Helen’s friends (who are becoming Dennis and my friends too! ), Cathy, Ray, Ed, Eaman and of course, Dennis.

Brunch was two types of frittata (spinach and feta & ham and cheddar), turkey sausages, mini croissants, fruit, juices, coffee, tea and wine)

We all saved room for cake.  I’d love to say I made the cake, but I didn’t.  :)

Helen made a wish…..

….cut the cake….

…then relaxed with two of her favorite men!

Happy Birthday Helen!!!!  We are so glad we were able to celebrate with you! The big party in London that is going on at the moment?  That’s not for the Queen, it’s for YOU!!!  :)

After the party, we cleaned up then did next to nothing and rested for the afternoon.  We did have a snack of a couple of pieces of baguette with caramelized onion relish.

Dinner was some perogies from the freezer with fat-free sour cream, and leftover turkey sausages from brunch.

I also had a glass of the berry smoothie that was also part of the brunch table.

It’s hard for me to believe that the weekend is over.  Three days flew by, and it’ll be back to the grind tomorrow.  Anyone get up to anything of note this weekend?   And Anderson Cooper, if you’re reading this, Happy Birthday to you too!!!!!  HA!  You share a birthday with someone very special to us!

Just as a follow-up to our food show adventure yesterday, there was a section called “Pets Eat Too”.  We got some samples for Neva.  Safe to say from this photo a) she likes it and b) my pajamas are NOT attractive! (but they are super comfy)

Breakfast this morning was two little pieces of toast, almond butter and coffee.

I then ventured out to get “sassified” by my hairdresser Patty.  I always take lattes if I’m her first appointment of the morning.  One can’t be sassified if one’s stylist isn’t caffinated!

What was special about my drive to the hairdresser and a couple of other errands???  I DROVE the car today for the first time since my surgery.  (we have a standard transmission, and my foot was the clutch foot…so I had to be chauffeured even when things were getting much better.  YAY me!  And yay driving!!!)

When I finished joyriding just because I could, I popped home, fuelled up a bit with a few chip ins, a couple of pieces of Dennis’ sausage from the food show and a chunk of padano cheese.

We then set out for the annual “Hat’s Off Day” street festival.  (the merchants along a street that is closed off take their “hats off” to the community)

Dennis has been to the festival before, I haven’t, but as many regular weightfor50 readers know, we’re always up for a free festival!!  We JUST missed quite the downpour by the time we got there, but luckily, the sun eventually came out.  Our good friends Alan and Janice live close to the festival road, and we bumped into Janice, but timing didn’t work out for us to all go together.  Next year A&J!!!

Lots of balloons for the kids and a few for the heavens.

Lots of street performers.  Roy Orbison and several Elvis’.  Are multiple Elvis’ “elvi” or “a gaggle of Elviss”??  Not sure but they all rose from the dead to entertain the masses.

Herds or packs of dancers.

Beautiful “retro” neon signs that have been maintained by the city. (the little girl on the swing’s sign used to say “Helen’s” but Helen sold her business but the city wanted to keep the sign, they changed it to Heights, and the little girl swings back and forth.)

A beautiful, rained on rose that I couldn’t resist.

There were TONS of dogs.  So cute.  And not to be “Judgey McJudge” but I’m not convinced dogs need blue Wellington boots.  There, I said it….

There was a train that went back and forth on the route.

….a “classic car show” that went for BLOCKS (I’m not a “car person” but I have to admit, these were VERY cool…..)

….toys for kids (and big kids)…

….birds in the form of a child’s “angry birds” hoodie and a big chicken that Dennis and I posed with….

….mosaics on the ground and on the garbage cans….

….fire engines to sit in….

….and as you can see, we acquired a “Safety Bear” hat from the firemen…..I rock my hat!  NOT!

There was a TON of different street foods.  We went to the Italian section, Dennis had a big grilled chorizo, and I had grilled sardines.  (I’d never tried them before)  We got the “combo” which included buns (I didn’t eat my bun), lemonade and 2 big ol’ cookies (each).  All for $6.00.  Cheap eats at their finest.

The sardines were REALLY tasty, albeit bony, and HOURS and several hand washes later, I STILL smell them on my fingers.  Note to self: If you ever grill fresh sardines yourself, do it outside, not inside on a grill pan ’cause they’ll STINK!!  :)

What a fun and affordable way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  So glad the skies cleared, and we’ll be back likely be back in the years to come.

When we eventually got home, we had a bit of white wine and “picky dinner” to use up all kinds of things we had in the fridge and cupboards.  (a baguette from the freezer, sausage from the food show, a bit of cheese, some bruchetta, some onion relish, dolmades and devilled eggs)

We also had a cookie from our lunch combo.

