High tea

Marg and VJ shouted me high tea today at the Fairmont Empress. It was just gorgeous. Spent the morning at the museum, and a couple of hours being waited on over high tea. Both Eva and Harrison slept for 12 hours last night, so we were all in very good moods!

Marg and VJ

Marg and Veronica arrived today - bearing Cherry Ripes (yay!). Victoria put on a spectacular day for them. We walked over to the marina in perfect mid-20s weather, not a cloud in the sky. Two seals obligingly came to the jetty and we fed them some herring. We had wild salmon and a salad of organic local vegies for dinner. Harrison warmed to both of them instantly. Tomorrow we're off to explore the inner harbour, and next week we're booked in to high tea at the Empress Hotel. Looking forward to spending a week with them.

The Library Song

Song by Sarah Whyte about the new science library... Love it!

Rockies

Just back from our huge road trip. Started by driving the length of the Island to Port Hardy, and got on the ferry for the Inside Passage trip. It was absolutely beautiful and well worth it. 15 hours of stunning scenery. Harrison made friends with an Austrian (Victoria) who was about 9 and spoke virtually no English. Didn't stop them playing together for hours. Victoria was besotted with Eva as well, and would manage to get cuddles etc without speaking a word. We then drove across the top of British Columbia to the Rockies and Alberta. Eva was not a great car traveller. Simon's style of travel just doesn't agree with a 2 month old, I'm afraid. After Jasper and Banff we decided that Eva and I would stay in a motel in Canmore (a much nicer place to stay than Banff which is way too crowded these days) while Harrison and Simon went out to Drumheller on their dinosaur expedition. 4 nights in one place! Heaven! Eva and I sampled all the cafes in Canmore and got heaps of exercise and sleep. Harrison did a kids dinosaur activity at the museum - even among a group of dinosaur obsessed kids at the museum he was apparently the most obsessed. When the teacher was getting them ready for their mock hike to find fossils she said - "Is everyone ready? We know Harrison was born ready!"

We came back along the bottom of BC and Simon found his absolute perfect place to live - the Kootenays. It is a large fresh water lake surrounded by mountains. We had a gluten incident one day. Bought what was labelled as a home made gluten free slice, but it obviously wasn't and Harrison paid the price a few hours later. We were stuck in a park for several hours waiting for him to stop being sick. We had an offer from a lady in the park of a night in her cabin by the lake, but unfortunately a) it was back the way we'd already come and b) at that stage we couldn't get Harrison to stop vomitting long enough to get him in the car.

Eva is delightful now - it's miraculous how babies just become all bonny and contented all of a sudden. Apart from long car trips, of course! She's very giggly and interactive and thankfully is a great sleeper at night now. Had a check up with the paediatrician on Monday and he's very happy with her development. Such a relief to know she's well.