An Artistic Journey.

LIFEBOOK 2014

There are 7 of us from Gabriola signed up on a year long online art course.  There are 22 teachers from all over the world, weekly lessons, bonus lessons, pdf's, warm ups and so much more going on. I'm really excited about learning a variety of mixed media art techniques, trying out different mediums and creating with some dear friends all in the comfort of my Island home.  The first lesson was to create your artistic guardian and find a word for the year, the image above was mine like this will be the year for me to "enjoy".  If you'd like to go on this creative journey with us, please check out the Lifebook website.

Hockey Day in Canada (well, the Gabriola Library actually)

I'm always amazed at the number of great things going on at the Gabriola Branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library.  They have a great afternoon lined up on Sat, Jan 18 from 2:30-4:30 to celebrate Hockey Day in Canada.  They are bringing over members of the Clippers Hockey team to read from their favourite books and may challenge our island players to a little hockey after, game on!

GABRIOLA. A simple little card to make island living easier

HAPPY NEW YEARS!  

It's here, a way to make island living a little easier.  We (the Lynch group) worked with a local designer (Nina from Paprika Designs) to come up with a card that islanders can put on their fridge, have in their office or keep in their car.  It's a 6 month design that has the current ferry schedule, important numbers, the garbage schedule, and some conversions for cooking.  We're already in the mix of creating the card that will be released in June, if you have any suggestions- we're always open to hearing them.

Movie night at the Library

It's movie night tonight (Wed, Oct. 16) at the Gabriola branch of the Vancouver Island Library,  in the Folklife Village.  They will be playing ET at 6pm, get out the kleenex and pull up a seat.

Adventure Racing!

Here we are at the finish line of our first MOMAR!



 

My neighbour, Vanessa, and I have spent a fair amount of time in the trails on Gabriola training for various athletic events.  First on our list was the Ride to Conquer Cancer, after that we thought we'd try a triathlon which we completed at Shawnigan Lake this spring with our friend Julie.  After training through the summer, we headed up to Cumberland to complete our first MOMAR (Mind over mountain adventure race), alongside over 450 racers.  We signed up for the sport course, a 30km trek that included kayaking, running and mountain biking, all while trying to map read to ensure we didn't miss a checkpoint and that we were headed in the right direction.  It was a gorgeous day, at 9:05 we received our map so we could start planning our route, at 10:30 we were in our kayak waiting for the countdown to begin, what seemed to be an hour later we were back on land ready to start our trail run.   The run had lots of elevation (I mean a lot) and eventually led us back to town to start the mountain bike trek, this was about the hardest hill I have ever done (actually, I think it was called a mountain) and had everyone hiking their bikes for at least a portion of the gruelling uphill grind. After a few more checkpoints we were back running again to find the next checkpoint, all the while trying to get a chance to take a glimpse of the gorgeous scenery around us.  For the last leg of our adventure we were back on the mountain bikes, wow there are a lot of good riders out there and a lot of bridges, ramps, and teeter-totters in those trails.  After 5:34 we crossed the line with smiles on our faces, and still remaining "Island View Besties".  Of course, we'll be signing up again, with husbands in tow and hopefully a few more islanders on the course. 

Gertie- Gabriola's community bus.

We were lucky enough to have been near the bus stop last week when Gertie (Gabriola’s Environmentally Responsible Transport for Islanders Express) pulled up and was en route to the ferry.  The kids and I hopped on and took our first ride in Gabriola's community bus.  It's a great service, we currently have 2 buses running on the Island, friendly volunteer drivers on board, the bus is equipped with bike racks, it's comfortable and clean and a great way to get around Gabriola.  If you'd like a copy of the current schedule and for more information, visit A COMMUNITY BUS FOR GABRIOLA 
ISLAND

CycleArt:Downtown Nanaimo

On Sunday June 9th some fantastic organizers from the Nanaimo Design Nerds and a graphic artist team from Awarewolf Creative organized "Cycleart".  It was great, we met up at Maffeo Sutton waterfront park and painted a mural, decorated our bikes and pedalled through downtown on a scavenger hunt to the downtown businesses and ended at the Nanaimo Art Gallery.  We had a great day at this family event and we're now keen to plan a neighbourhood bike parade on Gabriola. To top it off we won some fantastic prizes (thank you New York Style Pizza & Cayo Fashions) and a huge thanks to all those that made this event happen.