Where does time go ... ?

I can't believe that my summer holiday is already done, let alone that this week is done and I am one week away from school starting!!! I have spent this week in the library trying to get it ready for the start of school. It's mostly there, but of course still more to do! I also got some time to start getting ready to teach. Next week all the teachers will be at orientation - so staff meetings, information sessions, planning meetings and time to get our classes ready.

Now for a quick update of what I did at home. Mostly just enjoyed being home :) Got to do almost everything I had on my to do list. Saw lots of family and friends, but also just enjoyed being home. I love Vancouver, and didn't realize how much I missed it! Here are a few pictures:

Starting off in Toronto: I spent a few days there before coming home, visiting Anna and Matias.

This is how we spent my last morning, outside with the hula hoops. 

And since it was about 35 degrees out, the morning included freezies :)

Now back to Vancouver:

Biking around False Creek with my dad. We managed a couple of bike rides, including one all the way around False Creek and the sea wall.

Me with the bikes. This was just after the big tree (possibly the one in the background) where there has been an eagles nest for a couple years. On one of our bike rides we saw a couple of eagles sitting on a branch. The next time we saw one fly away.

The best part was discovering a Chinese bakery in Chinatown that had delicious steamed buns. (Because of course you have to stop for food often when biking) This was on our long bike ride. We stopped for a snack at the bakery and then had sushi for lunch at the bottom of Denman.

The first weekend we had family visiting, and the second Christie decided we should go hiking at Golden Ears. It was a very nice hike, ending up being about 5 hours! I really enjoyed being back in a BC forest. Nothing quite like it ... the forests are not the same in Germany.

We even got to see some snow!!

Not there yet... still more hiking to do!

And my final weekend in BC we went to Nanaimo and Victoria. I enjoyed visiting Pat in Nanaimo and getting to see the parade for the bath tub race. Then we drove to Victoria to visit Robert. On Sunday we hiked up Mount Doug (nothing like the hike the previous weekend). This was partly with the goal of taking some family photos, something we had not done in ages. So we took a bunch, and got some good ones! 

Us at the top of Mount Doug

Siblings

Then last Saturday I came back to Germany, with my suitcase full of goodies. I brought some other teaching stuff too, but mostly stickers (the most important part of teaching apparently.) 

(L) food!! I brought back peanut butter, crackers, brown sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla, pumpkin, jam, and some cheese that's in the fridge:) (R) All the school stuff I brought. Some teaching books, stamps, but mainly stickers!! There is about a kilo of stickers there. When my bag was overweight that was what I took out and put into my backpack. I was thinking it could come in handy to bribe any chair kicking kid on the plane :)

And here's one more picture. Not from the summer, but actually from June. This was at the last softball game  before I went home. There are more pictures posted on the website, finally, but this is the only one of me.