Today was the hottest day of the year, as of today. It is supposed to be over 40°C on Monday, and it's only the beginning of summer. Although there is an end in sight, because the forecast shows the temperatures leveling off, I'm getting anxiety attacks from worrying about going through this type of heat dome again and again in the future. Climate change is real and it's here to stay. 

If I was not a mother and did not have a child, I would probably have ignored the heat, because I would've just hung out inside playing video games and eating ice cream all day.

However, baby S is a sweaty monster and even though babies are resilient, babies are still very sensitive to the heat.  

Her room actually faces south, and is upstairs in what I believe used to be an attic space that was renovated into a room. When I walked up there with her after dinner tonight to start her bedtime routine it must have been the same temperature and humidity as the rooms in Bikram. I could feel the exact spot where the temperature changes, while ascending from the main floor - the point where the main floor ceiling starts is where I felt like I was walking into an oven. The floors were burning, water droplets would have sizzled on the metal door knobs, the bedsheets were radiating heat because they had soaked up the hot air throughout the day. H and I couldn't let her sleep in that because it would basically cook her. 

I'm sure other parents in Vancouver are going through the same thought process. The easy out would be to go pick up an air conditioning unit for her room, but I feel like that is just avoiding the actual problem. I want to be able to enjoy the outdoors with my curious child, go on walks and explore the world with her, instead of worrying about heat stroke. What's the point of getting air conditioning for inside my house, when I want it for the streets outside? 

Not to mention, air conditioning is a significant contributor to global warming, and every time I hear both of my neighbor's AC units running, I judge them. They're otherwise very nice people and I quite enjoy living next to them. 

Am I going to boycott air conditioning altogether? No, because sometimes, it might be necessary and I'm not an extremist. I am going to strongly argue against getting an AC unit installed for our house. 

Should we have more children? Probably not, because babies are also a significant contributor to climate change, and it frightens me to think of what type of world will be left behind for my baby girl. 

Should I change my shopping habits because of climate change? Probably, but I really want to get a rug and a few more pieces of furniture for baby S's room, as well as the rest of the house, mostly because we are frequently at home now, after the pandemic started and now the heat wave. 

That's it for tonight. I hope my bed sheets have cooled sufficiently for me to lie down in bed now. If not, I'll be sleeping on the floor tonight. 

I'm currently going through a phase where my body does not want to literally roll out of bed in the mornings, and I am numbing my brain with endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy where they're either performing a laparotomy or removing a hernia and/or a brain tumor. Then, a pregnant woman comes along, and there's a complication with the fetus, usually with her water breaking during a critical moment during an environmental crisis, so that the trauma center is also overloaded with patients... I have also acquired a new habit of staying in bed or lying on the sofa until the middle of the day, either playing Animal Crossing or scrolling through what appears to be endless Instagram posts of the gourmet meals people have been whipping up while restaurants are shut down, the screenshots of Zoom parties, and socially distant lounge at home inspired OOTD's. 

That's when I came across Elephant Garden Creamery's post about their new R&B Remix flavor, a red bean and black sesame combo, two of my favourite dessert ingredients. This flavor was actually released in March, but I guess I've been so in my own world of baby preparations and Netflix that I haven't been paying much attention to anything else. 

Since the COVID-19 restrictions have slightly loosened up, H and I felt like we could do a quick stop by Commercial Drive to visit Elephant Garden Creamery.  While the pints of the R&B Remix flavor weren't available, we did get a pint of their vegan mango coconut sticky rice ice cream, which is another one of my all time favourites from their shop. Who would've thought that I could enjoy vegan ice cream? 

This is a scoop of the R&B Remix, which was smooth, creamy, and full of large red bean pieces. By using the larger whole red beans, I could actually taste a more authentic red bean flavor and have that extra texture to chew on. 

For one pint and one scoop of ice cream, the total came to $16. A bit out of our budget now, but sometimes, you just have to treat yourself to get out of a funky mood. Also, it feels like we're doing our part in supporting a local small business. Does our $16 contribution actually help? 

Elephant Garden often has other delicious Asian inspired flavors, like Hong Kong milk tea, and Vietnamese coffee. There are other great ice cream shops to explore around Vancouver for a different variety of flavor profiles, and I'm excited to try out a few new ones once my child arrives this summer.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to gather the motivation to figure out this thing: 

I'm sure I can learn it out on the job, without reading the manual... These things are meant for groggy parents who haven't slept through the night, right? No point in spending time trying it out now, who knows if I'll even have milk right? This is pretty typical of me though. I hate being over prepared.

Back to Netflix.

My lovely friends from high school took me to Kelowna and Big White for my bachelorette party and bridal shower (the wedding day is creeping up not too slowly). We walked past Parlour Ice Cream in downtown Kelowna, saw the huge ice cream cones that people were coming out with, and we knew we had to go in to try some. 

Everything is made in house, with ingredients sourced as locally as possible. While the waffle cones were not my favourite because they're meant to be soft, and I prefer the crispy texture, the ice cream itself ranks high on my list. They clearly put a lot of thought into each of the flavors, and I quite enjoyed their Birthday Cake: 

It tasted like real vanilla cake. I tried the Lavender, Cookies & Cream, and Salted Caramel as well, and those were pretty tasty too.



