Travel and Leisure

I had the opportunity to escape Montreal for a day and fly my sister and brother-in-law back to BC. Ok, it probably sounds like I was the one doing the flying, but I was not. Hee hee! Gillian, Raffi and I flew to Vancouver and once there, spent the afternoon together doing a few errands and wolfing down some terrible sushi. From experience, I know that when a pregnant lady wants sushi, the last thing she needs is bad sushi and terrible service. So it's a shame we didn't know ahead of time that we should have eaten elsewhere. Thank you both for such a lovely few days!

Gillian, 8 months pregnant, and Raffi

After dropping them off at a cousins house, I made my way to Denise and Jan's condo in Steveston and waited for Denise to come home from work. After picking Jan up from work, we made our way downtown for dinner and a drink! A few of Jan's friends joined us, as did Karena, who I haven't seen in years!! It was really nice to catch up with Karena, even for the few hours that we had together.

Karena (my long lost, tall, little sister) and Jan.

I had so much fun hanging out with both Denise and Jan. I haven't had much one on one time with Denise for a long time, so it was nice to spend some quality "friend time" with her...and Jan isn't bad either! It sometimes feels like I've known him for just as long as I've known her!

Denise poring over the delicious menu...We tried 3 different dishes! All I can say is...Polenta fries!!! Yum.

When I got back the hot weather decided to make an early appearance, in comparison to last year. It seems strange that we have almost lived here for a year already! At this time last year, Calli, Marin and I (in our car), and my Mum (in her truck) were 3 days in to our trip across Canada.

Nellie was finding it unbearably hot and Marin obliged her by hosing her down.

I think between the two of them, they managed to fill in about an hour of playtime together!

We put up some fencing to keep Nellie out of our gardens, but it hasn't deterred her. She has managed to jump/walk over the fence and eat our newly planted perennials. We were filling in a giant hole in the grass that she'd been digging and came across a little worm. Fearless Marin held the little squiggler in her hand and giggled for a good 5 minutes as it tickled her!

Calli had class picture day at her pre-school the other day. Luckily, she had a range of new clothes to choose from, thanks to Granny. She picked out this gorgeous dress and her hair cooperated in the curl department! When we arrived at the school all the girls had dresses on, so they were thrilled to be able to compliment each other on their attire. I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out.

Because pesticides are forbidden in this part of the country, our grass is in direct competition with a large number of dandelions. My girls think it's the coolest thing to happen!! They pick the fluffy seeds and blow and blow and blow!

Adam and Nellie are like 2 peas in a pod. Nellie adores Adam and frets whenever he leaves the room. Nellie now thinks she is 2nd in command...which doesn't fly well with me.

We saw the tallest dandelions I have ever seen on our hike the other afternoon. The girls were very happy to have such LoNg bouquets of the yellow weeds. They were even happier when their Dad smacked a large bunch of seeds with his arm and caused a rainfall of floaty seeds!

This stagnant little pond is on the hike we go on. Nellie likes to take a little dip in it when we go on our walks. Adam hadn't seen her swim yet and was surprised to see her dunk her head under the water.

Nellie shaking it off.

It's so nice to see how green the leaves are and how everything has grown so much in the last few weeks.

Going....

It's such a nice, quiet, peaceful trail. We only had "traffic" once so far!

...Coming back.

As I said, the weather is warming up. Adam has been working very hard getting the pool up to swim-able standards. Yesterday, we invited Katrina, Gus and Sarah over for a little swim and had our first official dip...and it's only May. Everyone had to take some very deep breaths when they got in, but eventually they said it was warmer in than it was out!

Katrina, holding Sarah, Gus, Marin, Adam and Calli taking the first dip of the year!

My brother will laugh at this, but this is the pose Calli gave me when I lifted the camera up. I guess taking so many pictures of the girls has given them their natural model-esque behaviour.

Colin...she set this one up on her own!

Our local grocery store had a Lobster festival this weekend. We bought 3 lobsters for $25 (cooked or fresh.) We cooked them up lastnight for supper. Luckily, Katrina was here and she is very experienced in lobster cracking and got all the meat out for us. I imagine we would have figured it out eventually, but it helped to have the skills of our friend.


Finally, we have this beautiful Bleeding Heart growing in our garden. It's so pretty. And very hardy!! Calli and Gus were pretending it was candy corn yesterday and were plucking the flowers and eating them. So...we had a talk about how we don't eat plants unless you ask an adult and know they are safe. Oh, the fun of being a parent!!