Canada

very late posting about our august adventures...in my defense my laptop went on the fritz, and so i have several post coming to sum up our end of summer vacation.

we had 'summer vacation' on our calendar but as is our life we were so busy that we never got around to actually planning said vacation. thus two days before our scheduled departure we finally sat down and tried to decide where exactly to go..... todd said 'i think i want to leave the country', so canada it was.  we drove up to port angeles and the next morning we were on a ferry to vancouver island, british columbia.

a couple hours later here we are coming into victoria, b.c.......

we spent a day in victoria...it had such an amazing international feel and is unbelievably not that far away!
.....the empress hotel, and the parliament building, and the harbor.

....but most of the day in victoria was spent at the natural history museum....amazing! lots of awesome First Nations stuff and totem poles.

then we took another ferry to salt spring island one of the gulf islands off the east coast of vancouver island....we found salt spring so so charming that we ended up staying there the rest of our trip.

we had a campsite right at the edge of the water.  it wasn't exactly car camping but they had wheelbarrows to help you.  it was amazing.

the first night orcas swam by while we were eating dinner...they were close! lucy came back to the table after they past with her eyes bright and said 'i just feel twinkling all over!', which about summed it up for the rest of us too!

there were also sea otters and lots of starfish and other tide pool marine life to check out.

we went on a great little hike that had these sweet little fairy doors all along the trail...talk about built in hike motivation.

AND a goat cheese farm! those who know me, know my love of cheese especially artisans cheeses. i was in heaven!

we absolutely fell in love and had such a magical visit, but we finally had to take the ferry back home to the u.s (and saw bonus orcas jumping from the ferry home as a parting gift!)

we drove straight to the beach and had a great weekend with my family...but that's another post!