Happy 50th!

David's parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary yesterday. 50. That's a big number. In celebration, they invited all of their by-products (otherwise known as off-spring!) up to Victoria for the weekend. There were thirteen adults and four young'uns. What a blast. A fun noisy commotion. We terrorized the resort and restaurants. I jest, actually the kids were surprisingly well-behaved and so were their parents! I think this photo is a good representation of the chaos. Not too bad; just a big group:
The waitstaff must have gulped with dread when we walked in and asked for four highchairs.

We left Friday morning and took a ferry at 1 pm. Here is shot of the Sam during the ONLY 20 minutes that she slept that day. A rare sighting indeed. Needless to say, she was a bit of a basketcase later that evening. We stayed at the Oak Bay Resort. It had a huge, comfortable lobby with a fireplace, a pub called The Snug, and a lovely restaurant that had free continental breakfast.

Saturday we all went to the Butchart Gardens. Huge! But stunning. My favorite was a toss-up between the Sunken Garden and the Japanese Garden.

Saturday night we surprised Jack and Helen with a three course meal at the resort restaurant. French onion soup, a choice of Mediterranean stuffed chicken or dijon garlic steak, and a chocolaty raspberry cake thing. Nice. Throughout the meal, we read excerpts of letters that they had written during their courtship. That was another surprise - not sure they would've gone for that if they had known! But it was cool. Between Sept 30, 1956 and June 10th, 1956, they each wrote every single day! What a concept.

Chris had found a list of news items that were happening in 1956 that he read. And we bought them two beautiful anniversary rings. After dinner, we all traipsed upstairs and watched a DVD that David had made: scanned pictures of their childhood, through their marriage, David and his sisters, all the way up to the grand and great granchildren that came this last year. He also made CDs of Billboard's top 20 songs of 1956. It was a nice stroll down memory lane.

After a breakfast at the Blethering Place, we all caravaned back to the States and went our separate ways. All in all, a very enjoyable weekend!

side note: we just recently purchased a video camera, that we love, but it makes for less photos for the blog! Sorry it is so sparse. I am hoping that Aaron will send along some of his photos - I think he had snapped over 500 by Saturday night!

Quick thoughts and random pictures

Again, I feel the need to capture these quick little phases she is going through, before they disappear into the abyss that is my memory.

I've got this bottle thing DOWN!

Her grandpa next door has taught her that if she holds her arm straight up, he will lift her up to touch the light fixture. She loves it. First thing in the morning when I get her up from bed, she is up with her arm out, ready to touch the things she has seen from the crib with a huge grin on her face.

I'm cute and I know it.

She has discovered music. We put the stereo jukebox on random (there are 101 discs) and as soon as the piece finishes playing, she looks to the stereo, waiting to hear what the next piece will be. Music with a latin flair are her favorites: so Gypsy Kings, Kepa Junkera, Buena Vista Social Club. She'll start bouncing to the music. It's priceless. Of course, I tried to record her doing this routine and she just cried because I wouldn't pick her up to dance! Oh well, next time.

What a handful!

One new trick that is NOT priceless is grinding her teeth - all six of them. This has been the second day and I am trying very hard to ignore it, but how can I ignore such a viscerally grating sound?!

I love the reflection in the faucet!

Last Saturday we went to the Kubota Gardens. (A preview of the upcoming trip to Butchart Gardens this weekend!) What a nice, relaxing, surprisingly empty place! Here we are in the Japanese Garden: