Vancouver Island Travels

We have been enjoying our stay on Vancouver Island! We are spending our last evening at the Cattrall house and tomorrow we are off to the mainland for the last two days of our stay.  I cannot express how grateful we are to have had such an amazing trip so far. We have been seeing SO much but also relaxing and kicking back which is what vacation should be all about.  It also is a perk to wake up in the morning knowing you are going to see stuff like this.

Qualicum Beach

Cathedral Grove

We have been doing a lot of walking and exploring of some cities. In the past few days we have visited Coombs and Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia.
Coombs is a fabulous place. They even have a market where they have goats on the roof with their own little houses. Those goats look pretty happy to be there. We browsed around stores, looked at funny knick knacks and the guys ate some candied salmon... I tried it and it was not too bad with a slosh of root beer following it!

At the end of our stay in Coombs it started to drizzle and although part of me wanted to tell Deanne and Karl to just head home a HUGE part of me really wanted to drive a little more north to Cathedral Grove. We decided to be adventurous in the rain and head to the place that has trees over 800 years old. This was one of my favorite places I visited last time. I just cannot get over how green everything is! Moss growing on moss, trees and leaves sprouting up like weeds but they are not weeds they are beautiful trees!

Tree Huggers!

In Victoria we visited the Craigdarroch castle. This castle was used by tons of people. It was first used by a family, then it was used as a hospital, college, music school and then lastly a museum as it is now. It has 39 rooms and four floors! It was really cool and there was a large amount of the castle that was original to make it even more historic and interesting.

After our castle tour, we walked through the largest bike festival in Canada, ate some awesome seafood near the water and we also enjoyed the most delicious doughnuts in the world.

The weather got pretty dark and extra chilly so we headed back to Nanaimo in time to spend time with Savannah and order some Thai food.  Today, our last full day in Nanaimo we spent our time at Qualicum Beach. It reminded me of the Quilette beach from TWILIGHT! Without any wolves than transform back and forth from human to animal form. We let our toes go numb and let a baby get extremely dirty in the sand.

Karl, Savannah and Deanne Blumenhagen

See how he treats me!? haha

Savannah Marie Blumenhagen. 9 months!

As you all know, Holland is an assistant brewer in San Antonio so it is only fitting that we go to some local brew pubs. We found our favourite so far! Holland usually tried samplers when we go somewhere new. I usually just choose a beer that has anything fruity or floral in it and I am usually please but OMG. Deanne and I both got one of the Rasberry Framboise and it was DEEELISH.

Deanne is currently making us egg rolls for dinner and this is about how she feels right now...... SO I better get going!

Tomorrow we leave for Vancouver mainland by airboat! That should be fun! I will post my next blog when we get back to San Antonio on Wednesday. Hope you are enjoying your 106 degree weather San Antonio! I am enjoying the 65-70 degree range here :)