Tofino Trip 2012 - Chemainus

We are back from camping and I'm ready to get this blog updated!! I still have so many pictures from our Tofino trip that I'd like to share.

After leaving our hotel in Victoria, we headed for Tofino. We made one little pit-stop along the way - Chemainus. In all the years that Jonathan and I lived in Victoria, we'd never been in to the little town, known for it's many murals. We decided, being in tourist mode, that we'd stop and take a look around.

Marilyn and Edison, tightly packed into the back of the car 

"How long do I have to stand in front of this big tree??" 

You can take a train ride tour of the murals

The murals are really amazing! 

Their cute little downtown 

Love this sculpture! 

I was still taking pictures as we were driving out of town!

I'm glad we stopped and walked around, what a cool little place to visit! Next stop: Tofino!

Tofino Trip 2012 - Victoria

In the beginning of July, Jonathan, Edison, Marilyn and I left for a two week trip to the Island. We spent most of the time in Tofino and Ucuelet... Jonathan had surfing on the brain... but we also made a couple of other stops along the way.

Jonathan and I wanted to spend a day in Victoria at some point on our trip. We both went to the University of Victoria, spent a few years living there and have some very fond memories. Since moving back to the mainland (7 years ago!!) we've only been back to Victoria a couple of times.... we can thank ridiculously overpriced BC Ferries for that.

We decided to head to Victoria first, spend the day doing the sightseeing/tourist thing, spend the night there and then head to Tofino first thing the next morning.

Edison had fun on the ferry, as usual...

Our day in Victoria was fun! The first thing on our agenda was finding a hotel so that we could drop of the two bikes and three surfboards we were carting around on our car. We came across the Admiral Inn and really liked it. It was nice, not super expensive, and we had our own entrance which was handy for unloading all our stuff. We would totally stay there again. And the best part was, it was only a two minute walk to the inner harbour!

Edison loved his new digs... the Peapod toddler bed 

Bringing all his toys into his tent 

Marilyn, never missing a chance to practice her violin

After unloading we headed over the the harbour to walk around. I forgot how busy and touristy it gets there, but it was still fun to see all the awesome buildings and all the vendors selling their wares. We wandered down on the causeway, past the Empress Hotel, took a stop at the Parliament buildings, and then headed back to our hotel.

There was a street performer who was totally awesome at what she did and so entertaining to watch. Most of the time she stood like a statue... but if you put money in her jar, she'd move and show you that she wanted you to have your picture taken with her. Marilyn wanted to give her money because she was so good... but didn't really want to go in for the picture. As you can see... Marilyn didn't really have much of a choice...

After our walk we did a few other things to end the day. We ate at a couple of our favourite places from when we lived there, Jonathan went skateboarding at the skatepark he used to work at, and Marilyn and I went on a drive out to good old Costco for a few things.

It was a fun day. I'm so glad we were able to spend a bit of time there... I definitely miss that city!

Airport Day

Back in June, the Pitt Meadows Airport hosted it's annual Airport Day. This is'd the first year that we been to it and we really enjoyed it. There is one member of our family who had a particularly awesome time... Edison is still in love with airplanes!

There were quite a few demonstrations, as well as a ton of airplanes to look at.

Walking to the airport, toy airplane in hand 

Creepy helicopter graveyard  

Edison wanted to touch every plane he saw 

We saw quite a few skydivers 

This was the biggest seaplane I've ever seen! 

Edison found one his size 

This one was my favourite... nice and girly 

These helicopter guys did a demo, it was really cool.... and loud! 

These pictures are of the airplane that Jonathan flies in his flight lessons. We were able to take a look at it and sit in it. Edison was a little freaked out at first... he'd never actually been inside an airplane before.

It was a fun day... and a free event which is a bonus. We'll definitely be back again next year!

I'm Baack!

Well, this has got to be a record... I have't blogged in over a month! I didn't die. I didn't give up on blogging. But I seemed to have one reason after another for why I couldn't take the time to put something up on the blog. Let me list my excuses (even though there's really no excuse for my partial laziness) and give the rundown on what we've been up to in the past month:

The end of June brought the end of work for a couple of months... hallelujah! I was totally pooped out and ready for a break. A week after school ended we had a cabin booked in Tofino for a week. I knew that a day after we got back from our trip, we were going to have a full house for Edison's birthday party. So that week between school ending and leaving for our little vacation, I spent cleaning the house and getting stuff ready for Edison's party, as well as packing all of the stuff that we needed for 10 days. Anyone who has traveled with a child knows... they come with a lot of stuff! So that last week was a busy one to say the least.

Our trip to Tofino was awesome! I will write more blog posts just about the trip and add tons of pictures. Stay tuned for all of those. I had planned to do a lot of catching up on the blog while we were in Tofino... however a tragedy struck. A few days into our trip, a little bit of water spilled onto my beloved laptop. At first I didn't even think any water touched it.... however a few minutes later it started doing really weird things.... then it just wouldn't turn on and I knew I was in big trouble. So, for the rest of our trip, I had no computer... which was a weird feeling because I'm a little emotionally attached to it.

Thanks to BC Ferries making us wait an obscene amount of time to get on a ferry, we didn't get home until after 11pm on the Sunday that we left Tofino. We had the Monday to get everything ready for Edison birthday party. My sister Sara and her Husband Ryan were home for a few days so Auntie Sara came over to make Edison the most awesome birthday cake that ever existed. Blog post about that to follow.

Edison's party was super fun. It was mainly just an excuse to get family and friends together for a visit.... as Edison still really has no idea what's going on. It was fun... it was also a very HOT day!

After the party day, we took my computer into the Mac store in Metrotown to find out the damage. They opened it up and told me that the water made its way in pretty good and that I'd need a new motherboard. This was not what I wanted to hear! Anybody who knows Mac products knows... they are not cheap! My computer was in the shop for about a week. I was very excited to have it back.... and very not excited about how much money it took to get it back.

That brings us to about a week ago. Jonathan and I were at his friend Alex & Jess' wedding and as the night went on, I started to know I had a cold coming on. It was weird... it hit so fast, all the sudden I felt awful! So, I've spend the past week with one of the worst colds I've had in a long time. It feels so unnatural to have a cold in the middle of summer.

And that brings us to now. I'm finally getting my energy back and starting to feel a little bit more normal. My computer works again.... so I'd better get my butt in gear before people think I've given up blogging forever.

I have tons of pictures to share of our adventures from the past couple of months... so get ready for whole lot of updating coming your way!