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.
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!!
Since I haven’t posted anything since January I figured I needed to do a recap of the month of February. So here it goes…
So the highlight of the month was that Susan and Adam and my parents came to visit over President’s Day weekend. It was great to see everyone and spend a little time together. It always seems that no matter how hard we try to “do nothing” we end up running around all over the place when we’re together. So we spent a lot of time in the car, oh well.
We met Adrienne and Garrett’s families for dinner on Friday night. It was great to see them. It’s a little silly that I hadn’t seen Adrienne in over a year and she lives 20 minutes away!
Here are a few pics of our visit.
Here are a few pics of our visit with Susan, Adam, and my parents.
Here’s a little clip of Adam clapping. Susan said he started doing this for the first time on the airplane ride from Denver to San Francisco.
Sunday Susan, Adam and I met Kelsey and Rory for lunch. Here are a few pictures from lunch.
Unfortunately a few hours after I dropped my sister off at the airport on Monday, I came down with a 24 hour flu that was AWFUL!! I hadn’t been that sick in years!! And even more unfortunately, Steve came down with it two days later. Needless to say, it wasn’t a great week. We’re both finally healthy (with the exception of allergies).
We also got a new entertainment center last week. I really like it…it totally changed the look of the room. We also got 2 ottoman/coffee tables. The tops flip around to act as trays. Here are a couple of pictures of the new furniture.
So our poor little Sam has had yet another traumatic experience. He spent the better part of last week puking all over the house. Thurs. we took him to the vet and they did an xray and blood work. It looked like there was something in his stomach, but they thought it might just be food. His blood work came back good, so they did an ultrasound and saw the same mass in his stomach, so they sent us to Dublin Internal Medicine Emergency Hospital to have him scoped. We took him in Friday night and they gave him fluids since he had been puking for so long. Saturday morning they did a repeat ultrasound to make sure they saw the same thing…but they didn’t!! So she asked us if we wanted them to do a stomach biopsy…we told her to go ahead and do it, so they scoped him to do the biopsy and low and behold they found a plastic mouse wedged at the bottom of his stomach just before the intestines….it was wedged in so tight that it took multiple tries for them to get it out, but it’s out and Sam is doing MUCH better he is back to his obsessive compulsive self :) He looks a little funny since they shaved his tummy and a spot on his leg for the IV.
Here’s Sam’s shaved tummy
Here’s our $3000 souvenir
I found Steve and Coco Bean sleeping on the bed…awwww
Here are some places Steve and I found to go to around Victoria. Let me know what you think.
Wild Play Parks – This looks like it could be fun and different if people are up for it. It’s $39.99/person for the TreeGo Course and it’s about 1 hour north of where the house is.
Empress Hotel Afternoon Tea – In Victoria, not sure what the price is.
Hatley Park National Historic Site – In Victoria. Garden admission is $4.75, $18 for castle tour/person
Vancouver Island Brewery – Doesn’t look like they have tours or tasting, but it sounds interesting…may be worth a try. It’s in Victoria.
Butchart Gardens - $28/person
Canoe Brew Pub – Looks like it could be a good place for food and or beer.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria – $12 admission. Looks like they have a Edo: Arts of Japan’s Last Shogun Age which may be interesting.
Brentwood Bay Lodge – Looks like this could be a great place for a nicer more expensive dinner. They also have a wine bar, pub & sushi & sake bar.
Butterfly Gardens - $12/ adult
Tourism Victoria Website – Check this website out to look at other stuff to do.
It seems like there are lots of trails and you can rent bikes at places. There are also wineries, meaderies, and cideries. There are also quite a few museums…aviation, navel & military, and history.
Let me know if you find something else of interest and what you think of the things linked to here.
Okay, so I’ve looked at a ton of vacation rentals in Victoria. These are the top 3 on my list:
NEPTUNE BY THE SEA
4 Bed / 3 Bath (2K/2Q) $2951.92/week
ELK LAKE ESTATE
5 Bed / 4 Bath (1K/2Q) $3158.77/week
VICTORIA LODGING
5 Bed / 4 Bath (3Q) Unknown Price
Well, Steve and I spent most of the week of Christmas SICK!! I got home from a work trip to Portland on the 18th and started getting a little cough on Sunday. I went to work Monday, but ended up coming home early with a fever. Steve got a fever on Tuesday and we didn’t get rid of it till Friday morning. Not the best way to spend Christmas!
Before Christmas I met up with Amber, her parents, her brother, and her niece for a belated birthday dinner. I was really great to see her…it had been way too long!
I made the usual swedish tea rings for friends and family in the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. I think I made 10 in all this year.
We also went to our neighborhood Christmas party which was a lot of fun. It was at our neighbor’s house and scheduled from 4-6pm…I don’t think we left there until 10pm. We played charades forever and everyone had a really good time. We’ve decided to make it a twice a year event.
Even though I was sick, I made it to my sister-in-laws house for Christmas Eve to deliver gifts. I spent a couple of hours visiting. Unfortunately Steve was way too sick to go. Here are some pictures of our niece and nephew (Samantha and Shawn) from the evening.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a safe and happy New Year!