It was a wonderful Saturday.  And we have MORE fun planned for tomorrow.  What are we doing?  Well, it WILL be my boyfriend Anderson Cooper’s birthday (that was in the horoscopes in the newspaper today….I’m not THAT stalky. ) but it’s someone else’s birthday!!!  Who’s???  Come back tomorrow to find out!!

We got up VERY early this morning and ventured down to the passport office. Our passports recently expired, which means quick cross border trips to visit our friend “Joe, the Trader” are out of the question.  The passport office is located in a beautiful Heritage building downtown.  It has GORGEOUS art deco features….

Not hard to notice there are several federal government offices here…..

….or the dancing statues.  The woman shows her knickers to the tables in the food court.  That’s not very Canadian!  We’re reserved and polite.  KIDDING!!!! We Canadians will show our knickers any time.  :)

We’re also happy to stand behind animated chefs.  :)

We surprisingly didn’t have to wait TOO long to have the passports processed.  AND….very exciting, the woman who helped us is actually a 5 time Jeopardy champion!!!  Seriously!  She was on way back in 1988, and won $52,000.  At the time, that must have seemed like a FORTUNE!!!!  (that’s alot of money to me now!)  How fun!!  Apparently, she’s STILL the only Canadian woman who has won 5 times.  AND…I bet she’d show her knickers in the food court too!

After our appointment, we grabbed a quick breakfast because we both had some errands to run on our own.  We went to yet another Canadian institution – Tim Horton’s.

I had an english muffin with egg white and ham, and a coffee.

Early in the afternoon, we grabbed a quick snack of chip n’s and some greek yogurt dip.  We didn’t want to eat much, because we knew we’d be “grazing” all afternoon.

Why were we grazing?  We went to the opening afternoon of the annual “Eat Vancouver” food and cooking festival.  (We haven’t been for a couple of years, but thought we’d give it a go again this year as it is back in a large venue after a couple of years in a ridiculously small and crowded alternative.)

When we got in, we made a b-line to the show stage, because there was a “throwdown” between three food network chefs, David Rocco (who, IMHO is hot, though noticeably balder than I remember him), Rob Feenie and Bob Blumer.  It was filmed for a local tv show, as well as Entertainment Tonight Canada. (ok, I was a bit “star struck” because I LOVE David Rocco’s Italian show, and I LOVE Bob Blumer’s “Glutton for Punishment” and own cookbooks by them both.  Dennis is also mildly smitten with Erin Cebula of Entertainment Tonight Canada, who was hosting the event)  The secret ingredient was kale (my favorite) and the winner was David Rocco.

Dennis made new friends, Steven and his wife Aleksandra, while we were sitting watching the event.  Seriously, emails were exchanged, and I think we’ll be seeing this couple again at some point soon.

Dennis also made a new friend in Erin Cebula of Entertainment Tonight Canada. (she walked right by us, we couldn’t resist, and she was very nice!)

Don’t mind the elbow in this shot.

We then moved into the “grazing area”.  OMG…we sampled, and we sampled, and we sampled.  And we have a BIG bag of freebies (samples (lots of mini bottles of hot sauce in particular), coupons, recipes and brochures) to go through now.  Going the first afternoon on a work day was great, the crowds weren’t big, there was room to walk around, there were no lines…we had a great time.  Lunch was, as they say at weight watchers “blt’s” – bites, licks and tastes.  (and it’ll be REALLY good to get back to the discipline and accountability of weight watchers next week!)

So many new things to see and try, it was fun.  We didn’t buy very much at all, just some sausage for Dennis and some non alcoholic wine for me.  So it was an inexpensive afternoon of fun!

Later on, we met up with our good friend Carlo, who is in town from Victoria for a couple of days.  Both Dennis and Carlo were born and raised in Montreal, so the desire for Montreal Smoked Meat is in their DNA.  :)  This photo is two VERY happy transplanted Montrealers standing outside of Dunn’s.  (who fly their smoked meat in from Montreal a few times a week)

We each had a famous “Dunn’s pale ale”

And of course, a smoked meat platter.

So that was my busy “vacation” Friday.  My poor foot is letting me know that I did quite a bit of walking in normal shoes today, so I’ll wrap this up and get some ice on the painful part.  We have a busy couple of days ahead too, so it’ll be nice to rest up, go through all my food show takeaways, and take it easy.  Happy weekend to all of you!!!!

