Vancouver, B.C.

As what seemed like a special treat, I got to start my day down at the gym on the 4th floor of our hotel. It's been so long since I've been to a gym, it really seemed like a treat. I worked out, I swam, I sat in the steam room and sauna...ahhh, the small things in life.

After my workout, we had breakfast in the hotel, then set out on a walk around the city to see what we could find. It was cold, high 40's to mid 50's and rainy. We set out on a pathway that lead around the bay and just walked as far as we could. We walked around a place called Stanley Park, it's very large and we only scratched the surface. As we walked the rain stopped and it warmed up for us a bit, we were comfortable. Both Josh and Katie slept for quite awhile.

We turned back after quite some time and headed back to our hotel, we were getting hungry and need lunch. We found a wonderful store a block away from our hotel that is like a Whole Foods, we bought some chicken and veggies for lunch and a few snacks and a few items for our dinner. We got back to our room and ate our lunch. I laid down for just a minute to rest and an hour later, I woke up surprised that I had fallen asleep. I haven't had this much exercise in a long time! By the time I woke up, the sun was shining and it was beautiful outside, so we decided to take another walk into town where all the trendy shops were. We walked around there for awhile, lots of stores, restaurants, and mostly coffee shops, on every corner there were coffee shops....we found a little sushi for our dinner and came back to our room. Josh ate a peanut butter sandwich and then he and his sister went to bed.

While Rico and I enjoyed the sunset and our beautiful view, we ate sushi, bread, cheese, and roasted peppers while sipping on a nice bottle of wine. What a nice way to end our day.

More Traveling

Wednesday seemed like another long day of travel, even though our actual flight was only 11 minutes.

We woke up in the morning, packed all our bags, checked out of the hotel and loaded up our mini van. We had breakfast at the same place for the third morning in a row, then took the hour and half long drive back to the airport. By the time we checked in and went through security in this tiny little airport, it was time to board the little puddle jumper to "cross the street" into Vancouver. When we arrived, we took the long journey to the baggage claim, loaded up all our things, and took another long journey to the car rental location.

We loaded up our new mini van and then headed out towards the city, we had no idea where we were going, so we just followed signs to the City Centre and eventually that lead us downtown and to our hotel, the Marriot. We're right on the water, and there are sea planes right out our window that we're all having fun watching take off and land.

We were all tired when we made it to our room on the 31st floor, so we spent the evening unpacking, looking out our window and ordering room service.

It's now Thursday morning, it's raining out a little and we're just starting our day. We don't know yet what we are going to do, but first of all, we're going to go check out the gym, maybe a work out or a swim, we're hoping we can take the kids to the pool, we have yet to determine that. That's about it for now.

Joshua's Calgary Flames Shirt

On Saturday morning, Mike went out shopping for some things for our big dinner that evening, when he got back, not only did he have things for our dinner, he had a Johnny Jumper for Katie, which she loves, and a really cool Calgary Flames jersey for Joshua. Well, Joshua loved this jersey so much that he has not taken it off since he got it. The only time he's had it off is to take a bath, other than that, 24/7, he even sleeps in it! Silly boy. I'd say it was a hit Mike. So if you notice in all our pictures that he has this shirt on, it is actually different days, many different days....

Pictures From Our Flight

Sea Plane Ride

It's Tuesday afternoon and we just came back from a walk to the harbour, it's just a couple blocks from here. We went on a 20 minute tour of the island, on a sea plane! Rico was so excited, he was just like a little kid! He asked if he could be the co-pilot, and the pilot said sure, so Rico got to sit in the front seat. Joshie, Katie and I sat in the back. The plane had really big windows, so it was easy to see from all sides.

Our tour was only about 20 minutes, it went by really fast, but we got to see a big portion of the island and some of the ocean too. If we were lucky, we would have seen some whales, but not for us, not today.

Katie fell asleep right away, the very loud humming of the motor upset her at first, but within minutes, she was fast asleep. Josh seemed to like the ride, looking out the windows and smiling, but about the last 5 minutes, the humming put him to sleep too, he tried so hard to keep his eyes open, but it finally got the best of him, and he was passed out on my arm, it was sooo cute!

Before we knew it, our tour was over! It sure was lots of fun. We're now here back in our room taking a rest, we all seem to be tired today, so we haven't done too much, and really don't plan to, it's just an easy day. We'll probably walk a little more this afternoon, window shopping and dinner. That's about it.

We originally planned our trip here to Victoria in order to spend time with a good friend of my mom's that I have known since I was a kid. It turns out she's not feeling well, so we thought we would just play it by ear, I tried to call her today, but I can't get through on her number, so I think we're going to miss her all together, so that's a little disappointing.

Tomorrow afternoon we take the 15 minute flight again back to Vancouver where we will spend 4 days, the last leg of our trip. With no plans there either, we have no idea what there is to do or what we will do...sounds like fun...

Victoria, B.C.

We got up Monday morning from our hotel and inquired about a place for breakfast. We like to go where the locals go, so we were told that John's Place is a good place to go. We walked the few blocks through the little town to the restaurant and we had a very nice wholesome, relatively cheap meal. We liked it so much, we'll probably go back for breakfast again.

We then spent the day wandering around the town. Victoria reminds us of San Francisco and Seattle and the weather was just perfect, about 65 degrees. We wandered through shops and stores and we found a maritime museum, Josh had fun looking at all the models of old ships. Down by the water we found a charter plane that gives tours throughout the area, so Rico signed us up for a flight on Tuesday at noon, so we're excited about that.

Time goes by so fast, before we knew it, it was about 4:00 and we were tired, so we went back to our hotel, the Empress,. It's a very old, beautiful hotel located in the heart of the town of Victoria, it's located right near the water, so the view is very beautiful, but we learned during the night, it's very noisy. We heard babies crying and showers being taken and toilets being flushed. It's a beautiful old place, but so far, it's not our favorite.

At 5:30 we took a short walk to a restaurant we found on our travels earlier in the day and we both had a wonderful seafood meal. Rico had seafood risotto and I had Alaskan King Crab and lobster...we both loved our dinner! We had a little too much wine, so we took a walk before going back home, and since Josh didn't like his dinner at the restaurant, we found a McDonalds and got him a happy meal, and he ate every bite of that hamburger by the time we got back to our room.

The time goes by so fast, just like that, another day is done. Tomorrow a short tour on a sea plane. We're really looking forward to that.

A Long Day of Travel

We spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening traveling. An hour and a half plane ride from Calgary to Vancouver, an hour lay over, than a 15 minute flight on a tiny prop plane from Vancouver to Nanimo and then an hour and a half drive from Nanimo to Victoria. By the time we found our hotel and checked in, it was well after 9:00 and we were all tired and pretty much went straight to bed.

I sat next to a nice man on the short plane ride. He has lived on the island for many years, so he was kind enough to give us directions to our hotel and suggestions on a few things to do while we are here.

Monday we will check out our surroundings. It should be fun, neither one of us have been here before, so we'll have fun discovering new things....