Little guy in a giant wooden shoe outside the Dutch Grocer
The evil waves will be defeated by Weenie the Brave
Trying to catch lunch at Dinghy Dong Dock Pub
Chowing on the chowder!
Kids loved the bunnies at the Cheeseworks.
Making a doomed sand castle as the tide is coming in
So we are going to combine yesterday and today into one epic, monstrous post! And as well we are going to have a contest, details at the end of the post.
Yesterday we booked it out of Sooke bright and early and headed back to Nanaimo. Along the way we stopped at a little art gallery just off the highway.
During our trip our oldest has been taking an interest in totem poles, as we have come across a lot of amazing ones on the Island. And in Sooke she found a piece of drift wood and said she was going to make a totem pole, she used her markers and made a cute little totem pole of her own.
So Mom and her went into the little art gallery and came out with a nice little replica totem pole for her to keep in her room.
By the time we got to Nanaimo it was lunch time, so we hopped on the ferry and went to Protection Island in the Nanaimo harbour for lunch at Dinghy Dock Pub. It is the only restaurant on the island and it is at the end of the dock that the ferry uses, so the kids loved that they ate lunch at a floating restaurant, and they serve pretty good meals too. Mom had a tuna sandwich and Dad had to try their clam chowder and then ate a honey ginger glazed salmon salad with a wasabi dressing!!
A really neat thing for the kids is that they have a place outside where we sat where the kids could fish. They had little fishing poles and line with corn on the end. Little fish kept coming by and nibbling but no one took the bait and was caught. But it did not stop the kids from trying and trying and trying and trying.
We did not get back to our home base in Nanaimo until late afternoon so Mom ran out for some groceries while the kids played and relaxed for the rest of the day.
And of course Mom and Dad rocked the tea on the deck in the evening relaxing and enjoying the scenery.
Today, we had a much busier day because we had no travelling to accomplish. We started out by heading to Qualicum and checked out their beach. Because the tide was just about all the way back in the kids played in the sand and were constantly being pushed back closer to land every few minutes as the ocean kept washing their shoes away from the dry spot they had placed them.
We think the little guy was still choked about getting thrashed in Tofino because he had a wooden sword and was very angry at each wave as it crawled up the beach at him, and it ended in tears when the ocean first took the kids shoes from an earlier dry spot and slowly washed them about.
After we were evicted from the beach by the water the kids voted and we decided to go to Parksville and play at their playground and spray park.
On our way there we came across a sign that read,
"Moonberry Winery and Little Qualicum Cheeseworks"
So we of course veered off the highway and searched for this amazing combination of a place. What we found was perfect! It was a dairy farm that produced cheese and also made wine, AND they also had a cool self guided tour for kids that was a scavenger hunt taking us all around the farm to get different stamps for each clue. The kids played with a few rabbits they had, they saw some baby dairy cows, which caused the youngest to shout "Be-be Kow! Be-be kow!", over and over again for a good 10 minutes, even after we left the cows.
We were able to see the barn where they milk the cows and check out the horses they have on hand for trail rides, all in all a great stop.
Oh, and we ate cheese! The kids were sooo excited to be at cheese farm because they could then tell a friend of theirs, who LOVES cheese, that they were at a cheese farm.
So we left the Cheeseworks with a bottle of wine and some cheese and finally found ourselves at the playground and spray park in Parksville.
2 hours later we packed up and drove off with a van full or rosy cheeked kids, and stopped again at that nice little restaurant Avo's Eatery in Parksville. Mom had the Santa Fe wrap with broccoli sprouts and carmelized onions and Dad had an avocado, tomato, and Asian salad on noodles. We both agreed that Mom's was the best!
On our way back to Nanaimo we were again sidetracked!
A sign that read,
"70 flavours of Licorice" caught our eyes. Sooo we pulled off the highway again and found a neat little Dutch grocery that indeed had at least 70 different flavours of licorice. The kids dug through the bulk bins and selected quite the assortment of licorice tp give Grandpa once we get home. And the nice lady who owned the store gave the kids a bag of chocolate soccer balls and Dad a dried farmers sausage.
The kids loved the chocolate but the large farmers sausage made Dad's stomach feel - bletch!
Once finally home we ate a buffet of random foods we had on hand, had a quick evening dip in the hot tub and then bath and off to bed with the lot of them.
Tomorrow we leave the Island, which will be a sad moment. We had a hell of a good time here and I think we would all galdly spend another couple weeks checking out what it has to offer.
But it works out well for us because tomorrow we are going to meet up with someone in the family who the kids adore and have a super fun time in Vancouver at an amusement park.
Thanks for a good time Vancouver Island, stay classy!
Now for the CONTEST!!!!
We have so far taken a lot of pictures on vacation, and more than a few of them are completely ridiculous! So we thought it would be fun to have a caption contest.
Take a look at the picture below and in the comments section below write your best caption for the picture. I don't think there will be a prize but we can all enjoy the stupid and silly captions that everyone comes up with.
What's your best caption for this picture?
