Spring Gardening

Spring gardening starts in November with the planting of Spring bulbs. On the south coast you can wait till the very end of the bulb buying season and pick them up for cheap, with plenty of time to get them into the ground. I have various bulb beds that come up every year but this year I decided to add some to our wine barrel planters in the front and back yard. Nothing to extravagant. (I believe Martha uses up to 100 bulbs.) Just enough for a splash of colour in early spring. My memory is just short enough that I forget what I planted so it's a surprise even for me.

The other part of Spring that I really like is all the free plants. I got about 80% of our plants without shelling out a dime. Some were here in some form when we bought the house and others were sourced from fellow gardeners. By splitting up the perennials at this time of year I have additional plants for gifts,  trade or for filling in the blank spots. This  year I've got about a dozen strawberry bushes, a new set of raspberries and at least four hostas. I've still got a few plants that have probably gotten a bit big so I may split them up as well.

I've now prepped all the perennial beds. This is the first year I haven't had to do something major to them like moving plants around or building retaining walls around them. The garden on the right is at our front door and is much nicer than the overgrown junipers that were there previously. I've still got quite a few hardscaping tasks this year including a new fence on at least one side, a new concrete planter in the front yard and perhaps a pond where the shed used to be. All time and money permitting of course.

The Last Game of the Year

After last year's playoff run there were very high hopes for Vancouver's chances at the Cup this year. Five days in, however, things were looking pretty bleak with Vancouver down 0-3. My Dad had attempted to get tickets to one of the earlier games and wasn't able to but one of his contacts managed to score four tickets to game 5. Two of the tickets were for a friend of his so we had two left. Ordinarily I would jump at the chance to go to a game; Although I'm a Habs fan it's still good hockey and fun to watch.  Lately though Callie has been captured by Canucks fever. Virtually her whole school wears Canucks Jersey's on game day which makes it very difficult for me to create a mini Habs fan.

Kerry's a huge Canucks fan as well and considering this was likely the last home game of the year, I decided it made sense for Kerry and Callie to go. A playoff game would be a great experience for anyone and for Callie's first live NHL game you can't get anything better. She was already familiar with the Canucks mascot Fin as her teacher had been sending a stuffed version home with each kid for the past couple weeks. She was very excited when it was her night and thrilled when she found out she would get to see him in person. She made up a sign and we traced images of Fin off the iPad so she could tape them on.

Game day started with Kerry and Callie going to Build-A-Bear at Metrotown to get a Canucks jersey for her bear Emerson. There was almost a disaster when Callie forgot her sign at home but Carter and I bused and Skytrained to Metrotown to bring it in time for them to get to the game. Fin spent much of his time in and around Callie's section and Callie enthusiastically waved her towel the whole game. Despite all the cheering, the game ended quickly in the first overtime. No cup this year. (No riots either.) Better luck next time.

Ballet, Tap and Now Hip Hop?

A couple of weeks ago, Callie had 'Open House' day at dance. This one went much smoother than last years 'Open House' day when we forgot Carter there but I'll leave that for another blog entry. For a typical dance class the parents aren't allowed to watch. This isn't surprising since the kids apparently act very differently when the parents are there. The only other time you get to see her dance is at the year end recital. Callie's first class of the day was Tap. There are only four kids in this class and I can't imagine the noise if there were any more kids.

Callie's second open house of the day was for ballet. Tap is at 9:15a which is good because all Callie has to do is throw on her clothes, carry her tap shoes and   get there. Ballet is at 11:00a and requires much more preparation time for her hair. Getting it pulled back, balled up and sprayed straight takes quite a bit of time. Kerry's getting pretty good at it now that Callie has grown her hair out long enough. I didn't get a chance to go to ballet but Kerry says that Callie is doing excellent. Of the various lessons she's had, Kerry says ballet is the one she feels she should stick with.

Callie's recital is at the end of May and the new dance season starts shortly after. The typical progression for dancing has kids continuing to take on new styles and to increase the time spent in areas where they wish to specialize. This means she'll be doing 4 classes next season. Tap and Hip Hop once a week and Ballet twice a week. It's a good thing Kerry has gone back to work full time. Keeping kids active gets expensive!

