A few things here and there...

I was looking at my pictures on my phone today and realized there were a few that I'd like to share, unfortunately they are not really related to each other, so, this post may seems like a hodge podge of things.
My birthday was at the beginning of June.  The VanderHaak's kindly took me out for dinner to my choice of restaurant (I'm assuming within reason :) ).  I chose Indian as the cuisine and left it up to the VanderHaak's to choose the restaurant.   We went to Shanti.  It has really good Indian food!  YUM!

My dinner.  It was a potato type curry. 

 One of the great things I get to do is walk with Hana.  She's good stress therapists.  Maybe because I can do all the talking and she doesn't talk back?  :)  She's always happy to see me.  Sometimes I think it's because she thinks she'll go for a walk rather than it just being happy to see me.  When I take Hana for a walk, we usually walk along the Yanesegawa. Since it's warmer, she likes to go into the river.  I find all kinds of interesting things.  Sometimes I don't have a chance to take a picture, like the one time a bird, about the size of a duck, looks a bit like a duck, and maybe is in the same family as a duck, swallowed a fish whole!  Hana loves to sniff various places along the way.  She pretty much shows no interest in any of the other dogs or people that may be walking along the river.  One thing I noticed is that the grass along the river is starting to grow.  I remember from last year that the grass was very high when I came back from North America. Yesterday, when Hana and I were walking, I noticed some of the pretty flowers.  I only had my iPhone with me, so some of the pictures aren't that great.

It has been construction/renovating season the last couple of months.  Here when you work on the exterior of your building or if you are actually building a structure, you put up the scaffolding and then hang a cloth around the building.  I'm not 100% sure why, if it's an inside/outside thing, or if it's just to make it look nicer.  A few weeks ago, the apartment buildings by the river were all covered up.  From what I can tell, they were either cleaning or painting the exterior walls.

These views were from across the river.

A little closer up.

Neighborhoods can be distinctive, but most look very much alike.  Every once in a while you find houses that seem to just stand out.

Many of the houses tend to be the off white/cream color on the exterior, but these certainly are not.

One Saturday a while back, I took a short bicycle ride around the neighborhood.  I wanted to go down some paths I hadn't been down before and see what there was to see.  

Some paths were quite small.

There are lots of fields nearby.

There was some sort of restricted area. Not sure what that was for though.

Small paths.  I saw car/truck tracks, so they actually drive down this road/path.

Harvest time!

Tall grass!

I ended up at one of the stores I enjoy shopping at, Rogers!

So, there you have it, the hodge podge post.  :)