Oh Canada

Vacation has come to a close . . . today it was back to work.

I'd still rather be on vacation. We had a great time. Not as much sleeping in or down time as we'd hoped, but it was a great time with family, and doing and seeing fun things in Canada.

And in case you were wondering, after the success of our first recap video . . . we have made a couple more . . . hopefully you will see those soon! But until then, here's a few pictures from the last 2 days of vacation.

Tim Hortons - A Canadian Favorite

3 generations all in purple - and we didn't even plan it.

Just bein' silly


Cousin Melissa and her new husband Jonathan.

After only 2 hours of sleep, and traveling since 5:00am - we were an hour and a half from home and it was time for slurpees! It was a very long day.

Black Licorice Heaven

This is a black licorice lovers heaven.



I left $15 of black licorice later . . .

Sightseeing Video

Vancouver Island

Day 2 brought us to the one thing we knew we had to do while in Canada. Vancouver Island! We started our day well before 6am in order to make it onto the first ferry to the Island. We made it in time . . . but it was full. So we had to wait 2 hours for the second ferry. The time was well spent though, with crepes and tourist watching. I left the ferry waiting area with a New Year's resolution to buy a pair of high-tops within the next year.

Then we made it on the ferry, and thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half trip to the Island. The scenery is stunning. Once on the Island, we went to the famous Butchart Gardens. Definitely beautiful, but not something to spend the whole day seeing like we had been told.

Victoria, Wee Britain,was on the agenda next. An interesting city . . . seems like San Fran, minus the hills, all cultural diversity, the bums and homeless, and the grime and construction, plus a little British feel, ocean front homes, and Canadian people. We did the scenic ocean drive around part of the Island, then headed back toward the ferry.

We stopped in Sidney for coffee and I got to experience affogado (spelling?) for the first time. Vanilla gelato with fresh espresso on top. Sooooooo yummy. Then it was back to the ferry for the classic ride into the sunset home. Here's a few of my many pictures from the day. Nathan will put his up too. I'll be getting the rest on facebook soon. So watch for those!

Sunrise. On the way to the ferry.

Waiting for the ferry, checking out our map.

On the ferry ride over.

Butchart Gardens.

Flowers, flowers, flowers.

Victoria. The Empress Hotel is behind us.

Affogado. My new favorite thing.

Sunset from the ferry.

We're in Canada Eh?

So we are in Canada now . . . We left around 5 on Friday and 4 stops and 2 smoothies later, made it to Long Beach where we hung out with Nathan's Opa and Oma. Then Saturday it was time to head to the airport. We flew to Seattle, enjoyed some great seafood, watched the sunset then took our second flight to Vancouver. Here's a few pictures from the past day or so.

Got our passports . . . ready to drive away and begin our adventure!

2005 - Matching passport stamps from Swaziland.

Didn't quite catch that one.

Americanos, newspaper, cribbage . . . Just waiting to leave LA.

Catching up on local news.

Waiting for the tram in Seattle.

More pictures and updates to come!

Farmer's Market

Last night Lauri and I went down the hill and I got to experience the Clovis Farmer's Market for the first time. We enjoyed some roasted corn, sampled many types of hummus and homemade jams . . . and had an interesting time trying to eat our persimmons.



I also bought a peach and I cannot describe to you how big it is. It probably counts as two servings of fruit. And I am very much looking forward to when it's ripe! I'm sure it will be heavenly!



After mingling around all the amazing food . . . we ended our night watching a movie about food . . . Julie and Julia. Man, I'm getting hungry just talking about all this. Maybe it's time for a snack.

Early Morning

It's not even 7:00 am here and I am sitting in my office waiting to start a distance learning class. This is the third one I've taken in the last week. Today is: Query: Beyond Essentials. It's database training. I love running queries. It's one of my favorite things working with the database. I can figure out any type of information that I'm curious about. I love building the query and figuring out how to pull the information I'm looking for out of all the records and information we have. I feel quite proficient with queries . . . so I hope there's even more I can learn from this "Beyond Essentials class".

Ok . . . off to class!

Strengths

1. Achiever
2. Significance
3. Focus
4. Analytical
5. Maximizer

If 2.5 of my 5 strengths are being sorely unused, uncultivated, and ignored . . . does that mean I'm failing in life and in my job? 50% is failing in school. Does that percentage apply to everything else?