Tag: adventure

Caithlin’s grade 12 graduation!

My niece Caithlin, who is also my godchild, graduated this June! They do things a little differently in Medicine Hat, AB … her graduation ceremony and prom was in May. Since my parents were still living with us in Victoria and my Dad was unable to travel, I flew to Medicine Hat to celebrate the wonderful lady that my niece is.

We are so proud of her. I spent some really wonderful quality time with Caithlin that I will treasure. Her group of friends were pretty amazing too. I love Caithlin’s personality and funky nature. I mean she wore red converse high tops to her graduation ceremony & prom. She is way cooler than me.

Congratulations Caithlin!

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Airport good-bye:

Caithlin & her Mom- my sister Sarah:

pre-ceremony celebration at Caithlin’s home (top right= my nephew Ethan & Caithlin, bottom left= Caithlin & step-mom Amanda, bottom right= Caithlin & her grandparents):

Police Point park- my favorite park in Medicine Hat, AB:

Graduation:

Prom:

 

New Years 2018!

After the Christmas holidays we needed a little get-away. New Years seemed like a great time to celebrate with friends.

We headed up island to Parksville to celebrate with our friend Corry & Shannon and their families. It was a quick one night trip. To make the drive a bit more fun we took a ferry from Brentwood Bay to Mill Bay to avoid the Malahat. We visited the Coombs old country market and visited the famous goats there. Lucky us we visited on the last day the market was open for the season! We ventured into Parksille and had a fun and rambunctious late night with the kids and our friends.

 

Summer in Sooke

Towards the end of our summer vacation we organized a trip to Sooke. Every summer we spend a weekend with Wendy, Chris & Senna out at their home in Sooke. There is so much to do and see. Jimmy wasn’t with us this year as he had a skate board event in Port Alberni. While he had his fun we had some as well.

So the kids & I packed up and went on a mini adventure! We had such a fun time in Sooke…making delicious homemade ice cream, playing with Senna’s old toys, visiting the Sheringham lighthouse, camping out on the back porch, hitting a fun playground, walking Whiffen Spit. I cannot forget our epic movie marathon once Claire & Rhys went to sleep… the cheesiest but oh so good vampire movies–> The Twilight Saga. Getting called out by my niece for using my phone was pretty funny too!

We did SO much in just two days. I am so grateful to have such a great sister-in-law, brother-in-law and niece so close by. We always have a good time.

Ice cream- Yum!:

Sheringham Lighthouse:

 

 

Playmobil/ Lego & playground fun:

 

Camping out:

 

Whiffen Spit:

Learn to Fish at Elk Lake

I enjoyed fishing when I was a kid (I even won a trophy for a fishing derby in Sooke that my Dad’s work put on) so when I saw that there was a free learn-to-fish night for kids I signed us up!

The Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC runs free two hour sessions throughout BC. They stock lakes throughout the province with fish for fishing purposes so teaching children & adults the rules and how to properly handle fish makes sense.

On a sunny evening at Elk Lake we gathered with several other families to learn to fish. We learned about different types of fish, how to hold a fish, types of bait, fishing rules and then we had over an hour to use fishing rods to test out our new skills. The rods were pretty large so Rhys struggled a bit. There were so many kids in a row at the lakes edge that fishing lines were getting tangled etc. The bait was worms which was a gross factor for the kids. Rhys went for a walk with Jimmy to the nearby dock to take a break. Claire had her sights set on catching a fish. Those who were positioned nearby the reeds kept catching fish so Claire walked over and somehow found a spot there as well 🙂 The instructor called out last fish of the night and Claire caught a fish on her very last try! She caught a Bass fry.

Not sure if we will fish again anytime soon but we had fun on the lake that evening!

 

Can you spot the little fish?

 

Christmas 2016

Christmas was very fun this year! We stayed in Victoria and had my Mom spent the holidays with us. My Dad joined us after Christmas.