The Curse of the Golden Egg

This weekend we're in Oliver and for the past two years we've attended the local Easter Egg Hunt. The rules are simple. The kids get split up by age group and are sent to the 'hunting grounds' where they are allowed to get a certain number of eggs. Once they are done they go and redeem the eggs for a prize. Every prize is the same with the exception of the 'Golden Egg'. There is one per age group and Callie has had her heart set on it for the past several weeks. It took perseverance, luck and a quiet nudge from Mommy but I'm proud to say she captured this grand prize.

Carter on the other hand was not so lucky but there may be a good life lesson here about keeping your eye on the prize. As you can see he was not very focused before the event and during he went for the quickest and easiest eggs while Callie knew to look in the hard places. He was less than impressed to find out Callie had found the golden egg and it took 10 minutes to get him to stop trying to take it from Callie. In the end we convinced him that one of the chocolates from his generic prize package was a 'Golden Egg'. I'm sure he'll do better next year.

This was Callie's day to shine and she spent several minutes after the event getting her picture taken for the local paper. With her painted face and happy smile I'm fairly certain they'll put her front and centre and we made sure to mention Barb and Reg, the local grandparents who signed us up.

Tofino Day Three - Snow, Rain, Sleet and Hail

We started the day in a blizzard and ended it with mild rain. The weather here turns on a dime. Our first destination was the site of Callie's unfortunate accident yesterday. We tricked her by calling it 'Tide Pool Beach' and going to a different entrance. It was a good thing we went because we saw the best tide pool we've seen so far. It was about 20 feet long and filled with sea urchin. The beach was right beside the Wickaninnish Inn which is this great hotel with their restaurant jutting out into the sea. It must be an amazing place to eat during a storm.

Before lunch we decided to head to Ucluelet which is about 35km from Tofino. Our baby sitter just happened to be staying there this week and they had told us about the 'Wild Pacific Trail'. As we were driving up to the parking lot we ran into her parents so we knew we were in the right place. You couldn't go right down by the water which was fine by us as the wind and the waves looked quite powerful. A quick walk to the light house and a short jaunt down the trail was enough for the kids who by now were hungry and desperate to get back to the cabin.

By now we had grown tired of driving to our destinations so we checked out our local beach while the tide was in. We're one of about three or four cabin destinations in a nice little cove. The beaches run for about a kilometer and are very flat. A few crazy surfers were attempting to catch some waves though they were quite novice as they never ventured more than about a hundred feet from shore and didn't stand up once. If you have a dog that likes to run and don't mind having to hose them down afterwards it's a great place to go for a walk and throw a ball around. Another place that's probably a lot of fun in the summer.

After dinner Carter and I stayed back in the cabin while Kerry and Callie went to check out low tide again. Kerry had bought me 'Hunger Games' and I finished it on the first day so we picked up the second book at the local book store and I wanted to get started right away. Callie was lucky enough to get to play with a local starfish. We'd seen some earlier but they were tucked under the rocks. Someone had pulled this one out and laid it on top of a rock though by the time Callie got to it it was already nicely reattached.

Tomorrow we head back to sunny Surrey to finish off Spring break and head back to work.

Tofino Day Two - Rain Forests and Beaches

Day two started with a trip to the Rain Forest Trail. I initially found the sign 'Slippery When Wet' to be somewhat comical. It's a rain forest. This implies it's always wet. What the sign should have said was "Hold on to your children at all times or they will fall off into the deep dark woods." This would have caught my attention more and we could have avoided Carter doing a cart wheel off the board walk. Luckily he's still small enough to bounce and I was able to climb down the three feet or so to get him. (Don't worry. On the really tall portions I had a good hold of him.)

Our second destination was Long Beach. This beach is quite popular with surfers and we could see why. As you can see by Wilson's fur it was incredibly windy and the waves were enormous. I'm not sure if it was the height of the waves or just the time of year but there weren't any surfers out and it was difficult enough just to stand up. Callie was not impressed by this beach at all, with no tide pools and a very stormy looking sky.

