Scott and Katie

By far, one of our favorite things we did on our vacation was ziplining! We had two guides take us high up into the trees along a zipline course. I believe there were 14 consecutive lines that we rode down from the top of the mountain to the bottom. The longest line was 1,000 feet! It was so much fun....

Here we are getting strapped into our harnesses and helmets

Don't they look adorable!

Here we are receiving instructions on how to safely ride the zipline. This was before our first ride, a few of us look pretty scared.

Scott and I were the last to take the plunge the first time.

Scott has excellent ziplining form!

Here is a video of Scott on the zipline


I love this picture of my Mom!!!

This is the whole group right after we went on the 1,000 ft ride.



After ziplining we had worked up quite the appetite so we drove to a pier to have lunch. While we were eating we spotted otters and seals in the water. There were even some people throwing big cages into the water in attempt to catch crabs.


That evening we decided to go on a walking ghost tour. In old cities such as Victoria there are a lot of spooky old buildings, and many stories of deaths, suicides and murders. At night many of the old historic buildings are lit over the harbor. The lights reflect into the water, it's really gorgeous.

Our first full day in Victoria we decided we would visit a place called Undersea Gardens; we noticed it the day before. It looked like an interesting place to see fish from the bay. Unfortunately, it was not quite as interesting as we expected, but there were a few things that we found pretty hilarious. This place was a small aquarium like building which was half submerged into the water in the harbor in Victoria. Guests walk down a flight of stairs where you could look into a hand full of tanks with different species of fish. They did have a place where you could touch the sea stars, which was fun.

Our favorite thing about this place was the "live show" that they put on a few times a day that we were lucky enough to catch. They have a special seating area that faces a large tank full of different marine creatures where they send in a diver to feed them. Our diver's name was Ben. During the show they would ask Ben questions about what he was doing and when he responded all we could hear was indistinguishable gibberish. It was a good idea in theory, just poorly executed. The whole rest of the trip we would pretend to be Ben and answer each other in loud obnoxious mumbles.

Ben in the flesh....

The traditional funny hat photo in the Undersea Garden gift shop

Following our adventure at the Undersea Garden we walked around the pier right in Victoria's main street. Here we got some good shots of the Empress hotel.

Across the street from where Scott and I stayed there was a hotel named the Royal Scot which was appropriately named for the mascots of our High Schools as well as for the finely dressed polar bear out front which the girls had to have their picture with.


For lunch we wandered over to Fisherman's Wharf and had fish and chips and ice cream. We also purchased some fish to feed the seals that hang out around the wharf. Actually, there was really only one seal that looked like he frequented the wharf because he was not perishing for the want of food, but it was so fun to hold the fish out over the water and have a wild seal come out and eat it right out of your fingers. Rachelle had a moment where she wasn't paying attention and a seagull came and snatched the fish right out of her fingers. Thank goodness she didn't fall into the harbor.
Feeding the seal was one of my favorite things to do. I'm ashamed to admit that Scott and I wandered over almost every day we were there to feed that fat seal.

We just returned from a three week vacation with my family to the North East Coast and Canada. Last year my parents got each of the kids passports for Christmas in preparation for this trip. My parents and sisters started out driving through Idaho and Montana in order to visit cities in my sister Sarah's mission before we met up in Seattle, WA. Scott and I caught a plane on June 1 which stopped in Salt Lake City, UT where we met up with my brother Chris and his wife Rachelle, and then we all flew together to meet with the rest of the family. The first night we stayed in a hotel near the airport and went to bed early because we needed to wake up at 4 am the next morning to catch a ferry that would take us across the border to Canada!

That morning we hit the road around 5 am to drive a few hours north of Seattle to Anacortes, WA where we would catch our ferry. We drove right through Seattle on our way, which made us so excited to make our stop there on our way home. When we arrived around 7:30 am we were asked to line up to prepare to drive on to the boat.


Once we were on board, we could get out of our cars and climb up to the third floor of the ship where there was seating together. It was really fun for the whole family to watch out the window for sea life. Chris spotted some porpoises in the water. We passed many little islands that were scattered with little homes. We spent lots of time speculating how people got supplies and groceries to their homes on those islands. The first stop on our journey was Friday Harbor where many of the cars and trucks on the ship got off. While we watched them drive off the boat we noticed many big trucks shipping supplies onto the island.




After about 20 minutes we were on our way again. Soon after we reached our stop in Sydney, British Columbia. Once we reached the island we were instantly stopped by Canadian customs, questioned, and sent on our way. It was about a 20 minute drive to our condo in Victoria, but we were able to witness so many interesting attractions on the way like.....

The Victoria Parliament building


fisherman's wharf


and the Empress hotel

(We were able to spend much more time at these locations on a later date)

The condo, where we spent much of our down time, was located right next to the wharf, and around the corner from downtown Victoria. It was a beautiful location. From the balcony we were able to watch the biplanes take off and land. This is the view from the room.