Today was a big day.  I saw the surgeon this morning for my one month post-op check.  The recovery is going as is should, and I’ve been given the blessing to start wearing normal, flat sandals (I’m a couple of months away from pumps!) for part of the days.  (Can’t QUITE ditch the protective shoe, but I’ll be wearing it much less. YAY!!!!!!!)  Here is my official “one month” start of the foot recovery collage, which has day 1 and day 31….

Matching shoes….what a concept!  And they’re walking on clover!!

I was so excited that my shoes matched, I forgot to take a picture of the muffin I picked up after my appointment and before work.  Ooops.  Google images helped me!

Lunch was a turkey sandwich that I made this morning and some soup that I didn’t make at all.

On my way home, I saw some funky fungi (did I actually write that?? Apparently I did) that have emerged with the help of the rain this week.

And THE loveliest iris, that our neighbor Fran is responsible for.

Dennis and I had a small glass of wine when I got home.

And shortly after, we set out to find out WHERE Health starts!  Tonight, we went to the Whole Foods Supper Club, which is a monthly event put on by the folks who promote Whole Foods “Health Starts Here” promotion.   For $15 each, we had a three course meal (all made with healthy ingredients), the chef did a talk of HOW he made it and why he chose the ingredients he did, and we got a handout with all the recipes of the night’s menu.  Tonight’s theme was “Respecting Mother Nature”.

We also met some really FUN people.

I wasn’t the only one taking photos of it all too.  Fun!

We were given endless sparkling pink lemonade and sparkling water.

The menu tonight was kale chips to start…

…a garbanzo bean burger with baked fries and black bean salad with avocado lime dressing…..

…and cherry coconut “ice cream” with blueberries.

There was much bonding and even more photos after dinner.

We also made a fun new “friend” when we were on our way home.

We drove behind someone channeling Bruce Lee all the way home.  :)

We would absolutely go to the supper club again.  It was a delicious, point friendly dinner (that I can replicate thanks to the recipes) and we met some really nice people.  The way I see it, that was $15 well spent!!!

After a month of only corresponding by email, today Michelle and I resurrected our “before work” Wednesday coffee meetings.  As you can see, her famous fingers were feeling happy.

And as a result, this Wednesday….

…..and life is slowly and steadily returning to normal.  YAY!!!

I was buzzing around this morning, and didn’t have time for breakfast, so had an egg white/spinach wrap at Starbucks.

I had taken a ham “fold- it” for lunch, but felt like a bit of soup to go alongside, so whipped over to Whole Paycheque Foods and bought a small cauliflower puree.

I have a theory about Whole Paycheque Foods and some excess cauliflower over the last few days.  Today, there were a number of soups available “pureed cauliflower”, “cauliflower with lentil” and a vegetable soup that looked pretty darn full of cauliflower.  Oh well, more power to their chefs for using it up and not tossing it I guess.   Just an observation….

When we got home from today, Dennis and I had a small glass of white wine and a little piece of grana padano cheese alongside.

And dinner tonight?  Comfort food at its VERY finest.  We had two turkey sausages with a few perogies topped with fat-free sour cream.

Quick post tonight, and I’ll have some fun things to share over the next few days, but now, I’ll leave you a little snippet of “Wednesday Wisdom”…. which did in fact, make me smile!  Hope it did the same for you!

….”Is it treat time? ” starring Neva! (Sorry, couldn’t resist!  But I cracked up when I snapped this photo this morning.)

Here is quick recap of my Tuesday food and exercise.  Exercise???  Yup, I walked home again – second day in a row.  Tomorrow…drum roll, my plan is to walk both to and from work!!!

Today’s mascot is new, I found this “Stafford” figurine in a thrift store on the weekend.

It looked old and with the stamp on the underside, I made the $1 investment, bought it, then looked for something similar on ebay (just for fun). If I sold this, I’d make a sizable profit, I found one similar selling for $9.99.  Not even enough for one facebook share, but ooooh!  :)

The dog posed by my breakfast bagel with the LAST (eek) of the strawberry jam I made last summer.  Thankfully, berry season isn’t TOO far off and our supply will be replenished.

Mid morning, I had a mini corn muffin with a whole press of coffee!  boing!

I met my friend Sharon for lunch today.  We went to our favorite little affordable hole in the wall sushi restaurant “Sushi Bang”. (and yes, I have serenaded Sharon with my own special rendition of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” many times as a result).  Today, I had a tuna roll topped with fresh mango, and a california roll with the avocado sliced and rolled on the outside.  I had both rolls with brown rice.

I love the long skinny plates they serve rolls on.

I also liked the placemat under my long plate today.

