I got out of the shower last week, and was greeted by this ninja. Let’s just break it down, shall we? He has his dad’s beanie on, including head lamp. His dad’s gloves, his teddy/dog stuffed in his shirt, Buzz Lightyear pajamas, and sword. It was even complete with ninja moves.

This was his mean ninja face.

What am I going to do with this child?

We got up Sunday morning to head back home. Only problem, it was daylight savings. We didn’t know if that applied in Canada or not. Luckily, management left a note saying to turn the clocks. The ferry was leaving at 10:30 am, but we needed to be there about an hour early, but due to daylight savings we needed to leave by 8:30 am. Ouch. We got checked out and waited in line for the ferry. U.S. customs checked our paperwork, along with scanning it. As we were talking to him, I asked since he was U.S. customs, if he lived in Canada or the U.S. He looked at me like I was the dumbest girl. But really? Was he born in the states and then move for his job or how does that work? Anyway, we made it on the boat, and headed up top to get breakfast. Kevin was out not long after we sat down due to Dramamine, so the kids and I checked out the boat.

These were the “pirate ships” in the harbor before we left.

The Empress Hotel… This place was huge, and apparently it’s sinking. They filled in the harbor and then built on top of it in like 1908. Not sure why, maybe to get water front property?

We landed in Port Angeles, and got some lunch. Then, I took a quick picture on my movie outing with Bella and the gang. Actually, we didn’t see a movie, because nothing was appropriate, but it was fun anyway. There was supposed to be a Twilight store nearby, but I didn’t see it. So we took off and headed for our next ferry stop.

We took a ferry north of Seattle this time. We got there right before the ferry was leaving, so we had to wait for the next one. In the process, I could see some girls walking between all the cars. As they approached our car, I realized it was girl scouts selling cookies. Smart little girls. We had 20 minutes to kill, so of course we bought some. I think we ate almost the whole box before even getting on the boat. We made the quick trip across the water and then had the last leg of our journey to finish. We made it home all sane and still liking each other. It was nice to get out of the house, and we had lots of fun.

Tonight before bed, Jameson was playing legos on the floor and I was watching tv. Some type of make-up commercial came on…I wasn’t really paying attention. Next thing I know, Jameson is asking, “Mommy, you have that?” I looked up to see what he was talking about, “Do I have what?” Jameson pointed to the tv and asked, “Do you have rapid wrinkle repair?”

I started laughing. “No, I do not.” He knows I wear make-up… on certain days :), I just didn’t know he would connect the commercials with it.

(Part 3)

We were told that the tide pools at Botanical Beach in Port Renfrew were worth the drive. I was told it was about a 2 hour drive away, but totally worth it. We had planned to go to some tide pools in Sooke, which was only about 30-45 minutes away. I did some research and found that people said it was just a short hike to the beach if we went to Botanical Beach. If we chose to go to the beach in Sooke, we would have had to park and hike about 40 minutes to the beach. That didn’t sound so fun with the kids. We figured we would take the drive and short hike. I checked the tide, and low tide would be about 10:15 am.

We ended up getting out the door a little late, but by 8:30 am. So, not too bad. The problem was, that after the first hour, Ella was car sick. We stopped at a church and let the kids out for fresh air. The highway ran along the coast, which meant it was pretty windy. When we thought we were in the clear, we got back in the car and started off. We made it 5 minutes down the road, and Ella threw up. Luckily, I packed extra clothes, so we cleaned up and headed on. She finally fell asleep, but for the rest of the trip, we had to stop every few miles to let Jameson out. He did really good, and told us every time he started feeling sick. Needless to say, it took us longer than 2 hours with all the stops we had to make. The short hike down to the beach, actually took us at least 15 minutes. So, by the time we got there, it was almost noon. That meant the tide was halfway back in. *Side note, Jameson got out of the car and threw up. We were so proud of him for making it out of the car first, and not getting anything on himself. Is that sad? We are proud of our child who was car sick for making it all the way and out of the car, before throwing up?*

I’m guessing the more interesting tide pools were already covered by water, but we did get to check out a few. Ella and I sat on the beach for a snack while Kevin and Jameson set out on their explorations.

But, when Ella saw that the boys were out discovering new tide pools, she was not about to stay on the blanket with me. We made our way over the rocks to the boys to check it out.

We decided we would go check out the other tide pools before high tide. We hiked back up the stairs (partially man made partially natural) and down the path. We found an opening where we could get down to more tide pools, but it was a little dangerous to climb around the rocks. We headed back to the trail to find another way, but the trail kept going. After about 2o minutes, we decided we were on the trail that looped back to the cars, and turned back to go to the beach we were originally at. Along the way, Jameson found a great new spot.

Ella was destroyed by this point. So we got down to the beach, laid our blanket down, and Kevin smoothed out a bed for Ella. We laid her down, and she was out within about a minute.

I felt about how Ella looks, so we took a break while the boys went exploring again.

I sat and watched the waves crash over the rocks.

The boys watched the waves for a while, then decided to chase the waves. Jameson loved trying to touch the wave and then run from it.

It was pretty fun, but then the rain came. So, we packed up and headed back to the car. Bad news, it was uphill the entire way. We made it back, and headed out. We stopped at a general store for some Dramamine. Turns out, Canadians don’t know what that is. They gave us whatever they use for motion sickness. Only problem, it came in gel cap form, so dissolving it in the kids juice was not going to be easy. I finally bit the gel cap so we could put a few drops in their juice to help them on the way home. A few minutes later, I realized my lips and tongue were numb. I don’t know what is in that gel cap, but I was numb for an hour. The kids, luckily, fell asleep for the roughest part, only after Ella threw up again.

Kevin did spot this street sign on the way.

We made it back, gave Ella a bath, and went out for some dinner. We ended up at the Old Spaghetti Factory. While we waited for a table, the old ladies next to us adored Ella. That night, Ella went straight to bed, and Jameson did after a little coaxing.

(Part 2)

***I had to look up the correct plural of octopuses. Apparently, octopi is accepted but nor actually correct. And, there is a big debate over it. Who knew?***

Friday was rainy most the day, but that didn’t stop us. We’re used to it by now. As we were getting ready, a seagull landed on the balcony. The kids grabbed some cereal and started to feed it, causing it to squawk for its friends. Luckily, no more showed up.

We got ready to go see Hatley Castle. This is the castle of the mutants in X-Men. So we told Jameson we were going to see where Wolverine lived. He was excited. We got there, got lost on the campus, and then found out that since school is in session, they don’t offer tours. What? Their website didn’t say anything about that. The website offers tours. So we went in the lobby and looked around.

Check out the radiators…

The picture with Jameson is looking out the front door to the building across. The one with Kevin is the front of the castle.

We walked around the back for some more inspection. I’m sure the vines are awesome in the summer, but they look a little creepy right now. Keep in mind it was raining on us the entire time.

The opposite view…

The back of the castle.

It looked pretty awesome. Wish we could have seen the inside more, but oh well. We headed back to down town, and stopped by the parliament buildings. We didn’t do any tours… don’t think the kids would really enjoy that, but the kids loved running around the grounds.

How cute is she…really? I even think a few other people took pictures while she stood on the steps yelling, “Cheese!”

Here is my belly shot at 25 weeks and 4 days.

A better view…

Even Kevin enjoyed playing on the front lawn.

After running around the parliament building, we went to the Undersea Gardens. You basically go aboard a boat, and then go down 15 meters under water to see the fish.

We thought there was a touch pool, but then another guy came walking up and read the sign which said something about not touching the animals. Oops. But seriously, one side of the sign implied that you can touch the animals, but the other side said don’t. Totally confusing.

At the end, there was a little theater area for a show. There were 2 scuba divers that held up different animals in the tank. The favorites were the crabs and the octopus. Octopi really, there were 2 of them.

Later that night, Jameson and I checked out the view from the top floor. Pictures didn’t turn out so well, but it was pretty.

Once we checked everything out, we went to the front to get a movie. Natalie, the desk clerk, loved Jameson. He picked out a movie, and then proceeded to talk to her for like 45 minutes. She loved it. She even had him sign the slip to check out a movie. It was pretty funny. Of course, he didn’t sign on the line, but he did get all the letters of his name on the paper. So we headed back up to watch our movie and go to bed.

