We spent a fun little evening boating with Conor's brother and his family. I was surprised at how warm the lake water was but I guess that's what happens when it doesn't freeze over in the winter! Holly and Greta were able to do some extra boating and then they also slept over with Lola. It was a cousin win!

The highlight of our trip to Victoria was our day in East Sooke. Conor and I rented wet suits and we went snorkeling with John and Hudson. There were moon jellyfish everywhere, in fact, Quinn was catching them and trapping them in a tide pool. Snorkeling showed me how out of this world the ocean is. It was so cool! We found crabs and big purple starfishes. It was really, really cool. Our older girls went snorkeling too - Holly used my wet suit and Greta borrowed one from Allison. Maeve loved playing on shore with her cousins and Enoch liked climbing and exploring. It was a super fun day and while we all were sunburned, we loved it!

Here's a link to a video my bro made of our adventures!

I really appreciate when cities invest in their park systems. We enjoyed our visit to Beacon Hill Park - it was so fun to see the goats. John and Hudson were the goat whisperers. And the babies were pretty cautious about the goats. Maeve was solidly on team Allison the whole trip and that really began at the park.

We finished our park visit at a playground where Ira was totally crushed in the splash pad by another kid and scraped up his face. Poor guy.

A fun little evening on the beach and playing in the park. Ira and Enoch did not like the dry sand on their feet. That was way too much for them so there's some grumpy faces in connection to that. Enoch did enjoy walking through the water and Ira is super into boats. The kids had a great time running around and playing hard.

Our trip to Victoria was pretty close to what we thought it would be. Lots of balancing out babies, nap times and big kids. One of our first stops was China Town. Holly was really interested in going and I was there for it. It was very fun to walk through and look at the shops and the buildings. Fan Tan Alley is such a neat little spot. The other night I dreamed that a neighbor (or someone??) stole the Hearts Content sign and I was like, "uh-oh, that's not good." So hopefully it's still there in real life!

After our China Town visit we went to my brother, John's, office and got the tour. Kind of reminded me of visiting my Dad's office, something my kids don't really get to experience because Conor works from home!

Wrapped up our first full day with a pizza party at our Airbnb with cousins!