Tulip Heaven

One of my favorite flowers is the tulip. They're so colorful and no thorns! I have always wanted to go to Holland just to see fields of tulips. But I didn't know there were some on our continent!

Abbotsford, Canada

For one month out of the year, The Abbotsford Bloom Tulip Festival is open for visitors to come purchase and take pictures of fields and fields of colorful tulips.

When we visited, the Festival was only open for nine days and it was still pretty rainy and overcast. Some of the flowers were in bloom but many more were still waiting for the sun to come out!

The fields were very muddy and these shoe protectors did not do it's job as well as we hoped. Hannah and I ended up throwing out our boots when we got back home to the States.

But it was such a beautiful sight!

 I'm looking forward to the next time I can come back to enjoy God's handiwork!

Once Upon A Time

When I was younger, I loved watching TV. The TV Guide would be my daily reader. The shows would transport me into another world! Currently I'm not watching any TV shows. I just don't have the time. I think the last TV series I loved was "Burn Notice".

But I always wanted to watch "Once Upon A Time". The show takes place in Storybrooke, Maine whose residents are characters from various fairy tales transported to this 'real world' town and robbed of their real memories by a powerful curse. Episodes typically feature a primary storyline in Storybrooke, as well as a secondary storyline from another point in a character's life before the curse was enacted. (Wikipedia)

I loved the idea of fairy tale characters all interacting with each other in the modern world and in fairy tale land. But I never got the opportunity to watch the episodes until just recently.

The streets where Storybrooke comes to life!

The real Storybrooke set is located in a little town called Steveston near Vancouver, BC. And since we were going to Vancouver for vacation in June this was a must see spot to visit!

But I had to watch the show first! So before we left I binge-watched the first season: 22 episodes. It was addicting!But oh so good!

Below are the places that I visited and it's "counterpart" on the show. Note that names of stores have been changed to reflect the Storybrooke, Maine town.

We are standing in front of the Nikta Fishing & Marine building.... 
...Which is the library and clock tower on the show.

The clock tower is digitally added in post production.

This is the Main street where many of the scenes on the show is filmed.

Next to the bakery, Serenity Boutique is "Modern Fashions"

You may notice that that Romania Country Bread changed their signage permanently to "Storybroooke Bakery & Bread"

The yellow VW bug's owner is Emma, Snow White & Prince Charming's daughter.

"Once Upon A Time's" art department come into town and change over the signage to prep the town to shoot their episodes. It takes 10 hours to change, paint and redesign the street.

Nikaido is "Standard Clocks"

The Cannery Cafe is one of the main meeting places in the show but it's called "Granny's Diner"...

... which is run and owned by Red Riding Hood and her Granny.

Emma and her son, Henry exiting the diner.

On the corner, Pieces Gift Shop is "Purbeck Shoe Store"

Mr. Gold aka "Rumpelstiltskin" walking across the street.

The office of Dr. Archibald Hopper is next to the Bakery.

This signage is left on the door for crazy fans like me to admire and point out!

Dr. Hopper is  Jiminy Cricket

The Steveston Marine & Hardware turns into...

..." Storybrooke Hardware & Paint"

David Nolan (aka Prince Charming)

It's Posh Boutique is "Mr. Gold's Pawnbroker"

Henry going to visit Mr. Gold

Ora Sushi is "Ora Sushi" in the show and Any Given Sundae is "The Storybrooke Pet Shelter"

Next to Any Given Sundae is Cannery Cafe or "Granny's Diner"

Mary Margaret Blanchard (aka "Snow White")

Emma talking to David/Prince Charming

The Marine Garage is the "Marine Garage".

Dr. Hopper/Jiminy Cricket walking his dog

Other store fronts:

Steveston Coffee Co and Moncton Dental are...

Storybrooke Coffee and ...

Storybrooke Dental. Creative Names huh? This is Emma and August Booth/Pinocchio

Interesting Find: "Storybrooke Coffee" has a Steveston Coffee Co logo on it's wall in the show!

Emma talking to Sheriff Graham (aka the Huntsman)

Vancouver has been a go-to place to film TV series. I didn't get a chance to see the Mayor's house, the pier where Henry's fort is at and many more.

