My so-called vacation

As usual, a vacation to Vancouver is only partly a vacation. This time, it was marred by sadness. My uncle (my mother's sister's husband) died while we were there visiting my father and sister. My uncle had been in declining health anyway, but he was diagnosed with pneumonia and pulmonary fibrosis, and likely died from complications of those two things.

We were able to visit him the evening we arrived, so we got to say good-bye to him one last time. The funeral service/burial was a lovely service: a family-only affair where we sat with our own thoughts and offered comfort to my aunt, my cousins, and my cousin J's in-laws. It was the complete opposite of the stressful and crazy circus that was my mother's funeral. We didn't have beer and barbecue like my cousin S promised, but we had a nice dim sum afterward - still just family - and it was, all in all, the best funeral I've attended.

The weather cooperated, as you can see from the photo of the burial. Apparently, they had a wet and cold spring in that region of the world, but 2 days after we arrived, the weather turned, becoming sunny and warm. Nice warm, about mid 70s F, instead of horrid warm, about 100+ F like it was back home. We did do some hikes and took a few pictures of butterflies (Lorquin's Admiral)

birds (a nice profile shot of one Cedar Waxwing and a nice butt shot of the other)

four-legged mammals (mule deer)

and two-legged mammals (wow, there was still snow on Mount Seymour).

Then, of course, there's the food. I tell people we visit Vancouver because of my family, but, truthfully, we go there for the food. Yes, that would include durian (entirely hubby's fault this time)

 and chicken feet, which I can't get enough of and order every single time we go to dim sum.

As usual, we went to Steveston for the guys to rent bikes and ride along the water. Steveston is the cutest town that's pretty much an extension of Richmond, but has a much slower pace. The guys found the recreated village of the fishing community that used to thrive there, complete with a chicken house that still has two hens and one rooster, as an example of how the villagers used to live. What was most interesting to me was the bunkhouse that was temporary home to the Chinese labor that they used to bus in from the neighboring areas such as Vancouver:

But most importantly, we spent a lot of time with my dad. When mom was still alive, we didn't spend half as much time with him. He is really a dear man, but boy does he drive us nuts. Mom was sharp as a professional chef's knife, but dad...well, he's smart at certain things, but he doesn't have that all-round intelligence that mom had. We used to rely on mom's help to talk to him (she translated things we didn't know how to say and got him to tell a story straight), but now we have to talk directly with him. Somehow, we're still smiling...hah! Here we are, not throttling dad. ;) My sister, Monica, proprietress of the cool soap shop, Soap Sudsations, is on the left in the photo.

Guess I've bored you enough with tales of my vacation. Have you taken vacation (or "holiday" if you're part of the Commonwealth) this summer yet? Where did you go and did you have fun or need a vacation after your vacation just to recuperate?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Get ready to be inundated

Because it's always feast or famine, people!

No, sorry; it's actually because I tend to put things off and then throw everything into the pot...or the blog post.

So, let's rush through our Vancouver trip. Luckily for you, unlike some of my friends who are good about taking a million photos each time they go on vacation, I think we (the kids, hubby, and I) took a total of maybe 30 pictures. And I'm not sharing all of them - you'll be grateful to know that, for example, I'm not sharing the photo of the dead caterpillar ds#1 found in his salad or his stunning photos of various slugs they found while hiking.

Speaking of hiking, no trip to Vancouver is complete without a trek to Lynn Headwaters in North Vancouver:

Now that ds#1 is feeling more confident with birding by ear (and is really good with IDing by sight), we're doing more and more birding outings.  We went to Whytecliff Park, which we hadn't been to in years, and were rewarded with lovely views and some unusual birds.

Hubby likes to bring the boys to wholesome places for birding too (click to see larger photo):

That place (Wreck Beach, in case anyone wants to know) is pretty gorgeous though:

We also went to check out my mom's headstone at her grave site.  My sister and I helped our dad order the tombstone back in November. It arrived in February when I was already back home, so this was the first time I've seen it.  Dad wrote out the Chinese characters that they used to make lettering with.  I think it looks pretty nice.  And I think it's pretty generous of dad, who is an atheist, to honor mom, who was Catholic, by putting religious symbols on the stone.

Besides Lynn Headwaters, a trip to Vancouver would not be complete without eating authentic Chinese food...and lots of it.  My kids have gotten really fond of chicken feet now, so we order it at every dim sum:

This next item was a first for the boys (and hubby) - and a warning to the squeamish: you might want to skip down to the garden photos - care to guess what it is?

If you guessed "duck tongue", you are absolutely right!  Most older cultures still adhere to the "waste not, want not" ideal.

The funky thing is that inside of a duck tongue is some sort of bone or cartilage which makes the tongue stiff.  Consider this is your anatomy lesson for the day.  Traveling is very enlightening. 

We're back home now, in not-as-exotic southern Indiana.  But, we have fresh food back home, so even if we don't have anything unusual, it is all tasty.  Here's hubby between the broccoli and corn:

And what was hubby doing with a pitchfork, besides posing as model for an American Gothic revival? Digging potatoes, of course!

A few more random garden photos...summer squash that got too big while we were away in Vancouver enjoying the duck tongue:

More corn because we can never get enough:

The frisee, gone to seed...but look at how pretty the flowers are!

Not as pretty as the frisee flowers, but lovely in its own way is the asparagus forest:

Hubby put our indoor banana tree out in the garden where it's been enjoying the killer heat and humidity. I'm glad something is.

Aren't the cherry tomatoes adorable?

Well, enough of my babbling for one post. I plan to post shorter, less gross posts more regularly.  (Was that confusing to use less and more within 2 words of each other?)

If I've not already visited your blog, tell me about your vacation/summer/garden, and I'll swing by for a look-see!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams