Catching Up With Friends

We went to a Pat & Katie’s house for dinner last night and Katie made the best pizza dough!! Not to mention she had ALL the fixin’s. It had been a really long time since we had seen them, so it was great to catch up. We got to meet their little boy who is now 9 months old. And their daughter gave us a little piano recital. We had a lot of fun. Katie gave me the pizza dough recipe she used, so if you are ever inclined to make home made pizza, try this recipe…you won’t be disappointed…

This morning we went out to breakfast with our neighbors. We had a really nice weekend. And on top of it, the weather was perfect this weekend!!

Links for Victoria Trip

Okay, here’s all the Victoria/Vancouver info I’ve accumulated:

Things to do in Victoria:

• Butchart Gardens
• Tree Go
• Whale Watching
• Empress Hotel Afternoon Tea
• Hatley Park National Historic Site
• Vancouver Island Brewery
• Art Gallery of Greater Victoria 
• Butterfly Gardens

Restaurants in Victoria:

• Wild Saffron Bistro
• Camille’s (dinner)
• Heron Rock Bistro (maybe for lunch)
• La Piola (Italian both dinner & lunch)
• Fireside Grill (lunch or dinner)
• Il Terrazzo Ristorante
• Romeo’s Place (pizza)
• Chandler’s (dinner)
• Fire and Water Fish and Chop House
• Marina Restaurant Oak Bay (brunch)
• The Black Olive (dinner or lunch…some Greek)
• Café Brio (dinner only offers small plates at a cheaper price)
• Canoe Brew Pub

Restaurants in Sydney & Brentwood Bay

• Seagrill (Brentwood Bay Lodge)
• Piccolo (Brentwood Bay)
• homestead café (lunch)
• Blue Peter Pub & Restaurant
• Theo’s Place (greek food & pizza)
• Fish on 5th (lunch or dinner)
• Hyland’s Fish & Chips
• Maria’s Souvlaki Greek Restaurant
• Mary’s Bleue Moon Café (Hamburgers)
• Pier 1 Restaurant
• RC’s Grill House
• Starke’s Deli & Sausage Factory
• Taste of Tokyo
• Woody’s Grill
• Rumrunner Pub

Steve and I both thought Chandler’s would be our top pick for a nice dinner, but Cafe Brio, Wild Saffron Bistro, and Seagrill would be close behind.

The Marina Restaurant Oak Bay looks like a great place for brunch Sunday morning if people are interested.

The restaurants in Sydney are generally cheaper and are probably good for either lunch or dinner.

It seems like there are plenty of places to choose from.

Things to do in Vancouver:

• Grouse Mountain
• Stanley Park – Prospect Point looks like it could be a good restaurant for lunch if we went to Stanley Park. I think the aquarium is at Stanley Park.
• Capilano Suspension Bridge
• Metropolis at Metrotown (Shopping)
• Museum of Anthropology
• Greater Vancouver Zoo
• Science World

Here’s the mass transit link for Vancouver Susan gave me…hopefully this will work instead of having to take the car over to Vancouver.

What do you guys think??

Whale Watching In Victoria

Here’s the site I found for whale watching from Victoria. It’s a little spendy, but could be cool. Could see Orcas, Porpoises, Seals, Sea Lions, Humpbacks, Minkes, as well as Eagles and Herons.

Price: $100/adult, Under 4 is free, $85/senior (doesn’t say what the age for a senior is)

Length: 3 hours

Departures: 9am, 12:15pm, 3:30 pm daily

Here’s the site: Whale Watching Tour

I also sent an email to WildPlay to ask about the Tree Course. Still waiting for an answer.

Let me know what you think.

Time Flies

And I’ve been horrible about blogging!!!

So I guess I’ll start with March…

March 9th was Shawn’s (our nephew) 11th birthday. We went to Shirasoni’s in Lodi for his birthday dinner the weekend before. Shirasoni’s is a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant so we got a little show from the chef. We all had a good time. The following weekend we went to Shawn’s birthday party at the Stockton Children’s Museum. The kids had a great time going through all the exhibits and playing outside. Here are a couple of pictures.

Now for April…

So far this month, I turned 30 on the 2nd and my mom turned 60 on the 6th. My sister, dad, and I had been planning a surprise party for her for about a month. The party was on Saturday April 4th and we were actually able to pull it off which shocked us all!!

It was a bit of a whirlwind trip, but we managed to get to Tomo’s for dinner, to Seascape for lunch and a little bit of beach time. It was a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures from the party

We could never have pulled the party together without the help of Julie and John Damron!! We are so lucky to have such great neighbors!!

Here are some pictures of our Seascape visit and the beach.

Sunday night we stayed with our grandma in Red Bluff. Here’s a picture of her with Adam.

Hopefully it won’t be over a month before my next post!!