Veronica's blog: The 2nd-half-of-the-year recap...babysitter galore, runs, races, family fun and Climate marches

Oh no, it has happened again. Months have flown passed without any blog update. I will hereby provide a brief summary of the highlights of the last half year.

Since our 2014 cycle touring trip with Mylla was slightly traumatizing, it wasn't until in July this year that we took the opportunity to venture out as a family again. We went for a weekend trip (slightly more modest than 5 weeks). Mylla is slightly older now and spends less time sleeping and that means less time to pedal for us. This may sound counter-intuitive but Charlie turned our e-bikes into normal pedal bikes. Why? We wanted to be self-sufficient, free agents and free of having to worry if the batteries will last to the next cafe with down time for a battery charge. I prefer relying on yuammie snacks on a cycle touring trip.

After the first pedal strokes without my dear e-bike assist I thought "We will never get there!". The hills appeared very big and our panniers heavier than ever. It took about half an hour for my brain to switch gear and after that it felt like we were flying along as usual.

Mylla was loving touring again and we loved it too! We spent less time trying to make her spit out rocks and sticks this trip.

We had a fab time, spent lots of time on the beach and tried canoeing for the first time with Little miss sunshine.

We returned to the Sunshine Coast when my parents were visiting. There was plenty more to see and Charlie and I were very happy to have babysitters so that we could do some running together. In general we got pretty spoiled with babysitters during a 1.5 month period since Charlie's mum arrived a couple of weeks after my parents had left. Apart from all the babysitting they provided, it was so wonderful to spend time with them again. Mylla was really enjoying having mormor, morfar and granny for a visit.

Admiring the Skookumchuck Narrows.

Beached ass bro

We had the most stunning view from our accommodation in Langdale where the ferries from Vancouver were docking

Who needs a TV when we had this?

Mylla with mormor and morfar in a fancy photoshoot

Stunning day to take the Squamish gondola,check out a suspension bridge and enjoy a beutiful mountain walk with granny

Another great job by Snappers Delight, even if we had a very cranky 2-year old.

One of many Lynn Valley pumpkin patch events leading up to Halloween

Bring out the spookiness..we are ready!

The summer weather across BC was out of this world and both Charlie and I did lots of biking and running. I had to stay active since Amy and I had signed up for the MOMAR adventure race back in February. The category we registered for was a 50 km adventure race in which we kayaked, hiked, biked, hiked again (with orienteering), with a last bike ride to the finish. Amy has always declared that she is not a runner and I was so impressed that she really tried running as much as she did.

We had the most fun time on the bike, so much fun that we flew past one of our turn-offs. It ended up costing us half an hour or so. After backtracking on our bikes against the flow on single track we hit a low point. Time for sandwiches and a sit down! The next stage included orienteering and neither of us were capable of running any longer. We decided to take bearings as often as we could and simply bushwack to avoid as much of the 4WD tracks which all the fit teams were running along. It was a good call and our legs recovered (bar some major scratches) and we finished the race on a high in the middle of our field after 6 hr 37 mins. It was a well organized event with awesome biking sections! I will certainly do it again.

This whole racing thing was kind of fun and I wanted to do more. When granny was visiting we took the opportuniy to do the 25 Km Run ridge Run race. I had a great day and ended up winning a growler! The race is meant to offer fantastic views over Buntzen lake but we could see just about nothing from the top of the course. I guess we have to do it again.

Charlie was not feeling it. He was feeling old and crappy and hobbled to the finish. With some black magic he managed to get better and got back into running a month later (although he still can't touch his toes). He went onto winning the Lynn Valley local 13 km Phantom run. Awesome! Unfortunately he didn't win any beer.

This year has almost come to an end. Looking back I think we have had a very fulfilling year. I have really enjoyed my work, running and biking, pottery, cooking more vegetarian food (we only have meat on the weekends now) and of course all our time as a family and with friends.

Since we love our life, the forest, wildlife and this planet in general, we have been focusing more on reducing the environmental footprint of our family. Charlie has calculated our GHG emissions and it has made us: buy and support renewable energy projects by buying green natural gas, drive less, bike more, eat less meat, travel locally (reduce flying) and support local forest conservation by buying carbon offsets. Now we are about a third of the Canadian average household. We can all make simple changes.

We are looking forward to an even more sustainable 2016!