Kiddo is Nine Today

I can hardly believe how fast she is growing up. She had a great time at Great Wolf Lodge and even managed to feign interest when we detoured to the geek-tacular Science Fiction Museum in Seattle; she preferred the Experience Music Project upstairs in the same building.

We went out for dim sum for her birthday treat (and later we will be making nachos for dinner) and she was showered with gifts -- LEGO, a Build-a-Bear, an iPod Nano and Skullcandy headphones plus a half dozen volumes of Yotsuba and a giant bubble wand. She'll get more on Sunday from other relatives and friends at her birthday party.

Vacation's End

All told, this was one of the best fall vacations we've had.

This time last year we had just moved in. It seems hard to believe it's been a year, so hard that until I looked it up on the blog I wasn't completely sure what day we had moved in (it was October 9th).

With the getaway at the start of the week off, we got back relaxed for the rest of our week off. We balanced some hang time with getting-stuff-done and some time with friends and family (though Thanksgiving was extra tense this year -- not sure what really was going on there...). Kiddo and I did some crafting together including a "rag doll with Coraline eyes" that she designed and we collaborated to finish:

Hubby made lots of headway on getting the new deck stairs underway (the "deathtrap stairs of doom" have to go -- the new stairs will go down the back of the deck, toward the apple trees and easier access to the bbq. It's the first step toward prepping for the addition.

Today, Hubby pulled down most of the weird carport skeleton over the driveway to reclaim the wood for the project, too. And you know what? I really wish we had pulled that sucker down earlier. After it was down, I moved and re-stacked the wood we had hastily thrown there, and our driveway looked pretty good.

We had an unseasonably warm and dry week, too; tomorrow we are expecting rain with frost forecast for this evening. We turned the gas fireplace on today for the first time in months and I decided I had best get in the last of the cucumbers (the vines were dried up anyhow) and pull out the tomato plants. There were 6 cucumbers left and I don't know how many pounds of mostly green tomatoes... I think I may try pickling them...

Back to work tomorrow. Sigh. At least it's a short (if busy) week.

Sooke Harbour House escape

To celebrate our 12th anniversary, Hubby and I splurged and booked two nights at the Sooke Harbour House which is one of the top 100 hotels in the world, as voted by Conde Nast Traveller readers -- and it is in our back yard, less than an hour away.

And you know what? It was one of the best experiences I've had both for accommodation and dining, despite a major, though completely unexpected hitch.*

Our room included a large shower (large = half the size of our bedroom at home) and a private jacuzzi tub on the deck. Add a fireplace and a queen size bed plus high ceilings and lots of little extras and I could have been happy with just that.

Of course there is also a 5 star restaurant on site that specializes in fresh, local fare; the hotel is situated on the water's edge, not far from the Southern end of the West Coast Trail; and the hotel boasts an impressive and ever-changing array of art by local artisans and a big library, free for guests to use during their stay. They even offer small televisions and dvd players and had an impressively eclectic selection of films (including two we hadn't seen).

Would I go back? Heck yes, if our budget allowed. Would I recommend it to others? Absolutely.

And you know what? If you live in the region, you should go have a peek anyway -- through the "quiet season" (i.e. now) they have an open house every Sunday from 1-4; you can peek in the rooms (each one is decorated to a theme -- ours was the Phycologist's Study) and see all the artwork.

*We had selected the "Kitchen Adventure" package which included three hours in the kitchen with the chef and staff along with a tour of the gardens. Unfortunately, just a short time before we were set to meet in the kitchen, the chef was called away for a family emergency and the sous-chef was out of province and understandably unreachable. We were extended a gift certificate for a "do-over" of that portion, including another night in the hotel -- far beyond the minimal service I have come to expect from the hospitality industry in recent years. (I'll let you know when we take advantage of the do-over.)

sigh.

Today was more exhausting than a Saturday needs to be.

It didn't start well -- when we arrived to pick up a compost bin and the dirt inside it, we ended up disturbing a wasp nest. It was surreal -- the wasps just streamed out of the top and bottom of the bin, angrily buzzing and chasing Hubby who was the unfortunate one holding the shovel that made the fateful hit. He was also running toward Kiddo to get her out of the way but that meant they both got stung (8 between them). I managed to escape their wrath. Happily, we now know Kiddo is not allergic but what a crappy way to find out.

