Aug 11, 2025: Salt Spring Island; Eli & Fur

Happy Monday, Muesli, everybody.

First, I managed to geek out and get this thing working as a podcast.

So if you use an iPhone and a podcast app, you can subscribe to it as a podcast because I just thought it was fun.

I dropped a message in the chat group about how to do it, but just message me if you want any help with that.

Cool.

Well, one follow up from last week is that I think if you had the second episode I did last week, again, sorry, it was so long.

I visited the Lionsgate Hospital intensive care unit, which is where I spent some time in March to just try and say thank you to the nurses and the doctors there.

And it was really nice.

We heard back from two of them and they were very grateful for just like getting a letter and a little gift.

They said they don’t generally get a lot of like, you know, hellos from patients who have been there.

And so that was really heartwarming to see that.

And they were just really happy about it.

So it’s a nice reminder that sometimes small things can make a big difference.

So that was really cool.

Otherwise, last week was actually a pretty big milestone for us because it was our third anniversary of moving to Canada and the first anniversary of being in our current house in North Vancouver.

And so there were two pretty big, you know, pretty big deals for us.

And it was a great way to celebrate because we spent the week at Salt Spring Island, which is one of the Gulf Islands.

That’s very close.

It’s like an hour by ferry from the mainland.

And the first of all, the ferry was awesome.

Not at all what I expected, but just like super nice.

It had a kid’s room, which was which was lovely.

The cafes are great.

There’s the outdoor area.

It’s really nice.

And the whole trip was just fantastic.

Like I get the Canadian island life thing and get the lake life thing even more now.

It’s impossible to just not unwind at a place like this.

So peaceful.

The people there are so friendly, you know, just seems like they have all the good, lots of good things in life.

But yeah, some highlights from the trip.

We went kayaking.

I think we’ve done that once before, but it was great to do it again.

Went paddle boarding for the first time.

Rafa did some Pokemon card trading for the first time at like the local board game shop because they had like every hour each week they do that.

And so we kind of saw the entire community and it was just so obvious that like many people or most people there just knew each other, which was really nice.

Like this is a small island.

It’s 11,000 people.

It’s the biggest of the Gulf Islands, I think, but it’s still, you know, relatively small.

For a rough measure, there’s no traffic light, I think, on the entire island, which was nice for driving.

Also family, like taking the ferry is so much cheaper than taking a plane anywhere because you just pay one ferry ticket for everybody.

You can bring your entire car along, which was pretty amazing.

There was a really cute little like coffee stand.

It just had a Keurig coffee machine hooked up to like some power, but it was just outside some guy’s driveway.

And so we just put in, you know, a $20 note.

We bought some postcards, sorry, some bookmarks and got a coffee.

That was really cool.

And we had a nice dinner.

It was just a lovely trip.

So maybe the best vacation we’ve had since we’ve had kids, honestly.

So best vacation in the last six years.

So that was a pretty nice way to celebrate Canada Day.

Not Canada Day, sorry, our third anniversary of moving to Canada.

And then on a completely different note, I also went clubbing on Saturday with some friends, and that was really good fun.

Stayed out till 1am, went to see Ellie Infer, which were an awesome like woman music and DJ duo.

And there was a great local act before that.

So that was a big contrast to Salt Spring Island, but I haven’t done that for quite a while.

So that was great fun.

I will catch you next week.