Cause this is Thriller!

While it's not a huge trip, we've decided to head out to Burnaby (one town over from Vancouver) to host a black tie Halloween event in celebration of Sarah's 30th birthday. The road off the highway winds around City Hall, the Art Gallery, and the Performing Arts Centre before heading out into the woods around Deer Lake. The lake is owned by the city and this house, Baldwin House, is the only house on the lake so the view from the house is of a tree-lined lake illuminated by the distant lights of the city. It was designed by Arthur Erickson, who is a famous Canadian architect. It was done in the sixties, completely glass-fronted, with a mainly wood interior and lots of fun funky 60s decorations. Here are a couple of shots.

Though we have this good-sized two-story house to play in, at the end of the evening, we laughed at ourselves because we'd spent the entire evening in the kitchen and small dining nook, a space roughly the size of our apartment. Old habits I suppose. Now we've migrated to the living room and I'm typing while Sarah knits on the couch. It's fun to have this much space, but oddly unnatural as we are so used to living in a cramped city apartment.

Anyway, rambling thoughts aside, we had a very fun evening prepping some of the party decorations! I don't think I've actually carved a pumpkin since I was a kid, but turns out it's alot easier with adult-sized hands and sharp knives. Remember those safety knives? I wonder if I was the only kid who was tortured by those damn safety knives. I imagine parents everywhere chuckling tonight at their kids hack away at pumpkins with knives that wouldn't even cut butter. Course I say this having a big scar on my right knuckles from the first year I was allowed to use the steak knives for carving...

Well Sarah's fallen asleep on the couch curled up with Helphy so I suppose it's time to sign off. Very excited for the party tomorrow! Amazing how traveling 45 minutes out of the city feels so far away.

I'll cut you pumpkin! Don't I look tough in my Harry Potter sweater!?!

Using a steak knife...yikers.

The finished product. Happy birthday Sarah!