All In a Day's Work

Jeremy and his dad spent the day Saturday moving gravel from the far end of our property to our front walk. Zac and I enjoyed watching, which was a lot easier than shoveling gravel -- we had no sore muscles afterwards! Jeremy and Phil, well, I can't say the same for them! They worked so hard, digging out the walkway, shoveling gravel into the lawn mower trailer, dumping it, load after load, and spreading it in the walkway. It is so nice now to have gravel for a front walk. Previously, you would have had to walk through dirt or mud to get to our front porch, so we haven't even been able to use our front door in the year we've lived here. Now that the gravel is down, we have to pack it down, add sand, and lay paving stones to complete the project.

Pumpkin Patch, October 26th, '08

This was a few weeks ago now, but here are some pictures from our visit to Liepold Farms. We had beautiful fall weather, and Zac had an absolute blast. He loved seeing all the animals, and he was very excited to be surrounded by so many pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. He is quite independent, and enjoyed walking all around the place, NOT holding Mommy's or Daddy's hand -- unfortunately he took a lot of tumbles, but he didn't seem to mind.

Zac at Jeff and Tracy's new house

Here are some pictures of Zac at Jeff and Tracy's new house. Joe Knapp took the pictures with his new camera.

Zac's Birthday Party

We started the day's festivities with a picnic lunch at Meinig Park. It was a little bit cold, but lots of fun. Zac's cousins Kaleb and Micah were at the park with us, as were both Zac's Grandmas and both Zac's Grandpas and several fun aunts and uncles.

During naptime, those of us who were not sleeping decorated the livingroom, diningroom, and cakes. Aunt Kirsty decorated the cake and cupcakes, which Grandma Ginger had made. They turned out awesome!

I know this is a bit randomly placed, but it WAS shot at the party, and I just love this picture of Zac's cousin Madison:

The party got underway at 3:00. We had about 25 people here -- Mommy's family, Daddy's family, and a few of our good friends. We had tons of balloons (well not literally because that would be a heck of a lot of balloons), some with helium (thank you Grandpa Cliff) and some on the floor (thank you Daddy). We played some games, had snacks, opened gifts, and ate tacos and cake with ice cream. Thank you everyone who came, you made the day so special!!!

Opening gifts...

Below, Zac is opening a gift from Kaleb and his family. Kaleb was quite excited about giving Zac this gift, which was a dumptruck and a backpack just like Kaleb's, except it says "Zac." :-)

1 Year Pictures

We took Zac in for his 1-yr Pictures on Friday. He did great! He even got to have some pictures with his cousin Madison. It was a lot of fun, and of course we spent way too much money, but he's only one once, right? Well, that's what the sales lady told me, and I guess it worked.

Here are a few of our favorite shots
...a couple of the ones we got printed, and a few choice shots just for a laugh:

New Pictures of our Baby!!!!

Here is a Professional picture of our Baby! We will post more Pictures of our Baby at the end of March with our own camera!

Victoria -- Wednesday through Saturday 8/6-8/9

Here are some pictures and notes from the second half of our vacation, which was, yes, a month ago. It's been busy, so we just never got around to finishing the posts. Since Victoria, we've had a garage sale, which was way more work than we previously realized! Afterward we've been busy putting our house and garage back together, and we've also had Zac's birthday, of which we will be posting pictures soon. Check back! :-)

Anyway, we really wanted to share about the rest of our trip...

On Wednesday we had lunch at Sanuk, an Asian and Fusian place with a unique and fun atmosphere. Then we just walked around the city. We walked through part of the Empress Hotel, and took a guided tour of the Parliament Buildings, which was quite interesting actually. Zac appreciated how his voice echoed inside the great hallways and huge rooms. He experimented with the very loudest possible echoing sounds ...during the poor tour guide's talks! And, btw, there's no use trying to hush him, just carry him to another room and return later.

Putting together a puzzle in our room later that night...


Thursday was our fun hike. We hiked up Mt. Douglas and had incredible views of the island and all around.


Friday we walked along the other side of the harbour. First we walked into town to a great pub called Swans, probably our favorite of the trip, and we ate lunch. Then we walked across the blue bridge, and along the water for a couple of miles. It was fun, and beautiful -- great weather. We stopped at another pub on the way back, called Spinnakers. Jer had a beer and I had an ice cream. Zac just slept in his stroller the whole time we were there. He enjoyed the walk, though. He always loves a chance to be outside!




After our walk on Friday, we packed up our stuff, loaded the car, and took it down to the ferry to park for the night. This was the only way we would be able to make it onto Saturday's 10:30 ferry, since we were unable to get reservations. We spent our last night, and got up early, packed our duffle and backpacks, put Zac in the stroller, and walked to the ferry. Here are a few pictures of our unit:

Saturday morning on the ferry

Zac was completely exhausted after not sleeping well, and no morning nap. He slept a lot on the drive home.

A fabulous if not perfect vacation! We praise God for safety, fun times, beautiful sights, warm and sunny weather, and time with the people we most love in the whole wide world. We had a wonderful time!

Victoria -- Tuesday 8/5

Butchart Gardens


We are all three having quite a fabulous time. Everything we've done so far has been fun and amazing. Butchart Gardens was beautiful! Zac thought it was funny to smell flowers. But he wanted to try. If you look closely you will see that he has a huge smile on his face.






After Butchart Gardens and lunch (at Butchart), we drove to Thetis Lake Regional Park and took a swim in the lake. It was very refreshing, a bit chilly, but it was a HOT day, so it felt great! Zac loves water, and especially splashing!