Halloween 2010

Jeff-boy scout.
Dan the man the leprechaun
Vendy de Viking


Vintage Canuck logo carved by Daniel


Jeff as Frodo(Friday night SD party)

Peter, we borrowed some things from you!!!! Can you spot them?
Stats for the evening :
-171 trick or treaters!!!!
-no rain
-hot chocolate, pumpkin bread, boter koek and cinnamon coffee cake
-glut of pumpkins on the market 2/$5.00
-missing at the scene Peter, Sarah, Rachel
-Dad, official viking honoree(he made the viking horns)
-Dad, official photographer
-Daniel & Jeff got a hockey card of Cliff Ronning.... signed by Cliff Ronning (while at the Noort's)
-Bill, Joyce and Kathleen dropped by....Bill was fully clothed!!!
-last Halloween with the Dielemans, they move the end of Nov.
-FUN..........another fun Halloween!!!!

Happy Anniversary!

Pete & Sarah! Happy Anniversary! It's a day early here for us but we thought we'd make it work for you guys down'unda!

Wishing you guys all the best as you celebrate 2 years together! hope you find something nice to do to celebrate it.

Love the Fam


This is what you look like Pete without a beard


Aww special!

Fall Is Here

The weather has cooled and the leaves have begun to change to their autumn colors and are slowly falling from the trees.

I saw our neighbor Martin egging on his tree with a leaf blower to encourage it to drop its leaves. Probably because he doesn't want have to clean them up every day.

Anyways - for those of you family and friends here is a bit of an update from the West Coast.

We've had a great October so far. Very little rain and more crisp, cool sunny days. It's been quite pleasant.

We were able to enjoy the weather by taking on a bit of yard work in the front yard. Adding rocks to to edge the front flower beds and remove the last roots from the old cherry tree.

As the seasons change so do routines and most notably the roads around the lower mainland. Canada's economic action plan has really put its stamp mark on the lower mainland.

96Ave is being redone down by Tynehead to 176th.












And of course the new bridge - Port Mann (no pictures sorry)

We've seen fish spawn in the local tributaries and of course hear of the great Sockeye run in the Fraser (you could see them jump in the river while driving on the Port Mann).

Jeff and Dan continue to work steadily. Jeff is leading at SD and both have been attending young adults with others at church.

Mom has been enjoying school from what I can tell - seems like they've gone on a field trip at least 1 every other week. She enjoys it. She has some stories to tell from all of them I'm sure.

Dad continues to make the commute into Vancouver every morning and shutting down disgusting restaurants from Commercial to Kingsway. He's really gone on a mean streak as of late - "Big Bad Brouwer". Yikes!

Ha Just kidding. Anyways enjoy some photos. Hope you're all doing well.

West Coast Brouwers


Tynehead stump






some wooden structure along the new bike path






new bike path

Sarah's 26 Loves (in no particular order)

I thought we could list 26 things that you love Sarah to celebrate your 26th birthday!!!! Blessings!! We love you!!



1. Peter

2. sunflowers, lots of them

3. reading a fantabulous book and never tiring of finding a new one

4. cookbooks

5. canning jars

6. tea of interesting flavours

7. yellow boots, yet to be purchased

8. thrift stores and a rigorous 'Thrift Store Marathon'. We missed having you along this past year!!

9. God

10.family

11.friends

12. cheating at games to win

13. talks around a good roaring fire

14. camping

15. wine

16. scarves and colourful bags

17. clothing made out of cotton or merino wool

18. mustard yellow, olive green and brown

19. nieces

20. hiking

21. Australia

22. Ontario

23. B.C.

24. wooden knitting needles

25. watching a movie while cuddled under a warm blanket

26.living and loving while serving others (heart of a servant)



Well Sarah (and Peter)..hope you had a great time snorkeling. Any sharks...forget it, don't answer. Blessings and safety on our travels.

A Few Summer Shots

A few recent photos from the summer. Enjoy

Folkfest



One of the stages





Bike Lock


Sarah Harmer


Malahat Revue: Mix of a few bands that did a tour all on their bikes. Rachel has a crush on Aidan Knight (far left)


Deep Dark Woods


Wednesday night: Mom, Dad, Rachel and me went downtown to watch the fireworks. It was Mexico - it wasn't that great.