Things didn't get much better -- lunch sucked and we were rushed for the rest of the afternoon. One good thing: Kiddo is enrolled in more Science Venture stuff -- clubs instead of camps. Another good thing, I was reminded that Hubby is generally very good at dealing with crises, despite my ... uh... deficiencies in the same situations.

AAAAAAnyway.

Tomorrow is birthday-palooza (one family celebration, one party for Kiddo to attend) and then I have one week to work through before we take our usual anniversary-vacation. Which reminds me, we decided not to do the road trip now -- instead we will do almost the same route next spring when we head down to Drupalcon 2010, in San Francisco.

Here's a shot from this month's Victoria Grid Project grid:

I do love our city.

Cabins are good.

For the past few years, we have been invited to a family get-away at a camp up-island (with Hubby's extended maternal family) and this year we were able to go -- my only concern was that we not have to camp in a tent. Happily, we didn't need to; there was a cabin available.

As a family, we seem to like cabins and as compact as this one was, it suited our needs:

We spent most of our time in the lodge with the rest of the family but this provided us two little bedrooms, our own kitchen, and a private bathroom we could call our own for a couple of days.

The weather was a little random -- plenty of heavy showers and lots of wind early on Saturday morning -- but we had a little time to explore the grounds and the adjacent beach. I even helped Hubby collect some shellfish.

My favourite thing was the built-in mini-golf -- nine little holes of astro-turf goodness.

With all the Douglas Fir cones, needles and branches, it was a bit challenging. My best round was 23. Kiddo loved the trampoline and the strange tire sling swing ...

Something new

I like to think I am familiar with Vancouver -- I generally know where the major areas are and I can find my way to the "usual" stops. Well, for some reason (maybe because we are here for three nights in a row), this visit to the mainland has been about new places. Yes, there will be some usual stops (we will go to Science World, IKEA, Yaohan and Daiso/Aberdeen) but from the time we got off the ferry, there have been new things too. 

First, we made a detour so Hubby could get some film footage of a specific location in Tsawassen. Oddly, after nearly 40 years of visiting the mainland, it was the first time either of us had actually investigated the town. We checked out the library, found a nice toy store, and had a good lunch at Nikko Sushi.

Next, we headed for Richmond (generally our home base when we come over) and ended up in the Richmond Public Market for the first time ever. Oddly, we were lured there by a flyer on the ferry for an "outlet store" -- it turned out to be hilariously unimpressive but the rest of the market was worth the stop.

We met a friend for dinner and chose a restaurant based on the rough idea of "somewhere in Kits area" and I would like to thank Google Maps for helping us find a fantastic place. We ended up at Banana Leaf, a Malaysian restaurant. Hubby and I had the tasting menu (a very reasonable $25 per person for 7 dishes); Kiddo had curried chicken and coconut rice, as well as tasting from our plates. Honestly, it was one of the best meals I have had in a long time and Hubby has promised to find and test Malaysian recipes.

Today we are off to meet other friends at Trout Lake, a park I had no idea existed before this weekend!  

Anti-Vegas Vacation

I am composing this post from a cabin in the forest at one of the many resorts along the beaches in Parksville BC. We've been here two nights though it seems like it has been a much longer vacation; it's been very relaxing.

Even though Kiddo arrived with a migraine (sleeping most of the way here), she proclaimed this the Best Trip Ever. Clearly, we all prefer this type of get-away -- forest, open space, beach-optional, time to play and no real schedule. It's sort of a middle ground between city get away and camping get away -- the cottage is nice because we are self-contained and in the midst of a Douglas fir forest but we are still only five minutes from coffee houses and supermarkets and there is cable tv, too.

Until today, I had been avoiding the computer -- I didn't bring mine and didn't want to impose on Hubby -- although I did play hours of Bookworm on my iPod. I took a bunch of photos (which I'll be downloading and editing this evening) and did a little writing (I should have done more) but mostly just relaxed.

Looking back

Vegas is squarely in the rear-view mirror with all it's bling and high concentration of international douchebaggery.

I knew it was full of bling going in -- that's the point of Vegas; everything is bigger, brighter and bolder than everywhere else -- but the douchebaggery? that was, well, more pronounced than I was expecting. For example, I didn't expect to walk out of the Miracle Mile stores at 6 pm and have to dodge vomiting partiers on The Strip.

