BC Visit and (Salmon) fishing trip

Our BC visit was great, as always. We got a good amount of visiting both friends and family, and even after being out there for 2 whole weeks, it went by extremely fast and didn't get to visit everyone we wanted to.  With my having to work in Both Edmonton and Vancouver for a few days each, the trip seemed even quicker than usual. We also had GORGEOUS weather the whole time we were there. It was the summer that they never got. I'm talking high 20's and even into the 30's some days, clear and sunny every day. It was awesome that we lucked out since they've had such a crummy summer.

When we arrived on Tuesday and had one day to visit then I was off to Edmonton for 3 days on Thursday morning.  I arrived back on Saturday and met up with Marn and the kids at her friend Judith and her partner's place for a visit and then back with the Asbury's on Sunday evening.  On the following Tuesday I was in the Vancouver office for 2 days, and then the rest of the week off for vacation.  So I was quite busy!  Actually, all of September was a blur for me. Being away in BC for the first 2 weeks and then back for 4 days, and then off to Texas for a conference for another 4 days after that.

The BC trip was spent mostly just hanging out and catching up and letting the kids play a lot.... Madison was amazing with Violet and Desmond and wanted to do everything for them and with them.  We felt like we had a personal babysitter the whole time we were there.  It was quite a nice break (for Marn especially!)

We finally made it over to the Vancouver Aquarium for the day with Adrienne and the kids and made plans to meet up with a friend who moved to BC about a year ago and works there now.  He gave us free tickets to get in for all of us, which was so awesome! We didn't expect that.  We loved it and had a lot of fun. After the day we met up with another friend for dinner at their place - they weren't expecting that we'd have our kids and so didn't plan for dinner until 9 pm... the kids did great though. Violet was falling asleep on my lap during dinner. Can you blame her, though? It was probably 10pm!

The kid gang outside of the Vancouver Aquarium - Maybe the last time it will be there as we heard they're moving it from that location.

Violet looking out at one of the lookout points at Stanley Park after the Aquarium visit.

Violet licking her Birthday cupcake icing.

 

One of the highlights of the trip for me was flying over to Tofino with Dennis for a 1 day salmon fishing trip in Ucluelete which is about a 30 minute drive south from the Tofino airport. Beautiful and amazing flight over... want to do it again! (and this time catch some Salmon!)  Den let me fly the plane home which was very cool.  He did take off and landing, but I did pretty much everything in between. Very fun. When you think about how long the trip would have been with out your own personal plane, it doesn't sound as appealing, but it would still be tons of fun.  But the fact that we left on Friday and had wheels up by about 1 PM and landed in Tofino at about 2:45, fished the next morning and then were back home on Saturday by 6pm is just amazing considering that Google Maps tells me that it takes about 7 hours to get from White Rock to Tofino by "normal" means (car & ferry). Den timed it so that we'd land in Tofino in time to make the resort's bus that was picking up other guests.  We just hopped on and "free loaders" both ways.  :)
I'm so grateful that Den was able to do that with me.  As an added bonus to the already awesome trip, we got to see a big grey whale up close and personal! It was just hanging out right near our boat for probably an hour.  Very, very cool.

As for the fishing.... well, everyone on the boat was skunked for Salmon, but we decided to try for other fish and came home with a pretty good haul.  Den did awesome and got probably more than anyone else there.  The crew cleaned it all on the way back to shore and had it all bagged for you when you got off.  Good deal!

What wasn't a good deal was the sea sickness... ugh! I was not feeling well as the ocean was rocking something fierce.  I took my eyes off the horizon one time and it just hit me... barfed my guts out!  This after 2 or 3 times that dude beside us did (I blame him... haha).  Den also said he wasn't feeling very well and had to concentrate hard to keep it in. I think he was trying to make me feel better about it!

 

It's funny... since that day, I get motion sick so easily now.  Coincidence or not, I don't know, but the other day I was reading in the car which I've never had a problem with before, but had to put it down and "concentrate"... lol   Not good.

