The Boys of Summer Are Back at the Nat

Comments 9 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Last summer I took in my first game *ever* at Nat Bailey Stadium. Being a born and raised local that might come as a surprise although our little ballpark, neatly tucked away just south of downtown near Queen Elizabeth Park is lesser-known that I realized.

It all starts with White Spot, really. Home of the Triple O burger and carhop combos, the first drive in restaurants in Canada were opened up by Nat Bailey in Vancouver, in 1928 [wiki]. He then became part owner of the Vancouver Mounties baseball club who were in the Pacific Coast League until 1970. In 1978 the Vancouver Canadians came alive as a Northwest League expansion [wiki] and today at 7:05pm we have their 22nd Opening Day.


Photo credit: uncleweed on Flickr

I was never into baseball as a kid, around here it’s all hockey. Actually, I never even went to a hockey game until my late teens either. I think my dad enjoyed taking us on the kinds of outings where we all could get lost in the woods for hours, and learn about local history, rather than dole out hundreds of bucks to take 3 kids to a local sporting event. Not that I’m complaining at all.

The fact that our boys play single A ball could be a factor when it comes to popularity, but when you have a sporting event outdoors, a sunny nooner or evening game, views of the city, hot dogs and beer, classification doesn’t really matter. The team is affiliated with the Oakland A’s and we even made a point of going to their game against Boise last summer, as the Hawks are a part of the Chicago Cubs food chain.

Tonight we’re heading out to the Nat for the Home Opener, complete with hat giveaways and fireworks following the game. Honestly, for the price you cannot beat these tickets. $8 will get you general admission and to have prime festival seats you can upgrade by paying a whopping… $12. You can buy tickets on the website and pick them up at the box office, and you have to check out their “theme nights” this summer including: Mullet Madness, Prom Night, Christmas in June, Canada Day at the Nat Fireworks, Vegas Night, Ladies Night, Mexico Night, Hawaii Day and many many more.

The Kidstreet Clap

Comments 9 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Sometimes I’ll make a totally old school remark that John just doesn’t get. This can usually be explained by the fact that he grew up in Iowa, and I was born and raised in Surrey and that some things are purely Canadian or even West Coast. For example, he has no idea who Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod are.

As I was just finishing up my previous post I took a gander at Facebook and noticed one of my contacts just left the group “I do the ‘over the head’ clapping motion every time I talk about Kidstreet“. Holy Crap! I thought I was like the only person that remembered that show [wiki]. Whenever I get a little too excited (yes, that does happen sometimes) I’ll go “Kidstreet Clap!” and reach my hands above my head to applaud. After this my husband usually rolls his eyes and looks at me all crazy-like even though I really don’t complain when he does the “High Five!…. Self High Five!” bit.

The defining glory of the Kidstreet Clap is basically that the children on the show were crammed into tiny little race cars with no room to place their arms at their sides – hence forcing the overhead clap.

I think I’m going to leave the Facebook group as quickly as I joined but actually seeing old photos and proving to John that the show did in fact exist, makes it all worthwhile.

Gallon Beers, Hair Foils and the Greeper

Comments 4 by Rebecca Bollwitt

TC Lions After camping last weekend I kinda thought that we would be taking it easy this week but that’s definitely not the case. On Friday afternoon I went out for a drink with work people – well more like the boss packed us all up early and lead us over to the Irish Heather for beer to celebrate someone’s last day with the company. The night being young once those events wrapped up, my co-worker and I met up with John for more beer, which eventually lead us over to TC Lions Pub in Coal Harbour. Out on the patio for oooh about 4 hours we managed (barely) to polish off one of their 4 litre jugs of beer. It was a warm, clear evening so aside from being filled with pale ale we all managed to stumble home okay.