When I got home, our friend Clint had stopped by for a visit with Dennis.  The three of us killed a bottle of white wine.  Cheers!

And dinner?  Caesar salad made with fat-free dressing and some sliced grilled pork chops topped with barbecue sauce.

Voila, Tuesday is done.  Off to bed as I have an early start tomorrow.  Have a good Hump Day!

My next goal is to get rid this fashionable (not!) sock/protective shoe and start wearing matching shoes again.  I’m hopeful I get the ok to do that later this week when I have my next checkup with the surgeon.  The worst is FAR behind now, soon, there will be no stopping me!

What better time to walk home than between bad rain storms.  Timing is everything, not a drop fell on me while I was out and about.

While I walked home, I took a mini break looking for a four-leaf clover in this patch.  No luck unfortunately, but the fact I’m a lucky woman despite the lack of four leaves is not lost on me.

I also found this oddly ecstatic pine shaped air freshener.  Looks a bit crazy, no?

That was the big excitement for this “status quo” Monday.

Without a doubt, my life has been pretty disrupted over the last month.  And before that, I had a break from weight watchers too.  Now, I feel ready to get back to SERIOUS menu/point planning…..and next Tuesday, I’ll be back to our weekly meetings.  For the next week, my meals will be pretty standard, sometimes healthy, sometimes less so, but I’m excited that I’ll soon be, once again, sharing new point friendly recipes with all of you.

For today though, breakfast was a couple of leftover whole wheat pancakes from yesterday.

Later in the morning, I had a mini corn muffin.

Lunch was a fold-it with ham, a slice of light swiss, mustard and lettuce that was grown on my deck.  I also had a couple of mini cucumbers, some snap peas and a few cherries.

When I got home, Dennis and I each had a new Mexican beer called “Mariachi”.  Alongside, we had pretzel nuggets filled with peanut butter.

And because neither of us felt like cooking tonight, we treated ourselves to pizza.  My pieces were my standard grilled veggie.

As I close, I wish all of you in the U.S a happy Memorial Day.  I’m off to catch up on a bit of reading and get some R&R.  More tomorrow….

Dennis and I decided to have a cooked Sunday Breakfast as we haven’t had that for a few weeks.  I made whole wheat pancakes with turkey sausages and blueberries while Dennis made coffee.  We’re finally figuring out how to be in our postage stamp sized kitchen together without bumping into each other continually!

As I mentioned on an earlier post, there is an “art in the city” exhibit with Terra Cotta Warriors this year, and we are planning on taking each other’s photos by all 32 of the warriors in the area.  (there is a 33rd, but we’d have to take a long plane ride up to the Yukon, as it is in Whitehorse.)  Today, we found 7, illegally parking, u-turning, and relying on the kindness of strangers in the process….here are the photos of me (Dennis’ will be on his facebook page tomorrow!).

One of the stops was at an Asian mall.  While we were there we picked up some juice and slushies and a couple of bbq pork buns to hold us over.

We found two signs to the entrance.  Oops on one of them!!!!

It was such a fun cultural experience – we feel very lucky that we can “visit another country” without leaving Vancouver.

BEST PICTURE OF MY HUSBAND, EVER!!!!!!!!

One of the warriors took us to Steveston, a fishing village south of the city.  We LOVE going there, these photos show why.  It is vibrant, interesting, fun – and we can buy fresh, affordable seafood right from the fishermen.  Do you see Dennis and I in the first photo??

See the sea lion?

Seafood doesn’t get any fresher….

The buzz today was around the boat selling B.C spot prawns, which are huge, delicious and only available for about a month each spring.  We buy them once a year for a treat, and today was that day.

This lady bought some, and literally ripped them apart and ate it raw.  They’re that fresh, and that sweet.

I didn’t realize that small dogs and fishing boats went hand in hand, but we found three.

When we got home, we decided to resurrect “Cocktail Sunday”.  I had some frozen mango in the freezer, some mango juice in the cupboard and about a tbsp vodka left in a bottle, so whirled it all up in the blender, put a couple of drops of bitters on top, and voila….a drink we called the “spot prawn”.

We also had a few of the pretzel bites with peanut butter inside.

AND FINALLY, we get to the “food bucket list” bit…..I had always wanted to try sea urchin.  They were on sale today at the Steveston dock, so we decided to buy one (for a whopping $3) and give it a go.  Yes, it was alive, yes, it was wiggling, and yes, we had to take its life.  That part was tough, but we did it….and voila, urchin roe.  Check!  Fresh urchin is now crossed off my food bucket list.  Fun!!!  Just a warning, three photos below are probably not for the faint of heart.

