Savary Island - A Photo Tour

The end of the summer was a lovely break from work with lots of great family time at home and on Savary Island. Plans took their time to get together with Rob's unpredictable work situation, but at the last moment he was able to join us for the full week.



And Savary? It was amazing... the island was everything I had hoped. The cabin we rented was perfect; quiet, private, safe, close to and containing everything we needed. We spent our days zipping all over the island to explore beaches on the cabin's rusty, too-small bikes; Mia in the trailer and Lucas either riding his own bike our hitching a ride on my rat trap. The rain we received inspired giant forts and roasted marshmallows by the fireplace as well as slug hunting on soggy hikes. We ate oysters we harvested ourselves, built marvelous driftwood castles, collected hundreds of shells and sand dollars, watched incredulously as deer munched wild blueberries beside our porch, whispered quietly as the gigantic woodpeckers made their way through mottled trees, read our books while children slept, swung in trees, had candle-lit baths, found sand-snakes and became very creative with food rations. Lucas ate ice-cream for breakfast twice, we forgot our bike helmets and rode recklessly down bumpy roads, blew a tire, lost cash out of open pockets, and didn't care. Lucas and Rob rented a rickety scooter that cost a fortune, lost it's speedometer while driving and wouldn't start after it was stopped. Mia had baths in a bucket on the porch after the beach, played nude golf and slept in a nest on the bedroom floor. Lucas slept in a tent, played magnetic fishing by candlelight, whipped around on a hot-pink run-bike abandoned at the cabin, was buried alive, and perfected his throw of a tennis ball. It was great time to connect as a family, extended for a few days and then blissfully just us for the rest. No phones, no internet, no tv, no computer, no light. A very happy puppy and a super unwound family.

We can't wait for next year to do it all again.

Camping at Porpoise Bay

Since we are leaving for Savary Island on Saturday and I'll surely want to post pictures after that, I thought I'd better throw some up from our long weekend jaunt to Porpoise Bay, Sechelt.

It was a really fun-filled weekend of giant starfish and jellyfish, a squishy tent, racoon invasions, smores and late-night lantern reads. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries, so I only have photos from the first drizzly day.

Mia and Pillo

Ok, how funny is Pillo in this picture?!

So much fun...

...such little time to write about it.

Summer has come. And with it has come a tidal wave of activity that seemed about ready to burst through the walls of our house only weeks ago. Thank goodness the weather faeries cooperated and agreed to let us enjoy our summer with the somewhat normalcy of anticipated good weather.

I had a great week off between terms, and am now two weeks into summer school, but this new schedule of working only mornings is allowing me to really enjoy the best of what the summer days have to offer. Our weekends have also been jam-packed. Yippee!

Let me take you on a small photo journey of some of the highlights of the last few weeks.

These pictures are from a weekend camping with our good friends the Humes. Kirstie and I decided to be really brave and take the four kids camping without our other halves. Although my greatest fear was losing a child in the woods, the greatest obstacle ended up being the accident on highway 99 that closed the highway for several hours. We left Vancouver at 12:30 and arrived at Alice Lake (just outside of Squamish) at 7pm. Yes. I also am surprised we made it. We discovered the trick to too many hours with small children in a car that is not moving very fast is to give the kid that is annoying you most to the other mom. We each spent the tormentous drive feeling sorry for the other and slightly smug that we didn't have to deal with child X. Brilliant.

It was a fantastic trip. We lost no children. We had great weather. We even slept a little. We were very pleased with ourselves for our gumption and are planning another spouse less weekend.

We have acquired a frog. My mother laughed somewhat hysterically when I told her this and then said, "You don't remember your frog Lily Higgins, do you?" I chose to ignore the underhanded allknowingness of her comments... but now three weeks, three pet-store for crickets, two water changes and no interest from the children has made me review her remarks. Apparently Lily Higgins was re appropriated to the pond next door.



Anyone want a fire-bellied toad? (At least for a few weeks?!)





Lucas now loves my camera. My new camera. The one I saved my pennies for and have been coveting for a long time. The one that weighs more than he can typically handle carrying around. That one, yes. But to his credit, he can take some fine photos with it. For example these lovely portraits of Rob and I. Who would have known that my camera was capable of taking pictures of me?

A breakfast joint in Pike Place Market, Seattle. By Lucas Herman.

Constructing in the Children's Museum in Seattle.

Immediately after the camping trip we took a family trip to Seattle. I was none too pleased with the border line-ups nor the traffic on the highway, having already spent far more time in our truck than I ever wanted to that week, but the trip was worth the wait. It was in luxurious contrast to camping and we had some really good times seeing the tourist sites and just hanging around.

Mia is building her own sand box (or mud puddle) in the back yard. I may have to break down and buy a sand box.

Mom has left for Ecuador for six weeks. It has left me feeling a little sad and lonely, for who else will listen to my endless babble day in and day out?, but I am happy that she will spend the summer with her cousins.

Biking the sea wall in Stanley Park.

Good Times

Beer and burgers on the patio at The Garibaldi Lift Company watching the mountain bikers. Lucas and Mia were both fascinated and inspired. (As were Rob and I, but it also made us feel old and out of shape!)

We spent a rather last-minute, but well deserved long weekend at Whistler this last weekend; serendipity allowing us the few gorgeous days of sun that June has seen so far. After our last get-away, which found us condo jailed without rain gear forcing us to abort our plans, this was a rare treat. We packed a whole lot of fun into few short days including celebrating Rob for father's day in grand style at the water park, a fishing adventure at Rainbow Park, scandalous dining at The Old Spaghetti Factory, and many, many trips down the Intrawest water slide. I think we all came home with chlorine bleached hair and wrinkled skin.

These picture are so amazing to me. My mom has countless photos on this same dock (Lakeside Park) on Alta lake right by our old cabin, but in it are George and I - not much older than Lucas and Mia are here.

Rainbow Park fishies being terrorized by children with nets. All in good fun and back to the lake they went.

The catch.

Happiness is coming home from Whistler to discover your strawberry plant has been busy making gloriously red, shiny, sweet fruit.

Cold Activities

Ok, so I know it's not THAT cold, but it certainly is annoying that our summer refuses to actually commit. Our activities this week were not as sun-loving as I was craving, but that was partially due to a some little colds that Lucas, Mia and I have acquired.

On Tuesday we got to see our primo Pucci, which is always great. Mia took full advantage of snuggles and Lucas of cookies by George.

On Thursday I treated myself to a pedicure which I promptly tucked into socks and shoes for work because I was freezing. By Friday we all felt pretty under the weather so we stayed in our pj's most of the day. (Ok, Lucas stayed in them all day) Here is a photo of our castle that we made. It was the first time I had seen Mia actually have a longer than ten minute interest in the crafts, but she still went to bed that night with glitter glued into her hair.

Saturday was all about work and chores, but today we packed a picnic and went to Maplewood Farm. It was a great choice for an overcast day. We all had a blast that included lots of goat hugs, chicken chasing and a pretty darn cute pony ride.