck Kobasew, Ryan Smith were just some of the players that were there and this year it looks like most of them will be back along with Andrew Ladd and Brent Seabrook.

I know, there's more to life than hockey!

Go Go Gadget

After years of hinting for a Garmin GPS watch for Christmas or my birthday and not getting one (that makes me sound kind of selfish), I finally went out and purchased one for myself. However, I must say Tim did look into one for Christmas last year but he could only find the super duper really expensive ones.

I love gadgets and anything that helps motivate me to be active is in my opinion, a good thing. It tracks my route, distance, time, pace/speed, heart rate, elevation change and I can upload it to my computer and display it on a map and make really cool graphs. I can even export the information and view it on Google Earth.

This map is from biking last Thursday.
Total distance - 17.22 km.
Total Time - 1:22:29.
Moving Time - 1:03:39.
Elevation gain - 36 m.
Elevation loss - 113 m.
Calories - 609.
Average moving speed - 16.2 km/hr.
Maximum speed - 33.5 km/hr.

Last week was bike to work week and I was captain of the Library team. Our team was very small - 3 of us rode our bikes but we did have a few people use alternate forms of transportation (walk). Of course these people don't own vehicles or are too young to drive, but I still counted them towards our totals for the week. We didn't win any big prizes but one woman did win a gel bike seat. I am very proud to say that I rode my bike to work every day and home 4 days. I didn't ride home Thursday night because I work until 9 p.m. and I figured that was a good enough excuse not to have to ride home. They had "celebration stations" set up around town every morning with free coffee and muffins for the bikers and I made it to every one, even though some of them were not convenient to my work and it was raining 3 mornings out of 5. It's amazing what I will do for a free cup of coffee. In total last week I rode 92.11 km and burned 3,416 calories.

I'm going to have the house to myself this weekend. Tim is going to a queen rearing course in Williams Lake leaving me to be farmer for the weekend. He is so excited about this course and I am concerned that he will come home on Sunday with news that he is going to quit his job and be a full time beekeeper and farmer. If that is the case, he'd better hope he wins the lottery on Saturday night. I don't have any big plans for the weekend. Tonight Lisa and I are going out for Indian food and then to a movie, farmer's market tomorrow and then on Sunday I have a picnic to go to for a coworker who is leaving us to go live in Regina (what is he thinking??)

Another Amazing Weekend

Boy, life is good. Tim and I went up to Vanderhoof on the long weekend to visit my brother Steve, his wife Christine and their kids, Dylan and Evan. It's a long drive (11 hours or so) but so worth it. It's been a couple of years since we've seen them and both the kids are looking older (not Steve or Chris though!) Dylan is absolutely beautiful and extremely smart and quick-witted (maybe she takes after her aunt) and Evan is so kind and thoughtful and polite. I don't think I heard Evan say one negative comment the entire weekend. It was nice that Evan went along with us on a couple of hikes and a bike ride and we really enjoyed a walk after dinner one evening with Dylan, Evan, Steve and the dogs. Too bad Chris hurt her back and couldn't join us. On our next visit we will have to fit in a trip to Prince George and the mall for Dylan.

The company was wonderful, the food was fantastic (bacon, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs - meat, meat, meat!) but too bad the weather wasn't the greatest. It was cold and rainy for most of the weekend but we were able to get out on the Sunday for a good hike to Greer Creek Falls (see picture below - notice that I am a real hiker now with my Gore-tex jacket) and a bike ride. I'm glad I brought along a lot of warm clothes.

One thing I did find bothersome this weekend was that my brother no longer pays much attention to hockey (however, he does seem to watch a lot of Arthur, Sponge Bob and Franklin). I couldn't believe it, how could that have happened. However, he did PVR the Chicago game for me on Sunday and we watched it later Sunday afternoon. Well, my brother watched the first period and then made an excuse that he had to go barbecue the chicken (and what a good chicken it was!), the kids where playing video games, Christine went and joined Steve at the barbecue and when I looked over at Tim, he was sound asleep! I'm glad Chicago won (even though they did beat out Vancouver). The finals should be good, I don't like Philadelphia and Duncan Keith (Chicago) is a local boy so you know who I'll be cheering for. Hopefully he'll be bringing the Cup here in the summer.