Excited! This is before it started





A few sunset shots of English Bay

A Weekend in Review...Happy Birthday!

This weekend in Australia was a long weekend with the Monday off. We opted to take our holiday and not go into work. Apparently it is the queen's birthday! Happy birthday queen! I suppose we would send our cards to the governor general and he/she would pass our best wishes onto the queen. Haha... She is 84 this year and her real birthday is on April 21, 1926. Not sure why there is a public holiday in June for this occasion but Aussies like to squeeze a holiday at any excuse!

It has been nice to have the three days of rest; Saturday we drove up to Cairns to get some errands done and to watch the new Robin Hood movie! Not a bad show. The city seemed to wipe us out, that and the windy windy curvaceous Gillies range taking us down off and then back up the to Tablelands as we dropped altitude to reach the coastal city.

Sunday was a big day. We chainsawed, cleaned, and burned. Monday we finished felling the last tree in obstruction and rested for the remainder of the day.

Terry was nervous at first about the fire and the felling, but soon we had more trouble keeping the fire going and getting a 'backpacker' to cut your trees is thousands of dollars cheaper than calling in the pros: Overall it was a successful weekend. I hope you all had a good one too.

Peter&Sarah

The new view!

Felled trees & another brush pile.

In the citrus orchard with Ester.

Deputy Terry watching over the burn!

Taking it all in...

Looking back at the house (Sunday afternoon)

Niece's Art stacks up! Nice going Grace!

Cool hats....Cool chairs

Again with warm light

Kayak Photos

I got these photos from Gary Chapman and maybe some from the students. There may be more to come.


Granite Falls


Some boys giving you a perspective at how big it is


Our campsite at the base of the falls. This was near the end of the Indian Arm


Old lighthouse beacon. Didn't seem to be functioning at the time. We found a lot of of old steel and things - probably an old forestry area.


Doesn't get more west coast than this!


Me and some of the boys trying to build a bridge with rocks so we could cross. Took too long, so we crossed up higher. Very cold water! Joel Woudstra is to my right.



The falls again


Looking down the arm - the land on the right is an island.


Place we stopped for lunch

Some Spring Cleanin'

Well were a few days into June and finally the sun decided to show its face. Today was the first sunny day in awhile. It's going to rain tomorrow.

This past weekend I had the privilege to go along and chaperon FVC's grade 12 LEAD class kayak trip up the Indian Arm. This is the same class Rachel was in last year. We stayed overnight at a campsite near Granite Falls - a massive waterfall fed from the mountains. All together I think we kayaked around 40km (20km there and back). We started at Deep Cove, where we rented our kayaks, and went all the way up to Granite Falls located near the top right of the arm.

We saw a few jellyfish, seals, eagles and a deer. I'll try and get pictures from the school as soon as I can and I'll post them. The weather was overcast, which made for excellent conditions. It was a great trip and definitely reminded me why I love BC.

There still has been no word of a job for myself, however I am subbing again on Thursday for 2 periods. So in the meantime I've been keeping busy along with much help on projects around the house.

The Infamous Steps! This was done a few weeks ago.



Dad and I rented a masonry saw to finish them off. As you can see they need to be TSP'd to get the green color out. Definitely had to do a bit of 'fudging' to make things work too.



We had the saw for the long weekend so we also took out the slippery wooden pad in front of the shed and built a small brick landing.



The garage needed some lovin' after the Kabala garage sale (Mom is working on that post). So yesterday Dad and myself tackled it and built a shelving unit. Nothing special but it works.



Nails: 10$
Lumber: $40
Having a clean garage and a happy mother: priceless
For everything else there's Dad's Mastercard

Today I organized the shed too a bit and burned a bunch of crap while Dad was at work. The good lumber was either used or moved into the shed.

The yard on a sunny day



Burning



Some random photo of Rachel doing something with cards



Evening clouds while Jeff and I were shooting some puck around. We've been practicing for Hockey Day at Fraser Valley, which is this weekend.



So that's a little update for now. Rachel and Jeff have been working pretty steadily, as well as Pops of course. Mom has been feeling under the weather and has been in bed mostly for the last 2 days.

Hope you guys are doing well. We'd love to see some more photos if you have time and quick internet! Nice to skype with you too.

Love the BC Brouwer's