The Taelemans´ Blog

The Olympics started two weeks ago, sadly enough it’s coming to an end… We’re watching the gold medal hockey game right now (Canada – USA). I’m so stressed out, I can’t watch:). We really hope they’re going to win!

It definitely was an exciting couple of weeks.
It started of with a flashmob I’ve participated in. It is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. Together with a some friends I started practicing the dance a couple of weeks before the actual event. Because there were more than 2000 people attending, it wasn’t the most spontaneous flashmob, but it was definitely good fun!

Here’s a little video:

We went to see the Olympic Cauldron which was really exciting. It’s big!!

We also went to watch the Women Half pipe competition, which was AMAZING! It’s truly indescribable .
A couple of pictures below.

Entrance of Cypress Mountain

Quatchi and Miga: My best friends

Half Pipe

Hannah Teter

Half Pipe

Me at the Half Pipe

Moguls: where the first Canadian won gold on Canadian soil (Alex Bilodeau)

Just a quick update: Team Canada WOOOOOONNNN!!!! Canada now has 14 gold medals. A record!!
If you missed the big game, go here for a recap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr9j-MRTxz8
Go Canada Go!

I’ve been having some monitor calibration problems, so I hope these turn out ok. It seems like my cheapo monitor is pretty bad… Well that’s what you get when going for the cheapo big one I guess

A sea turtle gets ashore on the Big Island of Hawaii

A lonely palm tree on the North Shore of Oahu

Police beach, Oahu. The filming location of the survivors’ beach in the series “Lost”

A typical lifeguard station on the North Shore of Oahu.

The Winter Olympics (Winter itself not so much ) have arrived in Vancouver and everybody in Vancouver is hooked. At work everybody is working with the intranet TV broadcasting on their second monitor and cheering every time Canada gets a medal or scores in hockey. So far Canada has 5 medals of which 2 in snowboarding events and we are of course very curious of what the Belgian Ladies Bobsleigh Team is going to do.

Tomorrow we’re going to one of the nightly Victory Ceremonies where they hand out the medals to the winners and have a concert of a different Canadian artist every night. Tomorrow seems to be Alberta night, so they have an Alberta country artist named Paul Brandt on the schedule

We’ll be Alberta bound when visiting our friends Oli & Saartje in Cochrane, Alberta in a month and a half, so it seemed like the perfect song

On Thursday we’ll be at the Ladies Half-Pipe snowboarding event on Cypress Mountain, which we’re both very much looking forward to and this weekend we’ll spend the whole weekend in Whistler with friends experiencing the Olympic atmosphere over there. It’s going be a great week!

I know I haven’t posted a lot of pictures lately and I’ll try to pick that up again once I get some more spare time.
This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago in Callaghan Valley in Whistler which is right next to the Olympic Nordic sports center where the Ski jumping, Biathlon and Ski Cross events take place.

Alexander Falls, Callaghan Valley

Hi everyone, I could use some help with something. This may sound stupid but I’m looking for a recipe: Petit Beurre Taart or Crème au Beurre…

I know some of you probably don’t even have one, since it’s not the most popular pie around, but I haven’t made it in ages, and today while shopping we noticed some Petit Beurre cookies from LU and all of a sudden I was craving some pie. I know i can google it, but there’s tons of recipes and I am just wondering which one you’re using.

So for those interested in helping me out, send in your recipes and I will put your name in for a draw prize! Look, there’s even something in it for you:)

Thanks in advance!

I apologize for not posting anything lately. I guess I haven’t really felt the urge to do so. I think I felt like nobody really cared, but I might be wrong.

We recently met some people and for some reason they have been following our blog for quite a while (without even knowing us, we just had a mutual friend) which is always nice!

We had some visitors in the beginning of December (Kris’ mom and sister) and for the holidays my mom and dad came over.
Of course we had an amazing time and we were very happy to see them. We truly appreciate that they are making the effort to come and visit us We do hope all of you had a good time.

One of the things we’ve been up to, was a visit to Campbell River, Vancouver Island. I didn’t really know what to expect because it’s winter and obviously its more a summer destination (mainly because of the weather). We were staying in cabins and each cabin had its private hot tub. We really enjoyed it! We went to Mount Washington, Forbidden Plateau, Port Mcneill, Telegraph Cove and we ended up having a flat tire in (pretty much) the middle of nowhere. Very exciting:) Especially when you want to get back in time for New Year’s Eve dinner. Our spare tire was a temporary one and we were told not to drive too fast or too far. We had to drive 250km back to the cabins and the road was covered with gravel and snow. Ideal circumstances:) We obviously made it back safe!

