July Book Update

I'm happy to say that July had much more reading than June! This month, I finished:

Bel Canto - Ann Patchett. This was June's book club book. I didn't read what it was about, and was surprised (or shocked, even) to find out that at the end of the book, the main scenario that started right away was the premise of the whole book. It was really good, don't get me wrong, but you definitely learn something when you read the back..

The Peach Keeper - Sarah Addison Allen. A quick story about the popular and unpopular girls who become friends through a story from their grandmas..

Fifty Shades of Grey - E.L. James. The highly read (by females) book.. what to say. I didn't really enjoy this book. I wasn't excited by it, or thrilled by it. I read it because I wanted to finish it. I am not going to bother reading the next two, even though R's mom says that they're better.

Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen. Probably one of my favourite books this year! This was another circus story, one where a suddenly orphaned man hops on a train and then finds out that it's a circus train. Very well written, amazing to read.. :)

Eating Dirt - Charlotte Gill. Written by an ex-tree planter, this was basically a huge essay about tree planting, life of tree planters, and forests. Some parts were interesting, some weren't. It was a very slow book to get through, and I don't think I'd really recommend it.

The Broken Teaglass - Emily Arsenault. This was lent to me by a coworker. It was a very strange tale of two coworkers at a dictionary company that discovered a story within the citations that they used to define words.

The Art of Mending - Elizabeth Berg. Book club book for August. This was a quick read about family values and what we really know about our families. Kind of an intense read, but it was really short, so it was pretty easy to read without getting too caught up in the tragic story.

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins. This is book two of the Hunger Games series.. and it was good. Completely unexpected and better than I thought. I'm way far down the waiting list to get the third, Mockingjay, though. 

That's all for now, but I've got plenty on the go :)

Hike: Minnekhada Regional Park

We were furniture shopping not too long ago out in Poco and we decided that we should go for a walk. D was dog-sitting a few dogs that weekend, so we decided to find a hike that he could bring them on. M ended up joining us as well and we headed out to Minnekhada Regional Park.

 The boys, and two VERY enthusiastic dogs.

 Some seriously giant trees.

 So green and pretty.. :)

 Moss. Love.

 Gorgeous wetland.

 R and one tired puppy.

Tired puppy number 2..

I think we 'hiked' for about 2 hours, but we probably could have done it in less. The walk itself was fairly easy, with little elevation gain. Trying to get the dogs to walk like normal dogs was almost impossible, and I think that was the reason that we were all kind of tired at the end.

Hike: Diamond Head

Ok, so the title isn't entirely correct. We did go for a hike starting from the Diamond Head trailhead, but we only hiked about an hour up, because we hit snow. We were also not planning on going for very long, considering that we left at noon from Squamish and weren't really in hiking gear.

Nevertheless!

We did go for a hike, I did take pictures..

 Nothing like starting off with lupines to make this girl happy..

 And then a pretty creek through a gorgeous forest..

 And then misty foggy stuff with trees poking through!

 Then we came to the snow.

 And decided that this beautiful waterfall was a good turning point..

I think someday we'll have to hike the rest of it. This part (and I don't know about the rest) was nice.. an old logging road makes for nice hiking!

Hike: Wonderland

We spent this past weekend up in Squamish, and we stayed at a B&B. The host told us about a few small hikes/walks that we hadn't heard about, so we decided to go.

This one is called Wonderland; it's across the highway from White Rabbit, and closer to the highway than Alice Lake. Sense a theme..??

The trailhead of Wonderland starts right behind a 50km/hr speed sign just after you turn off towards Alice Lake provincial park. There's a little parking lot on the side of the road. There is a sign just in the forest, telling you the name.

We walked for about an hour each direction, because it didn't seem like there was an end anywhere, and it was getting close to food time. The forest was gorgeous, although this was far from a relaxing hike. The trail was probably less than 100m from highway 99 the entire time, and being that it was a wet Saturday, it was quite noisy.

 Beautiful old trees, moss, lichens.. !

 This is a biking trail.. lots of ramps that are clearly meant for tires and not feet.

 Beautiful, meandering creeks with waterfalls. They didn't really add anything peaceful though.

It poured basically all day, so by the time we started this hike around 4pm, there was some big puddles.

I think I'd say that if you needed a quick break on your way somewhere, this is a perfect hike for that. Barely any hills or inclines, but it's still nice. Not overly taxing, but beautiful.

June Book Update

This is quite pathetic... !

Voyageur - Diana Gabaldon. This is the third book in the Outlander series. I enjoyed it still, although I'm not sure I will continue to read the rest of the series. Still good writing, and it's interesting to learn about the history of Scotland during that time.

Web of Angels - Lilian Nattel. R heard about this on CBC, so I put a hold on it. This was a crazy story about a girl who commited suicide and a neighbour's unveiling of a crazy background. The main character has a disorder called DID or multiple identity disorder. Really wacky story and not for someone who can't handle some twisted stuff..

Here's hoping that July will bring a bit more reading!