If you're interested in seeing more here's a great link:Storybrooke Set Locations

And a short video of how they create Storybrooke in 10 hours:

Hope you enjoyed this walk through Storybrooke!

Blues, Beaches, Boba, Boys & Buddy

My continuing guest blogger, Hannah's, last post (Editor's words)

Today we left the house around 4:00 and Dabby left the house at 1:30 because he had to eat lunch with his friend. When he came back we decided to go to a birdy park at Stanley Park. We went to see the blue herons. There were tons of nests. We saw families of them. We even saw some flying.

These heron nests were amazing. Supposedly there are about 50 nests up in the trees in Stanley Park right next to the tennis court, Country Club buildings, and restaurant.

If you look carefully up in the trees you can spot quite a few nests in this one.

With a closer lens, you can see that not one or two but sometimes three herons are sitting on one nest. Why? I have no idea. Maybe one is visiting the couple?

Nests can get up to 4 feet across and nearly 3.5 feet deep.

Herons can curl their neck into a S shape for a more aerodynamic flight and to quickly strike prey at a distance.

They can get up to 4 feet in height but only weigh 5-6 lbs due in part to their hollow bones, a feature all birds share.

The nesting period is 49-81 days. Incubation of eggs are 27-29 days.

We went across the street to another tree and saw that one nest on a branch fell down. We saw a dead fish laying on the ground from the nest. We think that the herons caught the fish and brought it to their nest to eat. It was really smelly because poop was everywhere. The tree, branches, and leaves were all white.

A fallen nest. See the dead fish next to it? The nest was huge!

I was in awe of the nests and all the herons nesting but could not stand the smell of the bird poop everywhere!

Next we went to drive around the park and stopped at this beach. We saw a second beach! Which was a huge swimming pool next to the beach. It was a second beach.

A public beach in Stanley Park....

...which was literally right next door to a public swimming pool. It looked very nice but no shade! :(

Pool or beach? Let's do both! The pool was very affordable.. around $7/adult for the day.

Then I wanted a boba drink so we went to Dragon Ball Tea House. We ordered a drink for Auntie Stacy and me and JJ.

Dragon Ball is Stacy's go-to tea place!

Then we went back to the house to rest.

We played with the boys some more. 5-Sook could not wait for us to come over.. reinforcements!

Tate playing in the kitchen sink. Yep.. Grandpa's idea of course! We just hoped he would not turn on the faucet!

I was entertaining Bryce by shooting bubbles into a container. He loved it! Oh the simple joys!!

Grandpa (5-Sook Goong) reading to Tate before bed. Who's that bothering me?

Of course it was Uncle Matt!

...and then went out to dinner at Golden Seafood restaurant. We ate with the whole family. We said good bye to everyone because we weren't gonna see them in a while.

Matthew was trying to take a panoramic picture from his iPhone. He set the phone down on the lazy suzy and turned it to capture everyone but he was too slow and couldn't get everyone in one shot.

Most of Matthew's Dad's side of the family.. some of our favorite people!!

Then we went back to the house started packing and went to sleep.

(The next day) we left the house around 9:30. We said goodbye to Buddy, 3 Goo Po, 3 Goo Goong.

The girls with Buddy

Then we drove to Seattle and ate at Din Tai Fung (again). The food was so so yummy. Then we went to the airport and dropped off our luggage and boarded the plane. It was the Alaska Airlines plane. We noticed that it was made by the Boeing company that we took a tour of.

This plane was way bigger than the other one. I sat next to the window that was near the wing and the engine. I liked watching the wings move. Then after the flight we picked up our luggage at claim 15 and went outside. Goong-Goong picked us up and we ate dinner at their house. Then we drove home! :(

-Mui Mui Blogs

And that is the end of my guest blogger, Hannah's recap of our trip to Seattle and Vancouver! 

On another fun note.. we found out that Matthew's cousin, Jason, (3-Goo-Jeh/Jeung's son) and his family were featured in Justin Timberlake's newest music video, "Not a Bad Thing". They're the Asian family interviewed. You can check it out below.