We had a great time during the holidays and I hope all of you have the same feeling about yours.
We got snowshoes (Christmas Present from Kris’ parents) and of course we had to try them. Last weekend we decided to go to Callaghan Valley and we had a really good time on a more advanced snowshoe trail. We had to jump over little rivers with the snowshoes on, climb an ice wall (or something that looked like it). But it was really fun!

Anyway below some pictures.
Enjoy, and before I forget Happy New Year!

Forbidden Plateau

My mom and Kris on Mount Washington

New Year’s Eve Dinner

Grizzly in the cabin

Snowshoeing on Christmas Day

Snowshoeing on Mount Seymour

Quatchi Snowboard

Olympic Torch

Alexander Falls, Callaghan Valley

Where’s Kris?

We recently watched an amazing documentary called: The Cove .

The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan. Taiji is a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders of the playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But it’s actually well-known as a whaling town and is considered as the birth place of Japan’s traditional whaling method. Taiji has it’s dark secrets!

In a cove surrounded by wire and “No trespassing” signs thousands of dolphins are killed every year. Taiji is a major center for dolphin drive hunting. When dolphins are spotted, they’re driven into a bay by the fishermen while banging on metal rods in the water to scare and confuse the dolphins. When the dolphins are in the bay,they close it of with nets so they can’t escape. The next day the dolphins will be killed one by one. They sell the meat. Besides that they also capture dolphins for the entertainment industry.

The documentary is not only about the slaughter of dolphins, it’s also about the government covering it up and allowing fishermen to sell mercury-tainted dolphin meat.
Ric O’Barry, former dolphin trainer, joins forces with filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Oceanic Preservation Society to get to the truth of what’s really going on in the cove. While pretty much everyone (fishermen, police,…) in Taiji is hot on their trail they recruit underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers and world-class free divers who will all be involved in an undercover operation to photograph the off-limits cove, while playing a cloak-and-dagger game with those who would have them jailed.

Watch the trailer:

I’m not an activist but this just really shocked me!

Yesterday it was Grizzly’s first birthday.
He was able to celebrate it today, together with all his human and dog friends over at daycare.

At Pup Culture daycare they apparently call him the destroyer since he eats all their ribbons and likes to eat parts of the walls. This time he could “destroy” something that was actually edible.

They organized a birthday party for him. Below some pictures:

Grizzly’s birthday Cake.

Another cake picture (Pup Culture got the cake from Big Dog Little Dog bakery.
If you’re looking for something nice for you pup, that’s the place to be!

Yammie!

Go for it!

Don’t bite his fingers

Pup Culture also uploaded some of their Halloween pictures.

Grizzly as a Pumpkin bear.

One of Grizzly’s friends

Hot Dog

Ladybug

Last weekend we were invited to go to our friends place in Whistler.

Apparently Whistler broke a record this month: Snowiest Month Ever. Sounded promising!
The slopes where open and we were definitely ready for the start of the season. I couldn’t wait to try my new board.

We had an amazing time (and that means all three of us)! Kris and I went snowboarding and a dog walking company took Grizzly and Harvey out for a day hike.
Pretty amazing. They went back country hiking with 4 other dogs. So they were exhausted when they came back.

Anyway, I don’t feel like writing a lot so enjoy the pictures (click the picture if you want to see them completely):

One more thing: Thanks Bob, Jill and Harvey for a lovely weekend!

Big Island Sunset, Hawaii

One of the nice things about the state of Hawaii (except for the obvious stuff) is that none of the beaches are private. Basically this means that you are allowed to access any beach at any major Hotel. We were on our way back to our hotel when the sun was setting and I wouldn’t have made it there in time. We quickly pulled into the Four Seasons hotel and went to the beach and experienced this lovely sunset, accompanied by some local sea turtles.

Pretty much everyone knows that I’m a big fan of Winter. I’ve been looking forward to the first snow, and finally it arrived.

We’ve noticed that the last couple of days, the mountains on the North Shore were getting lots of snow. So today we decided to go to Mount Seymour and enjoy the snow. We were pleasantly surprised with about 50cm of fresh snow!

Of course Grizzly enjoyed this even more than we did! He definitely is a sled dog.

The predictions for next week are really good. They say it’s going to snow a little bit in Vancouver later this week. We’re living up a mountain so chances are pretty high that we’re going to get the first snow up here.

We were told by neighbors to get used to it, because there’s going to be days that we won’t be able to drive down the mountain…

A couple of images taken with my mobile.

Kris and Grizzly

Mount Seymour

Grizzly

Bear Den

Grizzly Paw

Grizzly and me

Rumors are that Whistler Slopes might open next week. Cross our fingers!