To each and every one of you....

To all my lovely far away family and friends and to my far away Neil, I love you and miss you all and would like nothing more than than to wake up tomorrow morning and find you all here in my house. We'd all eat breakfast, eggs benedict of course, then have a massive easter egg hunt followed by roast lamb with mint sauce. The kids would run and play and laugh and we'd all have a marvelous party!

Happy Easter to you all!

Dude! Where's my board?

We did it! We went surfing! Well...... kinda. I would say it was more like swimming in the ocean with a giant body float, which by the way, makes normal swimming pretty difficult. I did ride a couple of waves but I rode them on my tummy. We opted to forgo the safety, knowledge and support of surf lessons and just hit the waves by ourselves. hmmm. I'm happy I did it and I did get right out there with the big boys, way beyond the whitewash, but while I was out there I think I pooed my pants. Neil took a nasty clonk to the head and at one point I think I was dangerously close to being washed away to California. however, despite these little mishaps, it was sick dude!!!!

Next time, I'm getting lessons!

Bahahaha! My frog suit. I wasn't convinced that this thing was going to keep out the bone chilling cold of the north pacific but I tell ya, I felt toasty the entire time!

Check this out! This is our outdoor surf shower at home! Yes, our house has a lovely hot shower by the back door entirely devoted to post surf cleansing. This is me giving it a test run.

The previous day to our surf adventure we were still working ourselves up to actually hitting the water so we went to check out the competion from the safety of the beach. We bbq'd from the back of the truck in gorgeous sunshine on a pretty much deserted Long Beach. It was lovely it was!

Hot Springs Cove....for free!!!

We found babysitters! Yay!! So off we went on a boat trip to Hot Springs Cove. We were so excited I can't even tell you, just to be out by ourselves let alone to be off on a little adventure to somewhere amazing! The trip there took just over an hour through the jumble of islands and inlets of the amazing Clayoquot Sound. We went on a little steel hulled boat, the "Miss B Haven" via Ocean Outfitters. As locals, we got to go for free! Nice eh? We saw harbour porpoise, sea otters and bald eagle's along the way. I'm full of facts now....did you know that Bald Eagles live for about 30 years, mate for life and have the same nest for life!? Sometimes their nests can weigh up to 2000lbs!! They never clear out the old bones and shells and that adds up after 20 years or so! Once we arrived at the cove we hiked the boardwalk through old growth forest up the trail to the springs. The forest was so beautiful, full of crazy looking twisted trees, wierd plants and noises, it reminded me of the movie Avatar :) Some of the trees were eight or nine hundred years old or more! Sheesh! When we finally reached the hot springs it was the icing on the cake. lying directly over a fault line, water 5km underground is heated geothermically and sent bubbling up to the surface and out through the rocks. It looks like a little stream at the top, a steamy one! The water bubbles out at 100 degrees C. From there it trickles down hill, drops over the rocks as a waterfall and falls into a series of little pools betwen steep rocks and out into the Pacific. The pools are really hot at the top and gradually get colder as the cold waves from the ocean lap into the lower pools and flow through. We grabbed a spot right in the middle and literally just lay there for about two hours. It was heaven! The air temperature was probably only about 9 degrees but the pools were just like a hot tub, sometimes you got so hot you just had to sit on the side and cool down. When you're laying in the water and the sun is shining it's like being in Hawaii or something, really crazy! I think it's got to be one of the most amazing places I've ever been to.

Here's Neil with some German's on his head.

Here's me basking in the warmth of the waterfall, hahaha! The Germans had moved on so I had it all to myself :)

A tiny section of the boardwalk that extends the entire way from the dock to the hot springs.

This is a grimace not a smile. The return journey was all open ocean and was a little choppier than the smooth inlet ride on the way there. We did stop for a quick break to look at a couple of Grey Whales and about a hundred Stellar Sealions sunbathing on a rock. It gave me a chance to release my grip on the boat and let my fingers come back to life.

Oh, all these photos were taken on Neil's blackberry, I can't believe what great quality pictures it takes!!

Where's Belly?

