Call me Queen of Procrastination

I can't believe I've let this go for two weeks. And not for lack of things to report either! Now I've got more than I can comfortably fit in one post. I'll have to do some catch-up installments. (Or just edit. There's a thought.) Picking up where I left off, I did go to the Emily Carr house that day, but realized that I wouldn't have enough time to tour the house, so I just enjoyed the gardens instead. There are little stations throughout, with excerpts from Carr's books and it made me think I should actually read some of her work as I've only enjoyed her paintings up until now. It also made me think I should try to be a better gardener.
On Friday, Sept 12th, Dylan drove me and the kids up to Swartz Bay where we took the 6 pm ferry to Tssawassen. The crossing was magnificent - see photo. The spectacular sunset was the start of a wonderful weekend with the cousins. George had a morning class at circus school, so the girls played with Amalia, and got to harvest the potatoes they'd helped their uncle plant in the spring, while Sam got reacquainted with his beloved Gobots. After a picnic in the park, we fulfilled a promise to take the children to Playland (this was the primary reason for the trip - we made the promise in the spring, hoping to put a silver lining on the dark cloud of making the kids move. When my sister called me up to let me know that time was running out for Playland this season we decided to make the most of the glorious weather.) Sam was a little under the weather, but still enjoyed the rides. Lily and Alexandra had the time of their lives, running from ride to ride with Amalia, George and a few of their friends. Needless to say, they were all exhausted when we returned and flaked out in front of the t.v. allowing my sister and I to fit in a quick shopping trip to H&M.
Sunday was equally beautiful, but after two late nights the kids were a bit challenging. We had lunch at Little Nest - the funkiest little 'parent-friendly café' just off Commercial Drive, serving exquisite food (I had a green papaya salad with lime, chili and cilantro dressing). Unfortunately, Sam completely decomposed mid-meal. I can't even remember what triggered the tantrum but it wasn't pretty (one broken saucer, one scratched mother...). We quickly finished up and made our way to the park around the corner (where, my sister informed me, one of the scenes from Juno was filmed - she is the ultimate Vancouver tour guide, I have to say, fits in all the best destinations). The kids played happily for an hour until it was time for us to catch our ferry home. The trip home was not quite as magical as the one there, but I suppose that's true of most return journeys. We were lucky to be on the Queen of Vancouver vessel, and to be walking on, as there had been trouble on an earlier crossing with the Queen of B.C. (a log in the propeller? something like that) and there were delays for cars.
The following week was fairly uneventful, although there was a meet-the-teacher night at the girls' school. I had already met their teachers, but went anyway. I was somewhat preoccupied by the newness of the building (1997! Have any schools in Quebec been built in the past 50 years? I haven't been in any of them), and found myself distracted during the speeches in the gym, examining the seismically sound steel reinforcements propping up all the beams. Very impressive. I think in the event of a major earthquake, the kids would definitely be safer at school than in our house (1899, no seismic upgrades to my knowledge). But I'm not supposed to dwell on the 'what ifs'. I had a nice chat with one of the other mums from Lily's class, who, in an incredible case of "it's a small world after all" turns out to have been taught Latin by my mother at The Study 20 years ago. We didn't actually discover this at meet the teacher night. A mutual Montreal friend had given us each other's info, and when we made contact we were astounded to find that our 6-year olds were actually in the same class, sitting at the same table in fact.
I'm going to have to tie this up for now, as I've been alerted that blogger will be down for maintenance in a few minutes. So I'll sign off with this teaser for my next post: Valdy! Snowbirds! Never a dull moment in Vic!