But that wasn't the most surprising thing. What surprised me the most, was the pervasive cigarette smoke. I always thought the clean-air bylaws here in BC were a bit over-protective but going to Vegas was like stepping back in time. I do remember walking behind people smoking in the mall or sitting in a restaurant next to a smoker -- my Dad smokes, so I was raised around it but clearly my nose and lungs had completely forgotten the experiences. For Kiddo, it was a completely new and unpleasant experience.

With all that aside, there were some highlights: the monorail announcements are actually quite funny; the food in the MGM Grand restaurants was good -- even the ridiculous room service ($8 for two scrambled eggs and $6 for one slice of french toast) tasted good; and seeing the reality of what, for me, was basically a film set was worth doing.*

The above photo was, I think, one of Kiddo's highlights -- the Volcano dessert at the Rainforest Cafe. It was the same price as our entree, I think, and I would suspect about three thousand calories. Split three ways we still couldn't finish it, but she was very happy to dig into it.

So basically, we have crossed Vegas off our list of places to go and likely won't revisit unless we are drawn there by a convention -- and then we would go child-free.


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*Funny thing. Having watched hundreds of hours of CSI, I kept looking at every corner of of the city as a potential crime scene. Being the pessimist I am I do that regardless of my location but in Vegas it was that much more conscious.

Vegas vacation thoughts....

Yes, Las Vegas and yes, with Kiddo.

Hubby and I had planned to go to Vegas for our 10th anniversary since we've never been but, as you may remember, a broken ankle kept us from doing so. At least we managed to see the Blue Man Group while they were in Victoria -- one of the main reasons we'd considered Vegas in the first place. Aaaanyway. Since then, one of the other reasons for going (the Star Trek Experience) has closed (bah!) but on the other hand, there are now regular direct flights from Victoria to Vegas.

So, we've been thinking about heading down for a couple of days in February. Neither Hubby nor I gamble so we don't have to worry about juggling Kiddo for casino time so I spent time online yesterday looking for other ideas. I got pretty excited when I found out there was a monorail but disappointed at how little area it covers. I also noted that there is both a Bodies exhibit and a display of Titanic artifacts (Kiddo is fascinated by all things Titanic) at the Luxor and I was amused to find many bowling lanes on the Strip, too.

We haven't booked anything yet so I haven't spent all my waking hours researching.... but give it time. Once we are booked, it'll be the only thing in my search history.

(Oh, and if any of you have suggestions for what to see and what to avoid, let me know.)

Trip Highlights

By the numbers:

In the 6 days we were "on the road" we visited 11 communities: Mill Bay, Parksville, Courtenay, Cambell River, Sayward, Port McNeill, Port Alice, Port Hardy, Woss, Quadra Island, and Nanaimo. We stayed in1 campground (in Parksville) and 4 hotels (in Courtenay, Campbell River (2 different hotels) and Port McNeill (2 nights)). We did end up taking 2 ferry rides (round trip to and from Quadra Island) and drove about 1050 kilometres (650 miles) -- though Hubby did the bulk of the driving; I drove about 150 kilometres (95 miles) of the return trip, roughly from Courtenay to Duncan.

Surprises and disappointments:

I was surprised by Sayward. It was a little detour we took to break the distance from Campbell River to Port McNeill and it was lovely. There was a public campground in the centre of town -- only $10 a night! -- and the houses looked well-cared for. We also had a great lunch at the Cable Cookhouse Cafe.

I was disappointed by Port Alice. Yes, the waterfront was beautiful, but getting there was really challenging. The road (Highway 30) was hilly and winding, plus it was being repaired so there were construction delays. But when we got there, something about the town felt odd. I think because a lot of the homes were strata townhouses, the "playgrounds" were run down (a couple of rusted swing-sets was all we could find), and there was graffiti in a town of 800, it just felt like a few square blocks of the Burnside-Gorge area had been transplanted there.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by both Port Hardy and Port McNeill. Port Hardy is home to about 5200 people; Port McNeill, to about 3,000. The only thing that freaked me out a little about Port McNeill were the many signs denoting the Tsunami Evacuation Route. Still, I could probably live there quite happily.

