Everyone has their shopping weakness, and mine is a well stocked pet boutique. Not the kind selling doggie strollers and puppy sweaters – although my pit bull does look cute in pink – but a place with knowledgeable staff, natural foods, and well-made equipment and toys.

Cadeaux Gifts in Sapperton never ceases to impress and entice. It is “a trendy boutique and gift store providing the best in essential indulgences” and is easily one of the Lower Mainland’s best-kept secrets.

Piccolo World Gifts is a small Sapperton storefront with a global worldview. Inside, you’ll find an assortment of bright, beautiful, and sometimes random treasures from around the world. It’s interesting enough on its own, but chatting with store owner Nancy Patrick brings a whole new appreciation to her collection.

I’ve been a frequent viewer of Tenth to Fraser for some time now, looking over all the great articles focused around this town, which I have now lived in for over ten years. The negative image of our beautiful city has begun to bubble up inside of me, inspiring me to put on display the inner beauty and character that the Royal City emanates from the century old buildings and remarkable landscapes.

I have a confession. I have a Thrifty Foods problem. I grew up in Mill Bay BC (home of one of the first Thrifty Foods) so it holds a special place in my heart. I dream about the cheese scones and I wax philosophically about the marinated meats. It’s grocery nirvana.

A group of dedicated women from each of the twenty-three North American 30-Minute-Hit locations is participating in the KICK THE *&%! OUT OF CANCER event. They have pledged to “hit” (complete the kickboxing workout) a certain number of times during the month of October in exchange for donations to the British Columbian Cancer Foundation.

When I was young and living in Alberta in the 1980’s, I belonged to the Dairy 4-H Club. One of our big projects every year was Highway Clean-up. We picked up garbage on the side of the Highway for probably about 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon. It was amazing to see the amount of garbage that littered the side of the road. Fast forward to 2011. Have we as humans learned our lesson about littering? It seems that we as a collective whole have not. That is why The Vancouver Aquarium partnered with TD Canada Trust and started the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up, happening this weekend in New Westminster and beyond.

On September 10th, 1898, New Westminster was very nearly destroyed by what is now referred to as “The Great Fire”. Pictures show a city completely ravaged; the devastation razed most of the city’s buildings. On Saturday, September 10th (the same day and date of the Great Fire), New West Fire Fighters will be flipping the pancakes and cooking ham for Sapperton Old Age Pensioners Association. Sapper Flap Jack Saturday is from 8:30 am to 12 noon.

I’ve been dutifully attending TransLink’s consultation sessions for the UBE. We’ve seen 3 so far, and the last one will be held this Thursday evening at 7 pm at the Sapperton Pensioner’s Hall at 318 Keary St, just up from Columbia. Translink will be “reporting out”, summarizing what they’ve heard from the community over the weeks of discussion. I’d encourage all citizens to come out to see what TransLink is planning to bring to New Westminster. As for me, I must admit that my attendance at these sessions has left me feeling like I’ve been pushed into owning something I really don’t want.

A few times now, a number of the local twitter geeks have had a conversation online about food. Because food is the greatest common denominator. One of the places that continually gets mentioned is Graze Market and Deli and we all salivate all over our keyboards and dreamily discuss what makes an awesome pulled pork sandwich. So what does make an awesome pulled pork sandwich? We’ll get to that.

For those who haven’t yet heard, Translink is back with a new round of consultations on the Highway Nobody Wants.  The first in a series of United Boulevard Extension workshops is this Saturday, 9:30am-12pm at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall, 318 Keary Street.

Family Place has a great new location at FW Howay just east of McBride Boulevard off Cumberland. Check it out!

Jen checks out Kids in Motion, a Creative Arts Studio for 0-8 year olds in Sapperton run by Natasha Young.

Can the North Fraser Perimeter Road, creating a four lane truck route through New Westminster even be built? Let’s examine the feasibility of the City’s mitigation wish list.

We won; we stopped the flood gates of the United Boulevard Extension from opening and releasing the hordes of new commuter traffic on to already chocked New Westminster streets. Or did we?

Over the past month I have received numerous calls from constituents regarding the proposed United Boulevard Extension (UBE) road project, connecting Coquitlam and New Westminster. Those from Maillardville argue that this ‘long overdue’ project will allow traffic to flow more freely out of the Brunette corridor in Coquitlam; while Sapperton residents have major concerns that the project will result in increased traffic flowing into New Westminster and the expropriation of residential and industrial land.

Just a quick update on the controversial United Boulevard Extension plans for you: The Buzzer’s Jhenifer Pabillano took many of the questions and criticisms raised in your comments here, on the New Westminster Environmental Partners website and on NWEP President Pat Johnstone’s blog, Green New West (great commentary btw, Pat) to TransLink’s Director of Roads Sany Zein.

New Westminster toy store Pedagogy Toys has been saved from closing thanks to a show of support from the community and a well-timed offer of skookum new digs in River Market at the Quay. Like so many other New West parents, I’m a fan of Pedagogy Toys, and so I wanted to find out more from owner Karen Smecher about the move from Sapperton to the Quay. Karen kindly agreed to answer a few questions via email:

If you’ve ever wondered why Skytrain has a dip in the guideway along Brunette, it isn’t to create a roller-coaster experience, but was designed to accommodate an overpass connected to United Boulevard in Coquitlam with Brunette Avenue. This United Boulevard Extension is a potential disaster for traffic congestion in New Westminster. The proposed connector doubles the capacity for traffic to enter New Westminster from the expanded Hwy 1 and Lougheed corridors, while there remains nowhere for it to go except to overflow onto residential streets.

One of my favourite local shops is Pedagogy Toys.  As a graduate of the Small Business program at Douglas College, owner Karen Smecher loves what she does and is committed to providing high quality toys and other kid items. She recently went on the hunt for a harmonica just for me and we are still toot-tooting our way around the house with our awesome green harmonica.
I was really impressed with her new exclusive to Pedagogy line of reusable lunch and snack bags lined with Tyvek! Ingenious! She’s also designed play items …

Poor Sapperton. In the past few years, the area seemed to be improving. There was the start of a kids’ district in New West, with Pedagogy Toys, Kids Kloset and Dimpleskins, a few neat boutiques (Opulence & Cadeaux), a few good bakeries (Bella Cakes & Farm Cottage, which relocated from the Quay), and of course the new Starbucks (hey, I like my lattes). Now it’s looking like Sapperton’s apparent revitalization was more fragile than it seemed.

This Saturday, members of the New Westminster Community Gardening Society will harvest the first crop of corn, beans and squash from Mary Mount Community Garden in Sapperton.

Green Drinks is a monthly meeting of people interested in sustainability and the environment, and is usually free of themes or agendas. This week, however, there’s a special focus on Metro Vancouver’s ‘Zero Waste Challenge.’

New Westminster parents of preschoolers and gradeschoolers who hoped to enroll their kids in programs of choice may need to adjust their plans, as School District 40 prepares to shuffle the locations of so-called ‘Programs of Choice’ – Early French Immersion and Montessori. It all comes into play in the fall of 2012, or when the new elementary and middle schools are ready.

New Westminster may soon have the distinction of having the most large grocery stores per capita in the Lower Mainland. Wal-Mart has applied to open a new grocery supercentre in its Queensborough store. Thrifty Foods has just been announced as an anchor tenant in Sapperton’s coming Brewery District mixed-retail/residential complex next to SkyTrain and Royal Columbian Hospital. A new Safeway is coming to the Plaza 88 development at New Westminster SkyTrain. And of course, the River Market will open this summer as a newly food-focused destination with an as-yet-unnamed anchor grocer.