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Published: October 26th 2007
The month of September was an eventful one for us. We spent quite a bit of time over on Vancouver Island for some very exciting events. We were so pleased that Tobin (Mary Jo's son) has found such a wonderful woman to spend his life with, so on September 1st we attended their wedding. There was much planning and some fun family togetherness activities what with picking the flowers for the wedding, arranging the flowers for the tables and the chapel pews, and generally just getting the bride and groom ready for their big day. Luckily Allison (Mary Jo's daughter) was visiting from South Africa and she was able to organize everyone and everything that needed to be done. The wedding was held at U-Vic in the interfaith chapel and the reception was at the University Club at U-Vic. The weather couldn't have been better and all in all it was a lovely day. The bride and groom look fantastic and were absolutely glowing and even Zander (their beloved dog) got her say in the wedding. She carried the rings in and put in her two cents when the justice of the peace asked if anyone had any objections. Good way
Flowers, flowers, and more flowers
The house was taken over by flowersto calm the brides nerves. All in all it was a lovely day. Tobin and Marika (the newest member of our family) have come home from their honeymoon in Hawaii all nice and tanned and they can't stop talking about what a wonderful trip it was.
After having such a wonderful weekend being pampered (staying in a hotel and eat fabulous food) and getting all dressed up we decided to mix things up a bit. We decided it was time to finally hike the Juan de Fuca trail on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. We have been talking about it for a long time and finally set a date for the end of September. We invited Nick's cousin Kristina and her boyfriend Mario who were gung ho to get going and had a great time shopping for all the new gear to get us ready for the trail. We set out on a misty day and were amazed by the beautiful scenery especially when we arrived at the first beach. The first night we stayed right on one of the most scenic beaches I have ever seen. We were pretty tired on the first night, but nothing would prepare
us for the next day which is aptly named "the 11 hills". With heavy packs going up and down all day makes for a very long, tiring day. On the third day we thought we would have an easy day...that wasn't the case. There were lots of mud pits and tricky parts on the trail. We could see the beach we planned to have lunch on, but it almost seemed to be getting farther away. We all collapsed on the beach and chowed down on our trail mix and all thought about how nice it would be to just stop here. No need to go any further, this is a nice beach and we have gone far already was what was going through all our minds. Somehow we picked ourselves up and continued on. There were a few dangers in the next few days which included crossing a river, following a bear and her cub (well the fresh scat and footprints anyway), and some rock climbing with heavy backpacks on. I know you are all wondering "did these intrepid travelers make it to the end?" Well the answer is yes. We all made it to the end and all in
Ring Bearer
The ring bearer gets a pep talk before her big moment. one piece. Although we had a little surprise when we made it to the trail end and it was in the middle of no-where. We thought we would be able to catch a bus or something back to our car, which was at the beginning of the trail, but this was definitely not the case. After a lot of frantic calling to Tobin and Marika and to some very confused 411 operators we were lucky enough to have the guys hitch a ride with some very nice young Australian travelers back to the car.
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