Callie's luck didn't improve as we headed up the coast to Chesterman's beach. We'd heard this had better tide pools but it was flat and windy just like Long Beach. Callie ventured out for a few minutes but then decided to run back up the trail. She took a hard fall on the rocks and got quite a nasty cut on her hand. Even with the wind and the saves I'm fairly certain people could hear her on the mainland. It was time to head back to the safety of our cabin.

For the afternoon we headed into downtown Tofino to the local bakery. The Whale Festival is happening right now and for the price of a couple of buttons the kids were allowed to take part in a cookie decorating event with some very heavily died icing that got absolutely everywhere. We haven't seen any whales yet but that's mainly due to the height of the surf. It would need to be much calmer to see any from shore and I wouldn't want to venture out in a boat right now.

For the rest of the evening we took turns going down to the beach to watch the surf. You might think the weather has been miserable with all the waves but the wind tends to die down as you head inland and we've had breaks of sun every few hours. Within a 10 minute span it can go from heavy rain to clear skies to snow and hail. I've got my Olympic volunteer jacket with me and with a few layers underneath it's plenty warm. Not sure what we've got on the agenda tomorrow but I'm now thinking that perhaps three nights wasn't enough. We'll have to head back again during warmer weather.

Tofino - A Trip on the Fairy (Or is that Ferry?)

The second week of Spring Break started this week and this year we decided we'd head to Tofino. I've never been and apparently the winter storms can be quite spectacular. We headed out early to catch the 10:30 fairy. You may have noticed I spelled ferry incorrectly. It would seem that Carter had it in his head that we were going to be travelling on a 'little flying thing'. Luckily I clued in and straightened him out before we left. While on board he met a new friend and we overheard him saying. "We're not going on a Tinkerbell Fairy. We're going on a ferry boat!".

On our way we stopped off to see the goats on the roof. (They even have a BC tourism sign with an arrow pointing to 'Goats on Roof'.) Unfortunately they weren't out yet but we stopped anyways. This was my first clue that Tofino isn't quite as isolated as one might think. I was expecting a small store with some fudge and a few trinkets but the store had a ton of tourism merchandise and a great cafe. I've since decided to describe Tofino as 'Whistler on the Coast'. It's got a lot of very nice places to stay and based on the property prices it's quite popular.

Our cabin at Crystal Cove is amazing. The campground is right on the beach and there's a great play area for the kids. With fountains and carefully manicured garden's it's not what I was expecting. Our cabin is two stories with a loft master bedroom and we step out of our second story onto a walkway that connects all the cabins to shared hot tubs. The price during the winter is quite reasonable but I can see why it gets expensive during the summer. They even have WIFI. Another luxury that I wasn't expecting.

After we checked in we headed down for some pinky finger sea creature hunting. Callie's favourite past time whenever we go to an aquarium is playing in the artificial tide pools where you can touch almost anything as long as you use your pinky finger. We managed to find many of the same animals and Callie had a ball running from pool to pool touching them with her pinky finger. The tide was fully out so we were also able to walk across to a small island and watch the very active surf. Judging by the mess Carter had made of his clothing I think he had a fun time as well.

By now we were quite hungry for dinner so we headed into town to the local Co-Op. Unfortunately they had one of those carts shaped like a car with two seats. There was a time when both kids fit nicely but those days are disappearing fast. They were not very happy. I managed to solve the problem by running them around the store at high speed. This distracted them enough to prevent them from destroying each other. Our plan was to pick something up for dinner so we headed to a pizza and fish&chips place we'd seen. We got to the parking lot but Kerry was frightened of both the patrons and the owner who she said looked like someone from Gilligans Island. We ended up at a take out pizza place which turned out to be quite good.

At bed time we realized it was not a good idea to let Callie pack for herself. She'd managed to squirrel away stuffed animals in almost every suit case and had brought the entire 100 Acre Wood family. Next time we'll pay a bit more attention. Tomorrow we head off to the rain-forests and beaches.