Howe Sound

This morning, we packed up a small cooler, and the kids, and took off for Horseshoe Bay, which is located in West Vancouver approximately 25 minutes from downtown (on the way to Whistler off the Sea to Sky Highway).  Our plan was to rent a 15' foot boat for a couple hours, explore Howe Sound, have lunch and then head back for naps.  It's very rare that plans work out perfectly, especially with kids, but it was one of those days when it did!

We had an amazing ride with a very nervous Captain Mel.  As I told him, it's perfectly fine to be nervous because the lives of his family were in his hands.  The water was a bit choppy this morning, so they upgraded us to a 17' boat, which was perfectly fine with me.  We stayed south to avoid the choppy waters and missed out on the island up north with the sea lions, but hopefully we'll have another chance to explore the islands a bit north of West Vancouver.  Instead, we headed in the direction of downtown and saw some multi-million dollar homes along the coast, some beautiful islands, fishing boats with fishermen hoping for some salmon, Snug Cove at Bowen Island, a float plane coming in for landing, and some huge ferries taking Vancouverites to the many island destinations surrounding the city.

At the end of our ride, Melvin received a compliment on his wonderful parking job at the dock.  Then, we headed to Troll's Restaurant for their famous fish n chips.  We ordered the catch of the season, Basa Fish (type of catfish, super tasty), and it was definitely the best fish n chips I ever had.  This is coming from one that lived in London for 6 months, so kudos to Troll's!

We headed back for naps, then went to Stanley Park to take some professional family pictures in the afternoon.  I am hoping they turned out well and will be sending them out to friends and family in the upcoming weeks.  Stay tuned...

Afghan Horsemen

Tonight, I went to my first Afghan restaurant ever and the food was AMAZING. My ride to the restaurant was on a very peaceful boat across False Creek to Granville Island. I looked around at the towering buildings, people riding bikes along the seawall with their kids in their bike trailers, and the sun hitting the water in such a way that is indescribable.  I realized that it will be very hard to leave this place, if we choose to do so in the future.


I went to dinner with a few girls I met here and it was just really nice to have a meal with others and not be discussing children the entire time. I love my kids, but I can't remember the last time I went a whole night without talking about them.  I realized how important it is to surround myself with friends of all different life situations.


Anyway, that is not the point of my post...The restaurant was called Afghan Horsemen and we sat on the floor at these low tables and had pillows all around.  A belly dancer came out for a performance around 8:45pm and showed us some skills by balancing a sword on her boobs and head (while I laughed in her face).  I learned this is the first and only Afghan restaurant in all of Canada.  I found the cuisine to be very similar to Greek, Turkish and even Lebanese food.  Excelente!

I am so going to bring all our visitors to this place for a night out.