Friday, July 1, 2011

What does one do for a 144th birthday?

Yesterday my favorite place on Earth celebrated it's 144th birthday. We share a birthday month, Canada and I. I've always loved Canada Day. My friend Amy asked what we do here on July 1st. I thought I'd give you a little photo essay of some of the things we did yesterday.

Since moving to North Vancouver 11 years ago this month, we have always attended the community parade. Rain or shine. I'm pretty sure there has been more rain. Although yesterday was in fact dry, it was unseasonably cold (big surprise - have I mentioned we're having the worst spring/summer in 50 years?).

Flynn at the parade
Flynn loves the bagpipes as much as D does.

G rocks the maple leaf face
We get all silly with face paint (my friend's daughter did her maple leaf makeup all by herself. Pretty cool, eh?). It's a sea of red and white clothes, hats and flags, too. Vancouver is particularly well-clothed since having the Olympics last year!

Shriner revving up the parade
We watch old men in funny hats ride teeny motorcycles

Canada Day Donuts
We eat delicious donuts from the little shop around the corner, Harmony Donuts.

Canada Day Lawn Bowling Tourney
We ditch the hockey sticks & have lawn bowling tourneys!

There are usually a few beers consumed, some families go camping (we always stay home and avoid nightmare long-weekend traffic), or get together for BBQ's, and the day is all capped off with fireworks. When I was a teenager, I lived in Canada's capital city Ottawa. The fireworks displays behind our Parliament Buildings were IN.SANE. The entire city is jam packed. William and Kate were there last night!!

We enjoyed fireworks from the West Vancouver seawall - the show is set off from a barge anchored about 300 yards off shore and it's a wonderful place for families to enjoy the amazing display.

I hope you're having fun this weekend, too! If you haven't already, scroll down one post and enter my first-of-four birthday giveaway. Each week in July I'll be giving something away. Yippee!

13 comments:

Pétra said...

What a fun day!

dutchcomfort said...

Thanks for sharing Krista! It’s fun to see celebrations in different parts of the world!

Alisa said...

Wish we had a Canada Day Parade too. My hubby and older kids went to the fire works at Heritage Park but I stayed home with the little ones.

Dianne said...

This is a great post Krista! Yay Canada!!! That Flynn is so photogenic in his CD attire!

Amy Friend said...

I loved reading about that! And a post just to answer me makes me feel special indeed :)

КолибрИ said...

A wonderful day. I liked the photo and the atmosphere on the streets. Our Independence Day tomorrow, but today was a day of rain, and tomorrow the weather is not better.

Live a Colorful Life said...

Fun post! I have a good friend whose family lives in Edmonton, and we were both cleaning up the church gym after a week of vacation bible school. She had her Canadian t-shirt on, of course. Sounds like a fun day. Yum, those donuts look SOOO good!

PinkGranny said...

It looks like you all had a fund time! I share a birthday month with you, Canada and the United States.

Holly said...

Love the Shriners mini-bikes! They are a tradition at the Calgary Stampede Parade. I wonder if they are the same bikes and they just follow the Canadian parade route all summer? We are in Ottawa, but avoided Parliament Hill this year. We braved the crowds for the Queen last year, but they were predicting even bigger crowds this year...just couldn't do it - not even for Will and Kate.

Gaye said...

Thanks Krista, I missed the parade as I was working hard to finish Quilts for a wedding next Friday in Penticton. Someone else sent me fire works photos from Ottawa ( or Almonte,not sure) HAPPY CANADA DAY
Say Hi to Flynn.

Latane Barton said...

That sounds like a fun time!! Glad you shared it with us.

Krista said...

Fun stuff! Yay Canada! :)

sewtakeahike said...

Happy birthday Krista! Nice shots of your Canada day!