Campbell River felt comfortable to me but Hubby didn't like it. On the other hand, Courtenay felt uncomfortable this time around -- when we visited both places about 8 years ago, my opinions were reversed. The exception to this was the Courtenay Museum and Palaeontology Centre which was a welcome detour.

We also detoured to Quadra Island on a whim -- it's a 10 minute ferry ride from downtown Campbell River -- and I wish we had planned a longer stay. I actually do want to go back; there is a campground adjacent to Rebecca Spit Marine Park where you can camp right along the water, looking out into the bay.

Overall, it was a very nice trip and I was happy to have seen that much more of our island.

Rrrrrrroadtrip!

Saturday we will set off for a week's vacation -- no ferries, no airports, no borders to cross, just a whole lot of Island exploring.

While there were a number of reasons we chose to do this trip this year, I feel really good about keeping our tourism dollars on the Island. Many of the places we will be visiting are mill-towns that are gradually losing their mills. News stories are full of woes from the tourism industry in BC, finding it difficult to attract American tourists (usually the region's mainstay) in the current climate of economic uncertainty and with the hassles of crossing even our "friendly" border.

At any rate, we are going to be spending a fair bit of cash on food, gas, and lodging over the next week. Our route will take us up to the top of Vancouver Island, staying in Parksville, Courtenay, Campbell River, and Port McNeill but also visiting Comox, Port Alice, Port Hardy, Nanaimo, and anywhere else we choose to stop the van.

We are taking the EEE and should have some opportunities for web-access along the way, so I will likely blog en route or at least upload photos to Flickr.

Counting down

One busy weekend and four work days until vacation starts -- WOO!

Today, job #1 is "finish The Garden of Senses" (see last post for details) but we're also going out for dim sum this morning, so that will take some time out of my day before the barbeque get-together this afternoon where I hope to presenting the book.

Tomorrow, Kiddo gets to be a test subject for a psychological study at the University. Basically she will be in a control group as the study aims to develop aids for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Asperger Syndrome in the area of face recognition. However, the research team has cleverly designed a whole day of activities in between the testing and re-branded it as "Face Camp." I actually signed her up before getting her buy in, but "free pizza" and "t-shirt" was pretty much all it took to get that. I think she'll have a great time.

While she's doing that, I plan to use the time for research. I'll take the EEE with me this time (much easier to carry than my laptop) -- though really, the smartest thing I did was to take my camera to photograph the microfilm images on the viewer rather than create a lot of paper waste and spend a lot of money on blurry print copies.

Next week at work, it's full speed ahead with digitization -- trying to finish off one project while we go all out to push through another. The one we are finishing off is mounting the original serialized version of Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers. The project we need to get through is digitizing and posting about 450 theses and dissertations from the past two years. Needless to say, my role in that will be more of coordinating the work than hands-on. I have been re-thinking the workflow to allow for better sharing of the workload.

Friday will be spent madly running about packing and prepping for our week-long road trip up to the top of Vancouver Island. I am looking forward to a vacation that involves no ferry or air travel and lots of rugged West Coast forests and beaches.

Mini-vacation begins...

I'm off work for a few days for a combo of getting stuff done (today and tomorrow), seeing family (Saturday-Monday), and celebrating my birthday (officially it's Monday, but we're going for brunch Sunday). And then there is the "bonus" day off Tuesday, Canada Day.

Today was getting stuff done; check off: book hotels for next month's road-trip (actually I did that last night), renew my driver's license, clean bedroom, clean bathroom, do laundry, vacuum carpets, drop off and pick up Kiddo for last day of first grade, go to ArtEVO opening.

The highlight of my day was definitely watching Kiddo marching along the street and later around the living room while she sung the Imperial March from Star Wars. The low point was surprisingly not cleaning the toilet -- that, at least, felt satisfying. No, the low point was the ArtEVO opening.

I signed up for the "preview opening" online with the promise of a free gift (this turned out to be a rather monochrome print of a nude with a violin -- definitely not to my taste). The gallery, while it looks kind of swish, is nothing spectacular. Only slightly interesting is that it seems to be a bricks and mortar outlet for its online store; in the centre of the store are two kiosks where buyers can search the full range of available art. Unfortunately, the art is average, at best, in Victoria's market which is so rich with local artists. I wish them luck.