This was a memorable weekend of non-stop activities that my lovely bridesmaids planned, including a surprise party with some of my oldest friends, who traveled and drove for hours to be there. It's so important to have people in your life who travel at the same pace, literally and figuratively. We've all grown up together, bought property around the same time, and we all sort of walk at around the same speed. This group has really influenced the way that I am now, and some of them continue to amaze me with what they're able to accomplish. Including how late they can stay up, playing Super Smash Bros, every single time they get together.

The day started off with toxic glowing skies – smoke is back and so are my allergies. I haven’t slept properly in 3 days, but I knew that the best way to fix that lack of sleep was to do something fun. What is more fun than eating with a couple friends?

We went for sushi and then came to the Welcome Parlour:

There were a few creative ice cream flavours (peanut butter and jelly, baileys pecan, blueberry and raspberry TOGETHER). I had the apple pie (see photo above), which was a tad too sweet. However, there’s something about the bright cheery store front, with the 130 year old cash register at the counter that actually worked. Shiny and clean, great place to hang out with ice cream made fresh everyday. The store owner serves the ice cream, with his son helping in the shop, and he’s a whole other reason to visit again. I’ll come back to try some other flavours when I’m in the area.

I think my Instagram is broken, the world is drowning or burning, and I am choking on the wildfire smoke. On a brighter note, I’m going to Vancouver Island at the end of the month to find Nymph Falls.

PS, another bright note, Claire Marshall is doing a Vlogtember series!

H is back! I missed the weekend post, because we were busy catching up, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t do things. H and I visited Hugo’s Churros on Sunday:

I was disappointed by how small the churros looked, and how dinky the scoops of ice cream were. Can you even see it in the photo? What did I pay almost $8 for?! There was no way I could’ve made this look pretty, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. The ic ecream churro combo was also too sweet (I had vanilla and pistachio ice cream in the cup). Let’s not come back.

Back to hanging out with my teddy bear boyfriend (girlfriend?), who doesn’t love hiking as much as I’d like him to. Luckily, we snuck in this hike to Eagle Bluffs:

It was an easy hike, except for the first 45 minutes or so when I almost fainted going uphill. This is one I’d like to come back with my drone and the floaty that I’ll be ordering after I pay off the drone.

Went to SFU. Repotted P’s snake plant. Had dinner with her at SFU, but before I blog about the poké we had for dinner, let’s talk about dessert - ice cream at Earnest Ice Cream along Fraser St:

Best ice cream, it’s always just the right amount of sweet and actually tastes like the flavour that it’s advertised to be. I had the sweet cream (on bottom), and P had the salted chocolate (top), and we split it by putting the top of the double scoop into a cup. There was a tiny little black hair actually in the ice cream. I couldn't tell where it's from, and it was mixed into the ice cream, so it couldn't have been a piece of dust that fell onto it.



The hair was so tiny and it wasn't curly or anything so I ate it anyways... Is that gross?

Great news today. Next year should come sooner.

As a finale to the long weekend, M, D, and I went to Brandywine Falls:

We got to the viewing platform. We saw the lake at the 2nd viewpoint. We tried to get to the bottom of the waterfall, because our thirst for adventure was not satisfied by the 15 minute walk to the platforms. We didn’t make it because we got lost while wandering through the bush and were devoured by the mosquitos. The bites are really swelling up now…

Let’s not let the fun end there! It was only barely 3PM, so we drove up north to Cows at Whistler:

It’s bumpin’ on a hot weekend afternoon, and we spent more than a minute trying their punny flavours. I ended up getting a blueberry milkshake, because milkshakes all I crave after hiking. I don’t remember what the other two got, but they’re in the video in this post and you can try to guess. The ice cream was absolutely necessary to bring our moods back up from the fail hike, and went well with the music played by the street performers there. Although the milkshake melted too quickly, the ice cream overall is quite tasty.

We also made a pit stop at Shannon Falls. Very busy tourist stop.

I think what I learned from this day was that I need a drone. If I had a drone, I could’ve flown it down to the base of the waterfall, rather than physically climbing down for that base shot. Needless to say, I am now obsessed with going back and finding the proper way down.

Took a day off to pick up H. Spent the morning running errands and doing work at home, but P reminded me that it's my day off, and I should go have fun. So, I went out to try coffee at Earnest Ice Cream:

$6.75. Ice cream and coffee should be a match made in heaven, but I did not enjoy it very much. Maybe I should’ve gone for the regular vanilla flavoured ice cream in the affogato, instead of whiskey hazelnut. It was too bitter.



He’s home! Life will go back to normal now, whatever that means!

Beautiful day for a drive and a hike, and H & I wanted to take the new Veloster up on the highway, so we decided to hit up Joffre Lake yesterday. I came here last year with L & A: http://luwesa.blogspot.ca/2014/06/joffre-lakes.html 

The lower lake was amazing (the Veloster was amazing too. I really missed it.):

Traffic heading up the Upper Levels highway was horrid, we were side tracked by the Squamish farmer’s market, and there was construction along the Duffy Lake Road, so by the time we arrived at the lake, it was already about 3:30PM. Not enough time to go up and come down before dark. We ate our snacks by the parking lot and left. Harrison brought Astronaut ice cream by Mountain House that came with his Cairn box a while back:

Tasted like real ice cream, but the texture was stickier and well… dry, ‘cause that’s essentially what it was.