Cypress Mountain on snowshoes

Un petit we tranquilou.

Éclaircie et soleil samedi: allez hop on s’équipe et on s'habille comme on peut ;)

et direction la station de sport d'hiver de Cypress. Elle se trouve a environ 40min de chez nous.

Mon collègue nous a gentiment passé des raquettes et nous voila partis pour une balade de 2h30 avec une petite pause lunch dans un refuge. On a commencé avec le beau temps et on a fini dans le brouillard avec la neige

Superbe ambiance, super moment! A refaire absolument!!!

UBC

I thought I'd share with you a little about the my place of work. UBC is found to the far west of Vancouver (any further and you'd fall in the sea...) The campus is surrounded by woodland and parks (Pacific Spirit Regional Park and the University Endowment Lands) which makes the journey there quite picturesque - especially if one takes the route along NW Marine Drive which takes in the north shore mountains (to the north) and the mouth of the Burrard Inlet (...to the north...)

Campus itself is rather pretty, and the department where I work has just moved in to a new building. From the fifth floor, one can look out over to Vancouver Island (when the weather is good...)

Seen on campus

My boss, Mark, is currently away on Sabbatical in Boulder, Colorado. Whilst he's away, his PhD student Kathi and I are squatting in his office.

However, the majority of my time is spent in the lab - a new facility in the newly completed earth science building. It's the most massive space in which I've ever worked - 6 m high and about 8 by 20 m. We've even got a crane to move things around, should the need arise. It's a great place in which to do experiments, especially water based ones as there are trench drains running along both sides of the room: if ever we spill something on the floor, we just get the hoses out and wash it away!

The aftermath of one of my experiments.

Goodbye Coal Harbour, hello West End!

Sév and I clearly love packing and moving house! As of the first of December, we have been installed in our new apartment in the West End. We've gone from ~55 m² to nearly 100 m² in terms of floor area, so a pretty massive change. Furthermore, we've gone from furnished to unfurnished...so a trip to IKEA was necessary. Unfortunately our car is a saloon so one can't lower the rear seats, but fortunately it's still quite spacious!

Deciding in which box the baby can sleep...

(Future) mum in the back seat.

Living in Coal Harbour meant being next to the port, but living in the West End means living but a stone's throw from the beach. Despite the slightly wintry weather that we've been having recently, we've been out a couple of times to wander along the beach. As the waterfront faces towards the west, we can go down and watch the sunsets from there.

View from the beach just down from where we now live.