We visited the museum, did a fun art project at 4Cats, had a great early Christmas morning, had our annual brunch with Debbie on Christmas day, walk on the break water, and Butchart Gardens annual Christmas light visit. I love our holiday traditions and spending time with family.

 

Pre-Christmas Museum visit:

4Cats art class:

Christmas day:

Break-water walk with Nana & Papa:

 

Butchart Gardens:

Snow day!

The house we live in has a giant front & back yard. There is a slope along the side of the house that runs from the back to the front. One morning in December we woke up to snow! It does not snow very often in Victoria so when we saw that it was frozen and cold we knew it would be an epic day to sled.

Our van was iced in the driveway so we couldn’t get out anyway to take the kids to school. So….I booked a day off and the kids took a snow day! Sadly, Jimmy can’t take days off work since he is on-call with the school district.

At 6am we bundled up and headed outdoors to sled. The day was great…lots of sledding, building snowmen and making snow angels. We took regular trips inside for hot cocoa and to warm up. Claire & Rhys both said “best school day ever”!

 

Jumping for joy- no school!

Somehow Rhys had Claire pull him up the hill each time!

Videos- click to open:

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Vancouver summer trip

Last summer we traveled to Vancouver for a mini vacation. We wanted to spend time checking out all the fun tourist things and to visit old friends. We stayed downtown for two nights so we could catch the sky-train and walk around the city. We visited the Aquarium, did some shopping, visited Science World and had a blast.

After our stay downtown we drove over to North Vancouver to stay with our good friends Faye & Niels. I have known Faye since my first year at University. She was my roommate in residence! The University placed us together randomly and have been friends since. We had a great two nights spending time with Faye and her family. We also visited with our friends and the kids surrogate grandmother, Evelyn, who was our neighbor in our old condo building when we lived in North Vancouver. We spent some time with her and her boyfriend Barney. They were so sweet and it was nice to catch up on all the condo gossip 😉 We also had some time to have a picnic with our South African friends Kim, Ryan and their two sons Kye and Fin. We spent a lot of time together when Claire & Rhys were babies as Kim and I worked together and had an overlap with our maternity leaves. We used to swap child minding which I miss so much! A bonus of staying with Faye & Niels is we tagged along to another friends big BBQ so we were able to see lots of old friends and they have the best backyard that Claire & Rhys made the most of.

We had a great trip and we are excited to make it an annual summer adventure.

 

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Science World:

Aquarium:

Lions Gate Bridge to West & North Vancouver:

Faye & Niels home:Faye & Nield

Evelyn & Barney:

Kim & Ryan clan:Kim & Ryan

 

Lisa & Sean’s BBQ…best backyard for kids:

And of course….Jimmy found a pool to skate 😉

 

The Historic Kinsol Trestle

Sunday seems to be our go-to day of the week to do some fun adventures. The kids are enrolled in a sports class on Saturday mornings and after a busy work week we like to relax on Saturdays.

This past Sunday we drove to Shawnigan Lake to visit the historic Kinsol Trestle. It is a wooden railway trestle located north of Shawnigan Lake which is about a 45 minute drive from our house. A description on the parks website is:

“The Kinsol Trestle is one of eight trestles along the Cowichan Valley Trail route and by far the largest and most spectacular. The Kinsol Trestle is one of the tallest free-standing and most spectacular timber rail trestle structures in the world. At 614 feet in length and standing 145 feet above the salmon bearing Koksilah River, the Kinsol is an incredible structure and was worth preserving.”

We had to walk along a trail for 1.5km to get to the trestle from the parking area and it was amazing! The views were really pretty with a river down below. There were hiking trails that led to the river and we could see some people swimming in the river. The kids had a tonne of energy and we ran races the whole way to the start of the trestle. We had packed a lunch and snacks and sat at one of the available picnic tables and enjoyed the beautiful day. This was a great spot to take kids.

 

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