Vacations

Last weekend we were on Saltspring Island. We stayed at a nice cottage, checked out the Ganges market, went to the beach, went for a hike, and more. It was a lot of fun, but we experienced a lack of sleep unlike anything we had felt in a long time. Both the kids were waking up multiple times in the night, and since we were all sleeping in the one room, well, we all woke up multiple times in the night.

The cottage had a nice flower garden.

The hike was pretty steep, so Amy got carried the whole way.

Snack time.

Snack time silliness.

These trees grew so close together that it almost looked like they were melded together.

Arbutus trees can be quite photogenic.

A couple weekends ago we made a trip to Sechelt area to have a family get together. We've been trying to do this yearly as a way to get the cousins to all connect with one another. It has been wonderful seeing the kids develop as they grow. They all get along so well and were playing together extremely well. Lots of good times, that's for sure.

My first YouTube videos! Woohoo. Well, not that exciting anyway. These were all taken while we were in Ottawa.

Skating on the Canal.

Sleeping on the Canal.

Elliot and Amy go sledding (and crashing).

Here are my pics from the Ottawa trip. We had so much fun while we were there, and these pics are only a taste of what we saw and did.

The ice sculpture shots were difficult to shoot. It was bright out, and there was lots of snow, so I added +1 to the exposure so the snow didn't look too gray. It was also very cold out, and I can't operate my camera with bulky snow gloves so when I wanted to get a shot I would take off the gloves, shoot, put the gloves back on. I didn't spend a lot of time checking my shots so there were a lot of throwaways due to bad exposure. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If I had more time I could have done more justice to the works.

Flying out of Victoria

My daughter hamming it up for the camera

Some tulips on the counter. I accidentally shot this in black and white, but I love how it turned out.

Ice sculptures near Ottawa City Hall. Very incredible works of art, and this is something that could not be done in Victoria due to weather. While we were there, we even got to see a friendly competition between carvers.

All sorts of tools are used to make ice sculptures.

Hot chocolate at the ice sculptures. Looks like my son is in heaven.

Skating on the canal. We went many times and each time it was a blast.

The fox family enjoying their trip.

Mmmmmm, beavertail!

All decked out for the cold.

Hockey on an outside rink.

The only snowy day we experienced in Ottawa. It was very cool to see so many people outside on the canal while it was snowing.

Pulling the sled this day was more difficult due to the fresh snow. Skating was fine but there was a lot more friction than I needed.

On the 30th the Fox family set off for a family reunion trip to Nelson. One of Sox's brothers lives there and he was hosting us all for the weekend. That morning we discovered our cat Aphro had escaped outside and was missing.

Sox and the kids headed to Vancouver early on Thursday, but I had to work. After working most of the day I zipped home, packed up, tried to locate the cat, secured the house then headed to the ferry.

You see some crazy things on the highway, but this one was pretty scary. A motorized scooter doing about 50 KM/H riding on the side of the highway. That was bad enough, but this one had two people on it, and only one of them was wearing a helmet. Think people. Take the backroads.

As I got to the ferry terminal I learned there was a possible wait. When I paid to get on the lady told me my lane number and mentioned I might be lucky. Luck was on my side. I was the absolute last vehicle let on the 8pm sailing.