Little Miss Bel is at that transitional time of life where she is growing out of napping in the day time. This is a mega disaster for me. I love nap time! Anyway, she's been getting through the day without naps but occasionally it all gets too much. The other day she was playing in Seb's room and I noticed it had all gone a little quiet. I headed upstairs to see what she was up to and found her curled up on her tummy fast asleep on the carpet. She looked so cute I couldn't resist getting a few pics before waking her up. Such a cutie!

Vitamin D overload....

The weather here in Tofino has been perfect these last few days. Hardly a cloud in the sky and not a drop of rain in sight! This place is magical even in the rain but when the sun shines it's almost indescribable. Deep blues and greens in the water and in the trees, I have to be careful driving on sunny days, I get so distracted by the awesome scenery out my of window!

I'm well into my second month with no TV and I'm not missing it at all. We've all spent more time outside in the last week or so than I think I have in the last three years in Edmonton. My nose freckles have appeared and Neil looks like he's been away on holiday (from the neck up at least). Hard to believe it's still only April in Canada, I'm sure my body is going to go into shock from the sudden influx of vitamin D!

One fish, two fish, blue fish, news fish.....

We have an idea to make a headboard for our bedroom. It's one of those ideas that is going to require a bit of planning, some power tools and some time, in other words, who knows when we will have a headboard. I'm liking how the rest of the house is looking but everytime I walked into our room it was so bland and boring! It just needed something to liven it up a bit. I was already on a roll with the newspaper and blue paper so I figured why stop now? Snip snip snip....a lovely, fun, fishy, decal headboard. It's better than a bland white wall until we get to work on that permanent headboard. What do you reckon?

Oh the sunsets!

Sebbie and his sea monster and other calamities....

What a weird day it's been in Tofino. Everything's been all over the place.......my mood, the kids mood, the weather it's all been loopy today!

Lets start with the lowlights....

-Missing Neil. He's gone again and I don't know when he's coming back :(

-Feeling stressed and overwhelmed looking after two kids, a dog and a business I know nothing about and letting that turn me into a mean horrible Mummy. (There's been some shouting and a bit of crying today.)

- trying for ten minutes to unlock a filing drawer, finally giving in and asking for help at this pathetic but strangely taxing task then feeling like the biggest Looooser (with a capital L) when I was informed that the drawer was never locked to begin with. That's got to be 10 points lost forever on the "capable and intelligent new business owner/boss scale".

- Loosing my keys to Breakers and then really hurting my knee in a fit of slightly too angry and frustrated searching for keys. ( Oh and then realizing they were in my bag all along!!)

I think it's about time for some highlights....

- Seeing a hummingbird from my kitchen window!!! Yes a real humingbird, tiny, hovering, drinking from a wee little flower and gone in a flash! Put a smile on my face it did :)

-Finding a sea monster on the beach! It was the Daddy, no....the Grand Daddy of all starfish (certainly all the starfish that I've ever seen, although I've probably only seen three or four and two of those have been in the last three days.) It was a whopper though and Dr Sebastian the marine biologist was extremely interested in him (or her).

- receiving not one but two packages in the post! One from my always too generous and too thoughtful sister and best friend who has a knack of knowing the exact perfect book to send each member of my little family and sending them all! For no apparent reason! Just because she is so nice. Thank you!!! :) And one full of lovely Easter goodies and a jar of marmite from my Pa and Mars. Seb has taken his wind up egg with legs to bed with him, he loves it that much!

- Marvelling at this fantasticly beautiful place that I now live and it's constant surprises and breathtaking beauty. Today alone...Rain, snow, fog, no mountains, no fog, sunshine, MOUNTAINS! Beach, blue sky, sea monsters, hummingbird, eagle, stunning sunset...ahhhh!

- Realizing that I'm not a mean Mummy, just a slightly frazzled one and that in the heat of it all I can (sometimes) let it all go and give my kids a big cuddle. And even more importantly, that my three year old told me he loved me right in the middle of his own tears of tiredness and frustration. I must be doing something right! (?)

Anyway, here's that sea monster again....

Snow caped mountains....sunshiney beach!