(Part 1)

For Kevin’s birthday coming up, I had booked a stay for the weekend in Seaside, Oregon. At least, that’s what I thought I did. The day before we were going to leave, I pulled out the reservation information, only to find it was for a different resort in Redmond, Oregon. Crap! Not sure what happened there. So, we started discussing what we wanted to do. All other resorts on the coast between Oregon and Washington were booked. Kevin mentioned staying home, and exploring areas around us. That’s sounds great, except, I needed out. I don’t want to see the floor I need to vacuum, the bathrooms I need to clean, the fridge that needs to be filled and cleaned… you get it. I may have had a break down, and we decided to go to Victoria, Canada instead. They had openings there for the weekend, and we have all documentation needed to travel to Canada, so we quickly changed our reservations. Thursday morning, we got going and headed out to catch the ferry to Bainbridge.

It was freezing out and we left the coats in the car, so we didn’t last long outside. Once across the water, we headed out to the next ferry. It was a little less than 2 hours to Port Angeles, where we took the ferry to Victoria. We grabbed some lunch first, and then got in line. Traveling takes much longer when you have to wait on ferries.

Weird thing. They didn’t even check for paperwork until after we got off the ferry in Victoria. Once you’re in the country, what would they do if you didn’t have correct papers? Not quite sure, and glad we don’t have an answer to that. It was about a 90 minute ferry ride, which means that Kevin had to take Dramamine. He was out pretty much the entire ride, along with Ella. We finally got there around 3:30 pm.

The condo we were staying in was a quick drive from the port. If I had a better camera, we could probably see it in the picture above. We headed straight over and checked-in with no problems (always a bonus). Once we got settled, we looked for something to do, and ended up at the Bug Museum.

Things started out small, but then we got to some of the largest insects in the world. Just gross. Jameson loved looking at them. He touched a few, but wasn’t about to hold any. Kevin loved every minute of it, and held all of them. Ella got close but I’m not sure she touched any. I held one. That was enough.

They had the largest ant display in the world? maybe, or at least the country. It was incredible. The queen was not to be seen, but the workers were sure busy. Did you know when an ant dies, another ant has to take it to the graveyard, but then is not allowed to return? Because the ants know that it could now be contaminated with whatever killed the other ant. Great way to take one for the team.

I can not do cockroaches, especially ones that hiss!

So this is the heaviest insect in the world, or something like that. I actually did hold this one, but that picture is on Kevin’s phone.

Like I said, I think Kevin loved it the most.

I know I have you all squirming right now. I guess the larger the scorpion the less poisonous they are. They have bigger pincers to get their food, so they don’t have to be as poisonous as the smaller ones. Either way, I was not getting close.

After the bug museum, we walked around down town a little. This Presbyterian church was around the corner.

Kevin didn’t know how fond of architecture I was. I loved looking at the building here. I could have walked around lots more except, the kids were tired, and I was getting sore. We did find a toy store… sorry Jameson looks terrible.

After the toy store, we stopped for some fudge. I thought it was funny that they placed figurines on the gelato. We didn’t try any, but it looked like frozen jelly.

After a long day, bedtime could not come fast enough. The best part? The kids had their own room.

Friday night, I was trying to practice the piano. The Friend (LDS children’s magazine) has been putting easy versions of primary songs in their magazines, so I was trying to play it. Well, while I was trying to play, Ella ran and got the Cheerio cook book, opened it up, and started playing along with me. Soon, Jameson came along too. He ran to his room, got some books, and began playing his own songs. I got squeezed out of the piano, so instead, I turned to recording. He had a song for every page in his book.

And Ella saw me holding the phone up to record Jameson, so she so willingly is saying “Cheese!” through the whole thing.

Jameson was sitting at his table, filling his pez dispenser he bought with his own money yesterday. Ella goes over to see what he is doing. He looks at her and says, “Ella, no. You can’t eat them till I get them all in.” He turns his head to catch a glimpse of the movie we’re watching. Ella sees his head turn, and quickly grabs one of the pez on the table. Then acts like nothing happened when Jameson turns back around. 🙂

***She does this constantly to him. Should I be worried about my little thief?”***

Today was not much different of a day, except that my baby is 2. Tonight, I took the kids over to the small mall near us for some dinner and entertainment. I didn’t feel like cooking, and I found out it was open mic night. I had no idea what to expect, and when we got there, it wasn’t looking so hot. We ate our food, had a few rounds on the merry-go-round, stopped at the toy store, and then back to our table for some more watching. While we were in the toy store, I heard a few really good singers. By the time we got back to a table with our smoothies, we were treated to this gem.

It was his own rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Made me laugh. And reminded me of my wonderful husband who cracks up every time he hears this…

Oh so funny.