Trip to Vancouver Island

Not much happening here at Dad's house, just waiting for the will to be probated so we can move forward. Earliest projected date for that to happen is the end of the month. With that in mind, we decided to go over to Vancouver Island for a few days, visit with the kids, see some properties and have dinner with our long-time friends Gary and Janice Glover.

Thursday morning we left on the 10:15 ferry. Once we arrived in Nanaimo after checking in with Jason, we dropped Freya off and headed to our favorite sushi place (Nori's) for lunch. Jason had stuff to do and Kristi was in a meeting after work.  By the time she came home and all together, we only had an hour or so to catch up before bed.

Friday we all had a very busy day ... Kat was coming over from Squamish to meet up with Kristi for the 5 day "Girl Adventure". They were supposed to meet up with us down in Arizona, like last year, but the plans changed when we came home due to Dad's condition and eventual death. The girls are headed to Mount Washington for snowshoeing.

Walked the beach in Union Bay in the afternoon

Ray and I headed off to view properties, first up being some recreational properties at Horne Lake. Kristi and Kat met us there as well as Jason. If we buy this kind of property, it is for the whole family as the kids would have to handle any maintenance as it would be theirs as part of their inheritance in the future. We are planning differently than my Dad did, by setting up a family trust in advance. Originally we were going to buy a condo, but with having Freya, that posed many problems and we still want to travel down south for a least a few more years. A recreational property sounded like the better idea for this time in our lives and would put us back into the housing market. We also checked out a patio home and another condo in downtown Nanaimo.

Here is a picture of our "dream home" on the lake.



This place was awesome but as I do not have any $$$ yet we will have to wait a few weeks to put in an offer. Both Ray and I are quite anxious that someone else snaps it up ... but as it is rather pricey we have to believe it will all work out if it is meant to be. We love the timber frame constuction cabins, especially with Ray being in the forest industry most of his working life.



Saturday we hung around the house most of the day as Jason headed off to Victoria to see his parents and we babysat our grand puppies, Zeus and Athena. Saturday night we took Gary and Janice out to the Longwood Inn for dinner. A great visit was had. Of course we forgot to take pictures. This is a picture of them with their son, Kyle from Dad's Celebration of Life.  Gary got his haircut since then and doesn't look like Steve Bannon anymore lol.

Sunday morning we woke to 8" of fresh snow. Yikes. After checking the DriveBC cams we realized Nanaimo got most of the snow in the area... not Surrey.  So, we packed up and made the 10:15 ferry back. Jason had come home at midnight Saturday night as he knew snow was coming and did not want to be stuck in Victoria.

View out my bedroom window at Kristi's.

The dogs love the snow though!

Freya at 6:30 am

Kristi's dog Athena

Need to find the car!

A pretty packed few days and we are happy to be back at home in our own bed.