The verdict?  Salty, sea-like, a bit slimy and so glad we tried it.

THEN, we had to peel the spot prawns.  They were alive when we bought them, but they were either deceased or docile when we had to peel them.  That part isn’t fun either, but I must say, the flavour is worth it.

Once they were peeled, we quickly sautéed them in lemon juice, a bit of butter and LOTS of garlic.  Yowza…they were the SWEETEST most delicious prawns we’ve EVER had.

We served them on top of a salad with spinach, cucumber, peppers, blueberries, scallions, light feta and greek yogurt dressing.

We also had a glass of rose wine.  I admit, I bought this for nothing other than the label.  

I’ll stop typing now….as you can see, it’s been a lovely and full day.  Now, I have to get ready for the work week ahead.   Do any of you have a “food bucket list” too???  If so, what is on YOUR list!!!!  I’d love to hear….

Before we went out and about, I had some mango with greek yogurt, flax seed and dried mango for crunch.

And I had my first almond milk latte in weeks.  (it was much fluffier when I made it, but I got distracted before I could take the photo, so it looks a bit deflated)

We then set out to meet our good friends Lindi, Jeff and their boys at the park by the farmers market. On the way, we passed a couple of garage sales.  A new mascot was purchased, you’ll see it in the next few days.

This sign was cute.  ”Smell the Flowers” and there were no flowers in sight.  There were flowers on the sign itself, but I can tell you from first hand experience, they weren’t very fragrant.

And we saw a City of Vancouver parking authority giving a tree a ticket.  Funny…  Not so funny if you were the owner of one of the several CARS he’d ticketed right before this.

I liked this flower.

On the way to the market, we walked by a dog park.  The dogs were having SO much fun.  We hope to have a dog one day….don’t tell Neva.  (kidding)

Dogs and ducks played in harmony.

And the ducks were feasting.  Bums up!!

We had a little walk through the market.  It was BUSY!!!!

We “doctored” up this sign for fun….Dennis put his hand over the word “dog” and pointed to himself – “Keep your husband on a short leash”.

We then met up with the gang.  There was some serious ball throwing and baseball playing.  OK…not very serious at ALL!

Uncle Dennis was a hit, he attempted to fix a broken scooter wheel….

…and gave EXCELLENT swing rides.

So much fun to hang out with our friends.  I’m sure there will be many more swing rides and ball games over the summer!!  :)

Dennis and I then buzzed around running a couple of errands.  When we got home, we were a bit hungry, so had some light swiss on rye crackers.

And we split a beer.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on our deck with a view like the photos below.

And I had a few handfuls of these, which were bought on a whim in the grocery store today.  They are officially “not gross”.  (actually, they’re dangerously good)

After much lazing around, reading, relaxing and trying to conquer “word mole” we made dinner, which was a piece of grilled beef, a cob of corn and a salad made with spinach, blueberries, light feta and sunflower seeds with light ranch dressing mixed with bbq sauce.

And we had a glass of white wine.  This was my art shot taken while I was cooking (which was meant to highlight our dragonfly solar deck lights).

There is my recap of Saturday.  Lots of sun, lots of fun and lots of R&R.

After I hallucinated while looking skyward, I had a bagel thin with light butter, strawberry jam and a coffee.

During the morning, I had the same snack I had yesterday, a cup of raspberries.  Same snack, different mascot.

Today’s lunchtime saw the return of my beloved kale salad.  I hadn’t had kale salad for a couple of weeks, and it tasted really yummy!!!  (any kale support groups out there?  I think I need to join – I’m addicted).  I massaged the kale with a bit of olive oil and apple cider vinegar, and topped it with nutritional yeast, a bit of light feta, grapes and a few sunflower seeds.

Later on, I had a mini corn muffin and tea.

When we got home, Dennis and I split a new beer.  This one was Whistler Brewing’s Chai-Maple Ale.  Sounds weird, but it was very tasty for a dark beer.  More “maple” than “chai”, and not sweet.  It was tasty, but for some reason, it made me crave pancakes!

Dennis made dinner tonight, chicken sliders with yam oven “fries”.

We also had a glass of alcohol free Rose “wine” that we found last week.  It’s good actually, better than the fake white wine made by the same company.

And I finished off with a mini Maxim dark chocolate bar.

I’m now going to follow Neva’s lead.  Not that I plan on sleeping in a box, but I’m going to put my feet up, relax and have a quiet Friday night.

I hope everyone has a good weekend, and to my U.S. readers, have an excellent LONG weekend!!!!!  Bring it on!