Saturday morning John went to work for CFOX again and I had the house to myself (this is a rare occasion for us Bollwitts, really). I decided to go get my hair done at our favourite little place on Denman.

new hair About a year ago John was looking for somewhere to get a cheap haircut and stumbled upon Envy. Since then we’ve become loyal, regular customers and really enjoy the relationship that we have with the owner and head stylist, Minoo. Although I certainly don’t go as often as I should, she’s so talented and gives the best haircuts – for men and women, no matter what you put in front of her. My hair was just getting WAY too long and shapeless, so she gave me some advice, a fantastic colour job and the awesome haircut followed. I’m SO happy with it I said I was going to blog about the place – so here it is. It’s hard to find a stylist that not only has reasonable prices and knows what to do with your hair, but the atmosphere of the studio is warm and lacks the attitudes of anywhere else in the downtown core.

Quick info about Envy Hair Studio & Esthetics: Located at 730 Denman [Google Map], open 7 days a week from 10:00am to 7:00pm and Sunday from 12:00 to 5:00pm. Call ahead and make an appointment (604-602-9880). They do hair (cut from $17, colour, highlights, extensions, updo’s etc.), Massages, Nail Care (e.g. manicures $20), and waxing (eyebrows $10, bikini $18 and Brazilians $35) and much much more. Their website isn’t up yet but it will be www.envyhairstudio.com.

Carlson Sock Monkey Last night we headed over to Corinna and Adam’s as it was her birthday last Thursday and the festivities were ongoing. Drinks were aplenty and it seemed like she was having a total blast, which was really great to see. By the way, if you’ve ever ‘adopted’ a sock monkey from them, be sure to join their “Sock Monkey Army” facebook group and post pics.

Our weekend has ended here, back at home after a train ride in from Surrey. Now I better not write about my dad being that it’s Father’s Day since my Mom is still a little miffed that here wasn’t a Mother’s Day dedication to her. Parents these days eh?

More busy-ness to come this week but hopefully we’re going to meet up with some folks from England (fans of the podcast) who are in town visiting. Which reminds me, I really need to keep up to speed on my posts since if it weren’t for blogging we wouldn’t have gone camping last weekend or had any plans last night.

The Pen and Sapperton Days

Comments 7 by Rebecca Bollwitt

When I was little we would drive through New Westminster every Sunday and pass the big, intimidating and scary-looking Penitentiary. Its high walls up on the hill above Columbia street over looking the Fraser were dark grey and seemed to span for miles.

In 1878, the Government of Canada opened the British Columbia Penitentiary, the first federal penitentiary west of Manitoba. “BC Pen” or simply “the Pen” as it was known… It housed maximum security prisoners for the next 102 years, closing in 1980. [wiki]

I can’t remember the year the walls were torn down but all that is left today are the main gates and the centre building with a memorable blue roof.

The original centre block (reputedly haunted) of the Pen still stands and has been revamped into condominiums and a fancy restaurant, while the rest of the Pen’s grounds have been filled with newly-built townhouses and condominiums. [wiki]

I thought about The Pen recently when I visited with someone who lived in the condos on the hill, right atop the old grounds. Actually, when I got out of the car I snapped a picture as I had never been that close to the structure before. My mother has been to the Cafe many times and says it’s really lovely and the serving staff all wear little striped shirts to look like jailbirds.

The Pen

I also remember that The Keg Restaurants used to have an item on the menu called the “Billy Miner Pie”, maybe they still do, but my dad told me that Bill Miner was a prisoner who escaped from the B.C. Penitentiary and was responsible for the first train robbery in Canadian history.

The views from the hillside where gold rush convicts roamed are beautiful and if you are in the vicinity, can maneuver your way around all the cul-de-sacs and get over the heebie jeebies the entire place emits, then you should definitely try out The Pen Cafe and experience a bit of B.C. history up close.

On a side note, Sapperton Days are this weekend, another area of New West that is rich in history. John and I attended last year and that’s where I first met Fin *sigh*. More details about the weekend-long neighbourhood festival are available at ShopSapperton.com.