And while we are on the subject of hockey, my hockey season is finally over. My last game was on May 16th and now I have to figure out what I'm going to do to keep up the same level of activity. I'll have to start riding my bike to work everyday, hiking to prepare for our trip to the Bugaboos in July and keep training for my 5 km run in Peachland on July 1. But for tonight I am not going to do anything except sit down with a cup of tea and read my library book (which is now 3 days overdue).

So thanks to Steve, Chris, Dylan and Evan for making the past weekend a great one for both Tim and I.

Most Amazing Weekend!

This past weekend we went to the Sun Run in Vancouver with our friends. We arrived a little before lunchtime and went straight to Mountain Equipment Coop where we proceeded to put a huge dent in our bank account. I got a Gore-Tex jacket, a down liner, down filled booties, hiking poles and socks and a new bike jacket. Tim got a Gore-Tex jacket, a down filled vest, a new camping stove and some fuel. We also picked up a couple of freeze dried meals for our Bugaboo trip. Bugaboos here we come.

We then went to our hotel which was right on English Bay, close to Stanley Park. There was a bike rental place right across the street from our hotel so we rented some bikes and went for a ride through Stanley Park and then along the sea wall. It was great. It was warm and sunny and I had the best bike (now I want a new bike!)






Above in the picture is our friends Glenda and Eric.











In the morning we headed out to the Sun Run. It was about a 20 minute walk to the start and the start area was just jammed packed full of people. There were over 51,000 people in the race. The race started at 9 a.m. but we didn't actually start moving until after 10. It was a little hard dodging all the people - reminded me a lot of being in China.



















I knew with my hamstring and knee problems that I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing but decided I would try running 3 minutes and then walking 1 minute and see how long I could keep that up. I was able to keep it up for most of the race but near the end had to change it to run 2, walk 2 but we ran the entire last kilometer. I finished in 1:21:22 which is better than I had hoped for. We then had to walk back to our hotel which was about 30 minutes away so by the time I got back to the hotel, I was feeling pretty tired. This picture was taken at the start of the race so I was still looking and feeling pretty good. I'm not going to post the picture that was taken near the finish!

I had a good snooze in the truck on the way home and felt good enough to play hockey tonight. I didn't have much energy out there and it wasn't my finest playing, but I worked up a good sweat. You'd think after all the day's activity I would be tired tonight but no, here I am all pumped up. Hopefully the tiredness will kick in soon so I can get some sleep. I'm a little concerned about how my body will feel in the morning but that is what Tylenol 3 is for!

In all, this weekend was amazing and I am so glad my friend Glenda talked me into doing the race.

Bugaboo Training

This morning Tim and I went for a hike at Skaha Bluffs in preparation of our big hiking trip to the Bugaboos this July. If you click on the picture you will be able to read the sign and notice that is says it is for fit and agile people and since I had no trouble with the stairs or the hike, I must be fit and agile! However, at times my heart did feel taxed and poor Brodie had a hard time climbing over some of the big rocks. Glory, a friend from my work was over in the afternoon. She has caught the "bee fever" and is keeping a hive of bees at our place and learning everything she needs to know about bees from the Bee Man.









Even the chicken wants to know everything!














And look, there's the crazy chicken lady leading her flock through the orchard!







Tim and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary this pas Friday. Hard to believe 22 years has gone by and I am amazed that he has stuck with me for this long. We went to Theos, a local Greek restaurant and then out to a play. It was a very enjoyable evening and I am looking forward to the next 22 years.

What To Do

For this past week, I haven't been sure of what to do with myself. Since October, I have usually played hockey twice a week and gone to watch at least one hockey game a week and now that it is pretty much over, I'm at a loss of what to do. My Tuesday night and Saturday night hockey ended the last week of March and the Penticton Vees (local junior. team) were knocked out of the playoffs at the same time. A couple of months ago I was wishing I had more spare time and now that I do, I'm wishing I didn't. At least I still have one night a week playing hockey until mid-May up in West Kelowna (and there's always the Canucks on tv).

You would think with all this spare time, I would get lots of things done but no, that isn't happening. However, I have read quite a few good books this week!

For those of you who watched the Olympics (and I can imagine that is all of us), and saw the commercial advertising BC with Kim Cattrall in a vineyard, that was filmed right across the road from us. This is the scenery I get to see everyday when I look out my window and with spring and the sunny days and fruit trees starting to blossom, I have certainly been appreciating how beautiful it is where I live.