Posts Tagged ‘sports’

One Great Summer

// September 1st, 2008 // 4 Comments » // life


Photo: Canadian Beach Volleyball Nationals at Ashbridges yesterday.

It’s September 1st and to me that marks the end of long days with warm weather and the start of fall. Allen insists that summers are longer down here in T.O. than what I’m used to up north and that there’s still a full month of warm days. But who knows if that will be true with the weather we’ve had this year, plus I can’t shake the association of September with long pants & sweaters. Anyway, today’s date has me thinking back over the summer and I have to say it’s been one of the best yet. Some highlights:

  • Getting married to my sweetie of 13 1/2 years.
  • The wedding also meant a lot of visits from family including my parents who were here just over 1/2 month(!) family from Dryden and lots of fun activities and vacation at that time.
  • Celebrating my dad’s 80th birthday. Okay, technically this was spring, but… 80th birthday!
  • Going up to Dryden again in early August and seeing my family that lives there plus family visiting from England.
  • Going kiteboarding every chance we got. Allen learned to kiteboard this summer so now we enjoy it together.
  • Spending lots of weekends outside of the city, exploring various places to kiteboard & relax in Southern Ontario.
  • Beach volleyball! Okay so maybe we lost most of our games this summer, but I love our beach volleyball crew. I miss the twin towers & Heung though.
  • So much visiting/dining/partying with fun-loving friends.

This last long weekend of the summer was good too. There was no wind for kiteboarding, but we still had a great time watching the air show, having family visit, getting Cary Jr. back in S. Ontario, seeing the best beach volleyball I’ve ever seen played in person, and attending one awesome house party.

I’m crossing my fingers that Allen is right on this whole September warm weather thing, but if not — we took every advantage and enjoyed one great summer.

Kiteboarding & Cycling

// August 17th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // sports

I’ve spent another great weekend outdoors doing fun things like kiteboarding yesterday at Oliphant and cycling down Leslie Spit today. Above is a photo of Allen who now gets up on his board kiting! Although, he was underpowered on my 9 metre and says that next time when the winds are the same, he’ll go on his 15. Actually I was underpowered on the 9 yesterday too. We need to buy a 12 metre soon and use the 9 on windier days.

I was kiting as well, although since Allen’s board was out on the water, it was the one I used. His board is awesome, but WAY too large for me. I found the stance really wide and that made kiting right (my weaker direction) difficult. I got going on my left fine though. Next time, I’ll be sure to drag my board out too.

Our friend Natalie also made the trip up to Oliphant with us. She took some photos, flew the trainer kite on land and generally had a good time.

Today I wanted to bike back out to Leslie Spit as I really enjoyed the ride out there last weekend. This time I rode out to the lighthouse and got some photos looking back at the Toronto skyline. I took this photo from there (but on my iPhone, so the quality isn’t as good.) Still, check out this view:

Dryden Vacation

// August 14th, 2008 // 6 Comments » // life

I’m back from a short 5-day trip up to my hometown to visit my family who live there as well as family from England who were there visiting. Once again, I had a full and amazing visit.

I swam every morning in the lake, windsurfed, sailed in my brother’s boat, attended a family BBQ and even got out site seeing in my cousin’s airplane. Northern Ontario is such an amazing place to be in the summertime and I’m a bit sad to be back in the city, but I missed Allen badly, so I’m happy to be back with him.

I’ve posted photos from my vacation on Flickr and a video of the Beechcraft plane (which I got to fly!) up on YouTube.