Tom Galassi Photography

One of the owners of Redfish Clothing, Kristy Brinkley, does a tremendous amount of giving back to the community and is constantly holding fundraisers to raise money for charities. My family was invited to come and be a part of a seal release fundraising event that Kristy held at her house, located on a beautiful rocky beach in West Vancouver, with the proceeds going to support the Vancouver Aquarium.

The Vancouver Aquarium brought along five rescued and rehabilitated seals to release from Kristy’s backyard. What an amazing experience. My kids were in awe and were so thrilled to see the seals. One thing I love about Kristy is that she invited me and said “You don’t need to take pictures if you do not want to, just come and enjoy the experience. I know I miss a lot when I am always looking through the camera”. I have to say, I was so happy to hear that. Being a photographer, you are always expected to photograph every event you go to. I always hear “It is great you are coming to my birthday party, can you bring your camera”. Of course I always do since I enjoy taking photos, but I am glad that Kristy made the connection and didn’t expect anything from me. But how could I not take pictures of these cute little rehabilitated seals going back home. Many thanks to the Staff and Volunteers of the Vancouver Aquarium for all of the hard work they do to rescue and rehabilitate the seals.

The five seals lined up, ready to be released back into the wild.

This little seal is in his cage ready to be released. The seals were all scared as they didn’t know what was going on. Little did they know that in just a few minutes, they were going to be back out in the ocean where they belonged!

Kristy and her son taking a peek at the seal in the cage, a few minutes before they were moved down to the beach to be released.

This little cutie is my daughter, Pepper. Talk about excited, she was standing next to two seals AND she had a cookie!

Another little guy ready to be released.

Ahh, the promise land. This is the view they had as they were looking out towards the ocean. This is where home will be (at least until they swim out of there to wherever area they will decide to make their home).

One of the staff at the Vancouver Aquarium. She and the other staff member in charge of releasing the seals were awesome. Full of knowledge, and happy to answer any questions we had.

The big moment.  The release of the seals. They were released one at a time. They would actually turn around and wait for the others to be released.

Out in the ocean. Luckily, as I had mentioned, they looked back a lot, so I was able to get some shots of them in the water.

This seal is just about to enter the water. Luckily he looked up at me just before he jumped in.

Another seal, happy to be in the water again.

My wife Nicola (Nic) is an amazing singer and songwriter (and an incredible photographer as well). She joined the “League of Rock”, an organization that allows people to play music and have all the fun of being in a band, but without the headaches of creating and joining a band. It is a cool concept. Especially when you are a mother of two and you work full time.

The concept is easy, you join in, and the organizers pair you up with other like-minded musicians and create a band. There are about 5 different bands each session, which lasts 10 weeks. Each bands practices and rehearses in a rehearsal studio, plays out at different venues, records a couple of songs in a full-on recording studio and then it all culminates in a big show with all of the bands performing live at a venue. My wife has really enjoyed it, and she gets a little time for herself and is able do what she loves to do. Below is a video of her and the band at the big show! It is awesome. The song really kicks in after a few verses, so be sure to watch the whole thing. If it takes too long to load, click the HD button at the bottom of the video screen to load the lower-res version.