Beauty, eh? Our Trip to Vancouver, Canada

We just returned from a wonderful vacation to Canada. We stayed in downtown Vancouver which is a huge city a lot like New York. We loved being in a big city again where we could walk to dinner and shopping. It's right on the water as well and is beautiful! Stanley Park is a beautiful park similar to Central Park and all the leaves were changing and the weather was perfect!

Our first day there we drove our car onto the ferry and had a 90 minute trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island. We sailed past gorgeous forested islands! The ship had two levels for cars and then a couple of restaurants and cafes as well as a small play spot for young children. We didn't see any whales, but Marty was pretty sure he saw an octopus come out of the ocean.

Our first stop in Victoria was Buchart Gardens. It is by far the most amazing, beautiful place I've ever seen in my life. Mrs. Buchart (sorry, don't know her first name :-) started creating the gardens on a rock quarry 100 years ago and they are extraordinary. You have to see it to believe it. We loved it! The above photo is taken of "the sunken garden."

Once in Victoria, we visited the Royal BC Museum (very cultural) and Pacific Underseas Gardens (very touristy gimmicky place -- next door to the wax museum). However, it's a "don't miss" because they had a large octopus in their tank that a diver would coax out from it's hiding spot so everyone could view!! Worth every penny!! It was so cool!!

We had lunch at The Spaghetti Factory. Amazing how with four hungry kids our desire to find new and exciting lunch spots went out the window and we resorted to anyplace that looks half-way decent and has a high chair.

I'll continue journaling tomorrow. We had a great time!

Fall Colors at Alta

Check out my favorite kids! This was taken September 23. Now the colors on the mountains have faded but our neighborhoods are vivid with color. It's beautiful. My favorite season is fall.

We're finally in the swing of things for the new school year--only took a month to get in the rhythm. We transferred Courtney to a new class and she has a lot more homework and is loving and the assignments. She also is taking gymnastics, piano, violin and has soccer practice twice a week. Her team is undefeated--all the more exciting since she's only ever won 1 game in 3 years of soccer previously! In fact, two weeks ago she made a goal! Go Court!

Marty takes after-school science, violin, piano and is in flag-football for the first season and loves it! Did you know there are only 7 penalties in football? He counted. If I had known that all these years it would have understood a lot more at all those BYU games. He's also an official cub scout!

Christopher loves preschool every afternoon and takes Tae Kwon Do. He has lots of friends and loves to make forts with the couch cushions and watch Scooby Dooby Doo. I also told him the story of Cinderella yesterday and he was fascinated--had never heard it before!?!

Nicholas is starting to crawl all around. He eats quite a bit and fortunately likes everything. He is a happy kid but if he doesn't want to take a nap, he won't. He cries for an hour until he's hoarse. Persistent.

Dan and company closed their first two deals. Way to go!

All is well.

Finally, I get to show off our cute family!
-Labor Day 2005-

Thwarted Again!

I took my "film" photos from the first day of school in to be developed and got a CD of the photos so I could download pictures for you all to see. BUT...I just tried and the CD didn't work. Just a warning if you get CD's of your photos, make sure to check the CD to see if it actually has pictures on it. Grrrrr!

Marty Goes to L.A.

Everyone is jealous because Marty got to fly to L.A. to spend time with Andrew and the Stokes family. To sweeten the deal, he flew with Rachel on her return trip home and he comes home with Dan on Friday who will be in Southern California on business. Marty went to camp with Andrew and then the beach this evening. He's in heaven.

Christopher was pretty sad because he was looking forward to Andrew coming to Utah. (Andrew got a little nervous last minute and that's when we changed plans and had Marty go there.) However, he's gotten special attention from Courtney. Also, Luke came over and played all day. They must have had a great time because the basement was trashed and they'd gotten out the training potty, put it in the middle of the family room and peed in it. No wonder they were acting so nervous every time I checked on them!

We met Courtney and Marty's teachers this evening at pre-school conferences. Marty's is very organized and awesome. Courtney's is new and kind and will take some more time to get to know. I am heading up a Kid's Reporters Club to write articles for a kids section in our monthly school newsletter which I am looking forward to.

I've also been invited to the discussion on boundary changes for Granite District -- three preliminary options were presented and in two of those Evergreen Jr. and Granite High were slated to be closed (Sorry Brent!) But nothing is final yet. The committee is getting feedback from the small groups they presented to and then the Board will make a decision in September and then they will have a public debate (read: fight) and a final decision will be made in November. They are also considering 9th grade moving to high school. Just a little gossip/info for all you Salt Lake high school grads.

Dan's business is coming along SLOWLY but apparently surely. I don't want to talk to much about it--I might jinx it!

I would post photos but both my digital camera and camcorder were trashed due to a spray bottle leaking in my purse. It was there because I wanted to spray the boy's hair just before I had their picture taken at Target. I was there because I have these cute little photos of me and Dan and Courtney and Marty all when we were four taken from a cheap photo place--like Target--and Christopher is now four. So the cheap Target photos ended up costing me $1500 when you include the price of a new camera and camcorder. I'm not happy.

I guess that's all for now! Everyone should create their own blog. It's really fun and easy!

Babys Crying but I Just Created a Blog

I just created my first blog and it was really easy! I wish I could write more now that I've finally made it this far, but it sounds like Nicholas needs me. Jared was telling us about energy and water crystals and plants and classical music and the ones that always turned out the worst was what got ignored. So I don't want to keep ignoring Nicholas!! Hopefully I'll be back soon!