As a super bonus on this fishing trip, we saw lots of whales, and one even hung out beside our boat for over an hour. It was incredible! I managed to get some video of it from my phone;

ps: I had this post in Draft mode for a long time waiting to add pictures, but I decided to just post it.

hmm

I suppose we should post something on here.  Haven't had any motivation to blog lately....  some posts over the past 1.5 months are coming up!  But let's be honest, you just want to see pics of the kids.  :)

Happy 1st Birthday Desmond!!

Another post that's been in "Draft" for a long time. Again awaiting pictures, but could only find cell phone pics?  I didn't want to leave Desmond's first birthday off of the blog either, so forcing an update now.

We had a few smaller celebrations for Desmond.  With the Asbury's while visiting there (actually, that was for Violet...), our own family, then with Marn's family, and another at Teresa's house with Mom and Dad combined with a Thanksgiving dinner.

Here's the birthday boy on the morning of the big day.

The birthday celebration at Teresa and Branko's will be remembered for a lot of reasons, but right up there is the cake that Teresa made to celebrate.  It was delicious! But it was a drunken sponge cake with nuts on top... for a 1st birthday!  Marn and I had a good laugh over that one, but it really was Very Good!  To bad my kids didn't get any of it!  LOL

Leaks!

As everyone knows by now, we had our roof replaced recently.  It was literally pouring through Desmond's ceiling on one particularly bad (raining Very hard) night.  The glass light cover in his room was absolutely FILLED with water, right over the bulbs... scary. So we had to bite the bullet and replace the roof.  We were hoping to hold out another year or so as Marnie had just went back to work and money isn't so abundant, but it couldn't wait.  My tar patching wasn't holding at all (and in hindsight, I think I made it worse from walking around on it), so I had to go up and nail tarps down until we could find someone to do it, which helped a lot and even stopped it temporarily.  I haven't been up in the attic since the new roof and since all of the water came through, but I suppose I should so that to make sure there's no mould or other problems occurring from that.  I have yet to patch the roof from the water leaks -- add it to the list!

Well now that it's done, we're happy.  No stress over the winter about it failing, which would probably be the worst possible time to have to do a roof as most businesses shut down over the winter. Some still do it, but I'm sure there's a premium for it.  The guy who did the roofing mentioned that there was no rotten pieces of wood to replace and that it wasn't wet at all, or hardly at all, so that was also a relief.  I guess my tarps did a decent job for the 2 weeks to find someone.  From all the wetness in the ceiling, we're finding that it's cracked a lot at all the seams.  The living room is bad and maybe the worst of it all, unfortunately.  When we moved in, there were 2 cracks in the living room ceiling that we had fixed, and it's cracked at those 2 places again. There also a few water marks, and paint bubbling in certain spots and then of course the kids bedrooms.  A complete PITA, but I suppose it could have been a lot worse.

Before and After!

 

Notice the front of the house looks fine? The lady replaced the front half of the house and not the back for some unknown reason - cheapskate? had she done the whole roof, we'd likely have another 5-10 years out of it since the front was fine.

 

Good riddance red roof!

First day of PreSchool...

Violet at her first day of Pre-School at the ECEC on the campus of U of W.  There may have been some tears (mine, not hers) and there may have been lots of hugs and kisses (from me to her).  Hope all went well.  I will pick her up at 3:30.  Wearing her new backpack, with a spare pair of shoes and a drink in box in it!  Minor emergency before we left as Cat was missing from the backpack, but don't you worry, she still needs mommy for some things! I found cat in a jiffy and off we went!

This is her in front of her cubby - the one in the corner, she wanted to make sure I knew she was standing in front of it...it was not the one beside her.
I ask you, is she really old enough for school?

BC Bound!

We're going to BC with the kids for 2 weeks!  We didn't think it was going to happen this year because flights were kind of expensive and the timing wasn't working out, but we found decent flights and bit the bullet.... we really wanted the Asbury's to meet Desmond before he turns into a little boy! (Which he is already...) :(
I'll be splitting my time between vacation and working in Vancouver and Edmonton, so the two weeks will go by really fast, I'm sure.
REALLY looking forward to it!!   ...and a little bit nervous about how Desmond will do with a long flight on our laps - the kid wants to go go go!