Climbing Big Stuff

My summer has been going pretty amazingly. I've developed a new affinity for hiking and hit a few trails recently. Something about the rewarding view you get at the end of a hike makes all the hauling ass up the mountain worth it. You feel so accomplished afterwards!

This was a hike in Minnekhada Park in Coquitlam. It was a very easy hike and not a bad view!















This one was a hike to Lindeman Lake in Chilliwack Lake Park. Such a pristine lake in a valley.. the water was like a duotone bright blue and green!





And I just hiked the Stawamus Chief in Squamish with my friends this past weekend. SO MUCH FUN and the experience at the peak was so worth it. I didn't bring my DSLR on this one though.. my camera and myself would not have survived the strenuous hike up there haha. Near the top was the best part: it was practically a stretch of vertical rock that we climbed precariously with some chains to pull ourselves up. It was basically rock climbing except without the ropes. Here are some crappy pictures and a shaky video from my phone instead!













We lay there at the top in the sun for a while and it felt like pure joy. This one was the hardest hike out of the three but also my favourite one. I can't wait to go back and hike the other two peaks (you can see the second and third peaks in the video at around 0:35!).

The True Vancouver

Friday, my friends and I went to celebrate Julia's birthday and on our way to the restaurant, we went by downtown Granville St. and took a look at the aftermath of the Vancouver riot that I'm sure people all over the world has seen, unfortunately. Everyone has seen footage of flaming idiots setting cars on fire and beating the crap out of people for no reason. I don't need to talk about how disgusted we were and how freaking embarassing that was for Vancouver. But that was not the real Vancouver. Before that night even ended, I already got facebook invitations to the riot clean up from REAL, sensible people in this city. Hundreds of people came out the next day to clean up the mess that the rioters left, smashed windows were boarded up, and passerby's wrote messages on the boards, stuck thank you & sorry notes on police cars, made chalk drawings on the ground, and street performers sang songs about our city. Best part is: the rioters responsible are getting discovered and arrested left and right thanks to photo, video, and stupidly enough, facebook/twitter evidence from the rioters themselves.

























Unfortunately, only a small amount of people will see how true Vancouverites put our city back together compared to the millions of people who watched our city burn.

Recipe Maven

After seeing this recipe for lemon poppyseed bunny cookies and realizing that they used the exact same bunny cookie cutter that I have but couldn't find a use for, I HAD to try it!







Several broken bunnies and sticky but lemony smelling hands later, we noshed on our cookies! We definitely messed up a bit. We rolled out the dough way too thick so that they were more like crumbly, almond patties than crisp cookies. So I can't give a proper verdict on the recipe but it was fun anyway and they're shaped as hella bunnies!! What could make food more fun?!

Totally unrelated food item:





These no-bake date squares. I made these a while ago and I inhaled them in less than a week. And periodically stuck a fork in to just eat it straight out of the dish. The whole batch of them. In mah belly. I take back everything I said about disliking raw nut crusts (but I still think that sounds really awkward) because this almond & medjool crust was SO GOOD! I followed the recipe to a T and the only thing I would change next time would be to swap out the 1/2 cup of water in the date filling and replace it with 1/2 cup of coconut oil. The filling didn't set in the freezer even after a few days and was still mushy and sticky. But other than that.... seriously. Make them. SERIOUSLY.