August 4, 2018

We were keen for some warmth and sunshine for our annual March Spring break so we headed to Hawaii for some relaxation and down time!  The first few days turned out to be a little rainy and cool but after that the sun came out and gave us exactly what we were looking for!  I am not usually a big beach swimmer but I must say the temperature of the water on Waikiki Beach was pretty amazing!  Sadly I only realised this on the last few days!  

We stayed at the beautiful Moana Surfrider right in the middle of Waikiki – definitely amongst all the action so if you are looking for seclusion and quite this is not the place for you!  

During our 10 day stay we hired a car for a day and took a drive around the beautiful island, stopping for coconut shrimp and shaved ice and visited the famous surf beaches of the north shore!  We also took a great tour to Pearl Harbour to learn the history of the very famous bombing of this area during world war 2.

Enjoy our photos from a fun 10 days away!

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April 6, 2018

With Mr A away back in Australia, the girls and I headed for a fun weekend away in LA during September.  We met up with some close friends from Australia who were holidaying and had simply the best 3 days of fun!  

We caught at crack of dawn flight out of Vancouver and with a 2 hour flight time to LA we had touched down and were out of the airport mid morning ready to have fun!  We Ubered our way from the airport to our hotel in Santa Monica were we decided to base ourselves for the weekend.

We stayed at the very stylish Viceroy Hotel on Ocean Ave.  The location was fabulous with wonderful Ocean views and just across the road and we were on the beach.  The rooms included 2 comfy queen sized beds and a nice sized bathroom so it was perfect for the 4 of us.  The pool area, lobby, bar and restaurant was also just lovely.  I booked everything via expedia which is where I book a lot of our trips these days.  The hotel also had bikes you could borrow but you do need to get hold of them early as they are very popular! 

Once our friends joined us at the hotel we decided to spend the day wandering and watching along the famous Santa Monica and Venice Beaches having lunch and enjoying the shops, street performers and all the magic the comes with this eclectic part of the world.

On Saturday we decided we wanted to do a hike to the Hollywood Sign so we caught the train to Hollywood and from there we order an Uber to take us to our hiking destination!  The plan was going great until both our Uber driver and our friends Uber driver got completely lost and we ended in one location and our friends in a completely different location!  Our first bad experience with an Uber driver as neither could speak English. So with the girls and I now at Griffith Observatory and our friends miles away and nowhere near the Hollywood sign we had an interesting morning trying to find each other!  Needless to say our hike to the sign didn’t eventual but a short hike in the hills around the observatory plus a walk around the observatory had to suffice!! 

On our way back to Santa Monica we took a detour to Melrose Ave as the girls we keen to find the “pink” wall and all other interesting walls along Melrose!  It was a fun afternoon of photo taking and people watching.  

On Sunday we stayed in Santa Monica and hired bikes to ride along the beach, enjoying the magical weather and the fabulous bike path that goes for ever.  More people watching, eating and enjoying being out discovering the fun of the Santa Monica area.

Here are my favourite photos from our weekend away!

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February 9, 2018

After a fantastic few weeks tripping up the east coast of the US it was time to head back to Canada to visit the three big eastern cities of Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto.

After leaving Portland we headed north through the very rural and quite state of Maine and over the boarder into Quebec!  The drive was about 5 and a half hours and we were surprised at how quite the roads were in this part of the world.

We arrived in Quebec City ready to explore this beautiful part of very French Canada.  You would never really think you were in Canada on arrival.  All signage and all language spoken is French so it really did feel like we had dropped ourselves into Europe!  

Quebec City was just beautiful and after New York the second favourite place we visited on our trip.  We stayed at Les Hotels Jaro just outside the old town but in a great location that was in easy walking distance to everything.  We had three days visiting the city and during the entire time we walked everywhere.  The beautiful streets are narrow and quaint and a large portion of the town is car free.   Such a lovely place to visit and just wander around absorbing the history!  Here are my favourite shots from our Canadian adventure.

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Next stop was the city of Montreal – much bigger and busier than QC but still lots of old world charm.  We stayed at L Appartement Hotel and once again decided to do without the car and walk wherever we had to go.  Montreal is a lot more widespread than Quebec City so we did need to walk further to see everything but it meant we got to do lots of exploring.  

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Final stop on our Canadian leg was the big booming city of Toronto!  So busy with all that traffic on the very busy multi lane highways in and out of the city.  We stayed at the very flash Adelaide Hotel downtown which was a lucky find on expedia at a special price.  Again lots of walking around the city which included a trip up the amazing CN Tower to see the wonderful views over this incredible city.  A day trip to Niagara Falls to see the amazing waterfalls was a big highlight of our visit.

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October 23, 2017

In my previous post I shared our day by day itinerary for our week in NYC so in this post I just wanted to share more of my favourite photos!  It really is a photographers paradise with so much to see and do.

My biggest tip for getting around NYC is to use the subway – it is free for kids to travel on the subway so it really does make it the most economical way to get around the city and it is fast and clean!

Enjoy more of my favourite photos from this part of our trip!Sweet Style-0262

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July 4, 2017

Last weekend we took a day trip up to Whistler to see the amazing snow walls that are still standing on top of the mountain.  After a bumper winter season these incredible snow walls show just how much snow actually fell.  We are now in the middle of summer and some has melted but the height is still staggering.  

I have to admit Whistler in summer is almost better than Whistler in winter – there is so much to do and see and the place is buzzing!  We took the Whistler Gondola up the mountain to the roundhouse and then hiked Pika’s traverse to get to the snow walls.  After our hike we then took the Peak to Peak Gondola across to Blackcombe Mountain and before heading back down to the village.  While on our chairlift down we even saw a little black bear playing in the forrest below!  Amazing stuff – feeling very blessed to be living in this incredible country with so much beauty all around.

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