I also had fun booking all the hotels along our route up-island this summer. We decided to go pretty much to the top of Vancouver Island -- the full route we are taking is a little over a thousand kilometres, round trip and will take us about a week. We are camping the first night, then staying in hotels the rest of the way. I tried looking for Bed and Breakfast places, but I only found one that was suitable for families. (If we ever open a B&B it will definitely have at least one family-friendly suite.)

Tomorrow will be more cleaning and some decluttering around the house plus some craft time with Kiddo.

Garage Sold.

Well, not exatly. We weren't selling a garage -- we don't have one to sell. But, we did have a "garage sale" in the strata's common room and while we didn't make an outrageous amount of cash, we did manage to clear out a LOT of stuff. In the end, we took a van full of stuff to Value Village, another load to ReStore, Freecycled some bulky things, and decided to tuck a few things back into the storage locker. Not much though. And I really feel good about clearing things out; our storage locker is in much better shape.

One thing I kept was a ridiculous fish tank -- it was too small to really hold a goldfish, and there is no easy way to fit it with a filter. Having seen Betta fish (a.k.a. Siamese Fighting Fish) in pet stores over the years, I thought it might be suitable for one ... but apparently not. Anyone know of something that will live in a tiny tank? Maybe I will get more sea monkeys....

Our next two weekends are "away" weekends. Coming up first is a quick trip to Vancouver. We're making this one a kiddo-friendly trip, staying in a Holiday Inn "kids' room" (they come with bunk beds and a separate TV), and visiting Science World and the Jurassic Alive display at Aberdeen. (The weekend was supposed to be Daddy-daughter time, but they decided to let me come along.)

Labour day weekend will be spent up-island doing camping and outdoorsy things like canoing and hiking. I'll need the following week to recover... but I will also be ferrying kiddo to and from school for her first week of grade one. Wow, where did summer go?

Busy Week!

Wow, this last few days just flew by. Here's the rundown: craziness at work (renovations are now starting to impact our work area, and there is much confusion about timelines and available space for our reorganized area); hubby's birthday (mellow celebration, just family); prearation for our roadtrip (we leave early tomorrow morning).

I'm looking forward to the trip to Naramata. We are going to try taking the Crowsnest route(Highway 3) there and then the Coquihalla on the way back [check out BC Highway webcams, if you're curious]. It's been a long time (at least 15 years) since I've travelled that direction.

The Naramata Centre (where I'll be taking a CUPE course/workshop) is described as "rustic but comfortable" -- i.e. indoor plumbing, but no television -- so, while I am taking my laptop, I don't know whether I will have internet access over the next week. If I do have access, I don't know if I will have time to blog; likely my priorities will be checking email and posting to Flickr.

See you in a week!

Vancouver Vacation

On Friday and Saturday, we spent two days in Vancouver. We went over mostly to see BodyWorlds which is at Science World (pardon me, that would be "Science World at the Telus World of Science" -- gag.) until mid-January. We took kiddo -- yes, she was fine; interested even. She loves anatomy. It was well-worth it. Interesting, eduacational, and artistic all at once. I could have done without the 2 by 4 over the head part of the exhibit -- the giant I QUIT stop-smoking corner -- but aside from that, I took in everything, even the fetuses (kiddo did skip that part), which I have to admit, for the most part looked like tiny dolls.... or rather, dollmakers are getting much better at making realistic tiny babies.

Kiddo also got her first ride on SkyTrain, destination MetroTown. We spent a couple of hours there then crashed at the hotel for the night. Saturday we shopped in Kitsilano and hit Daiso and IKEA in Richmond -- though IKEA on a Saturday in December, was probably a stupid idea. It was packed and kiddo was whiny because there was no room in the play area and we chose not to put her on the waitlist. Sigh.

We came back via Nanaimo, to take advantage of the CoastSaver Fare sale (on until Dec. 17th on some sailings), which also meant we got to take advantage of cheaper pump prices in Duncan. Meh, it all worked out.

We came back with a lot of food -- in fact, food was probably our greatest expense -- our meals were annoyingly expensive.... but it was a vacation.... and it might be our last trip off the island for a while... we need to start saving for two possible bigger getaways next year.