Our Mini Holiday

Okay we were gone for 2 days, less than 48 hours. but seriously it felt like a week.

At the Royal Museum of British Columbia in Victoria, there was a limited Titanic Exhibit. And Corbin is Obsessed with the Titanic, so we thought it would be fun to go!! Upon reflection we should have gone BEFORE the Baby was born. No big deal, I love a challenge.

Okay to get to the Island you have to take the ferry over. The most reasonable time for us to catch the ferry is 9am. It's an hour drive from our house depending on traffic(it was about 50min) we left our house 7am. and were there before 8am. They suggest arriving 1/2 hour before. You would think by now I would know better and arrive in plenty of time, not the suggested time. but nope. So we wouldn't get on the 9am, hopefully we could catch the 10am. Keep in mind this is our first Ferry "Experience" so we are pretty excited, and everyone is in good spirits so all is good. We are becoming more used to spending extended periods of time in our car waiting, so the kids are pretty good about it. As a time killer we go to check out the Terminal as we see people exiting mostly with Coffee, but we see food. I'm going to check it out!!! It is sooo packed in the terminal, and we are the crazy people with 5 kids to keep track of. So we head back outside, minus Mahlon. this would be the first time we lose Mahlon this weekend, and not the last. So we divided the team in half and we eventually find Mahlon, I don't know where he was. My sub-team didn't find him. So back to the Van. We spot a playground so we hang out there for a while!! 2 hours later we get ready to load on to the boat!!!


Once we park and get ourselves situated, we head onto the upper deck of the boat as it will be fun to be outside as the boat leaves the terminal. good now, bad later.

It was totally cool. We loved when the horn went, everything shook! And we loved the wind on our faces as the ferry headed into the horizon. We began by sitting on the outside deck, but with an hour and a half ride reason tells us that eventually we would freeze out there. So inside we went. There was a cafeteria, an arcade, and a play area. That is where we hung out for a while. That was our base while we checked things out. And again we lost Mahlon. He started following me as I went back to the van, but he decided to go back to Dale. never made it. He was distracted by the lights and action of the Arcade. and that is where we eventually found him. We just wandered around for a while, and when we were ready to sit, there was no seats. So we ended up BACK IN THE VAN!!! AHHHHH!!! I am thinking a RV would be awesome.


Once we reach the island we Are ready to Go!! We Brought the portable BBQ with us, hoping that we could use it, it was mainly wet and overcast so we only used it once at beacon hill Park! It was such a pretty park! They even had a petting zoo. While we were at the baby goats the person in charge was asking about, Tirzah. She asked how it was spelt, and she called up to the front desk ask them to write it down. And all and all she was quite pleased. Upon enquiring about our other children's names, she asked if I would stop at the front desk to have her write them down for her as well. Then she says "won't that be neat when you come back year and there are baby's named after your children." why not i thought.

The Museum

The whole reason we went!!! We had planned to watch the Imax at 12pm and then go through the exhibit after @ 1pm. but we had to make a change and we had to do things backwards. not a big deal except I had planned on feeding Tirzah through the movie, having her fall asleep and enjoying the experience. ha. Tirzah and Kezia both hit the wall the first 5 feet into it. So after I feed Tirzah.. she poops, feed her again, finally fals asleep & keep Kezia from toppling over the displays... I cherish my precious moments in the display! It was AWESOME, to actually see plates, clothes, trunks, eye glasses, there was even un opened bottles of Champagne. It was remarkable. At the end there is a passenger list of all the Survivors, and all those who perished. 1502 people died that night. To see the names of all the passengers, was something.

We also enjoyed the other Displays and we lost Mahlon again in the Museum, and as we broke into 2 groups to find him... over the Loud speaker we hear"Anne Taylor, please come to the Security desk on the Main Level" Bingo!! I go to get him, and surrounding the desk are a dozen older women who are standing around all concerned for this lost sad boy, oh please. He see's me and the worried almost going to cry look changes into full fledged screaming"MOOOOOMMMM!!!!' The security guard doesn't even ask if I'm his mom, he knows! All I ask is " Does he need to spend the night in Jail??" So i collect my run away, and ask myself "will he learn?" probably not.

other fun stuff we did in Victoria:

We mostly walked around, we didn't dare go down to the Harbour as we had Kezia on the lose! And we knew she would end up in the water. We saw a McDonalds with a Chandler in the entrance. That was weird. And Saturday night we Went for Fish and Chip on Fisherman's Wharf. That was super fun. There were house boasts, and it was just fun. We even saw a pirate Ship, but it got too Dark and I couldn't take a picture of it.

On our way back home we were planning on catching the 9pm ferry(it has a discounted rate, and since i am always trying to catch a deal on everything, which i didn't get because we bought our tickets before 8pm). So we thought we would go for dinner and then get in line around 7:45 a good 45 min before boarding. BUT on our way back they have a terminal update along the road, and so shortly at 5pm it said 6PM sailing FULL 7 PM sailing FULL and the 9PM sailing 59% FULL. Not good. I tried to get a reservation for 9pm(I was even willing to pay the additional $20) but they weren't accepting anymore reservation so we would have to get in line and hope for the best, as they just announced an additional 8PM sailing, we had a chance! We ordered Pizza, took it with us and waited in line for 3 hours so we could get on the last boat at 9pm. crazy. And we did!! It was 40 min late, but no complaining here, I was so happy to hit my bed @ 12:30!! The only thing that kept me sane was the kettle Corn Popcorn Dale bought us to keep us Happy... It was the real stuff and it was sooooo good.

We had a great Weekend, it is super fun to go and do things we haven't done. It really is a whole other world out here and it is super fun to explore it, not sure if our 5 kids feel that way. But until the grow up get a job, they are coming with!