Going back

We spent Canadian thanksgiving weekend in Victoria with some good friends and the kids visited the school and caught up with teachers and friends from last year. Madeline seemed to be working on the if I say it enough it will happen option of I want to stay in Canada, though we're pretty sure that it actually has to be James Bay.

last night

 

The same but different

It's a little deja'vu feeling to be back in the same house we moved into a year ago, in fact we moved back in on the same day. The house looks much as it did but we have more stuff so it's taking longer to put things in places.
This time of course I have an almost one year old crawling around the place, pulling up on things. She finds the front loading washer fascinating. Pulls up on the door and watches it going around.

Liam is going to the local school this year. He's in a composite grade 1/2 class with Mr Borich so far (day 5) he likes it. Mr B as they all call him plays the guitar and this seems to be the main feature of school so far. That and he likes coming home with his agenda book and instructions for us. We walk down and back and so far I've only picked him up in the car twice, once Madeline's dance starts tomorrow we'll need to pick up in the car on tuesdays, the timing could be better, I have to get across town in 15min, which will be tight.

Madeline will start Preschool tomorrow and unlike any of my other school choices I have done no research into their style in fact its run by ECE's and they have no parent participants, but she'll go two mornings a week and it's conveniently in the same building as Liam's class.

Madeline, Izabel and I went to a creative play morning last week at the James Bay Project. Madeline enjoyed it more than Izabel, thou she had a nice sleep and enjoyed the songs at the end. Izabel and I might go to a toddler drop in tomorrow, which will be quite a novelty.

Victoria is having a long balmy summer this year, I'm sure it was colder last year, thou the nights and mornings are getting cooler I find that halfway to school the extra layer I put on is no longer necessary.

We had a good trip around northern BC at the beginning of August. We took the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert then drove to Jasper National Park, along the Icefields Parkway and back. We spent a lot of time in the car which the kids got a bit sick of. I'll put some pictures up one I download the camera.

Last weekend Victoria Tourism had a 'Tourist in your hometown' promotion, it started on wednesday and ended sunday, so thursday the kids and I visited the undersea garden and the wax works museum, saturday, Richard and Liam went to the Maritime museum and Madeline and I went on a bus tour and to the Miniture world. I found the undersea gardens a bit dated, the glass area was like small submarine windows, thou the anemones were huge. Richard was off to the US for work on sunday afternoon so we took him to the airport. Never a favourite activity with us, the kids like to take him, but don't really want him to get on the plane and go. Several times this week when Madeline saw seaplanes over the harbour she thought dad was on it.
The usual round of dance, gym and sportball happened. Liam's doing gym twice a week as we have some makeup classes from when we were away, he's enjoying that and it's at an earlier time, so I think his concentration is a bit better. Liam and I went for a walk on Ross Bay Beach while Madeline had Sportball and we all had a spring nature walk and play in Beacon Hill Park. The kids enjoy telling me what they want pictures of, this trip it was all spring flowers.

Last night we collected Richard from the airport, thou Canadian Immigration wanted to see him again this morning as they weren't happy with his paperwork, so he walked down to see them at the wharf and was denied entry. So today we went to the airport again to put him on a plane back to Seattle. We're still figuring out where it's best for 'us' (me and the kids) to be. Really depends how long it's going to take for Richard's ducks to line up.

Fish

Last weekend we got out of Victoria and found the Salmon Run was happening on a nearby River. So we stopped and had a look.

Salmon Run,