kissing cousins

Yesterday we met up at the Silva Bay Farmers' Market in the morning (mmmmm ooey-gooey white bread buttery cinnamon buns!).  We found Maki a trip souvenir: a cute little handmade wooden truck.  :)  Then we all walked onto the ferry to spend the afternoon at the Dragon Boat festival in Nanaimo.  We didn't actually watch that much of the dragon boating though ... we mostly wandered along the docks, hung out at the playground, and ate festival food.  The kids even managed to jump in the bouncy castle post-lunch with no tummy troubles (we were seriously skeptical!).  What a great way to spend a very hot and sunny Sunday afternoon!  We refreshed ourselves with real fruit popsicles when we got back.  SO good.  Mak thought so too (this pic is on Sully's camera ... ); vacation apparently means Maklin can have popsicles too!! (thank goodness for the travel size Sunlight bar to remove the raspberry drips!)  Maki had a great day ... the heat and the fresh air meant easily into bed for a big sleep!

This morning we went for a wee hike into the forest to see the Elder Cedar:

(This blog is stupid btw ... it should not be this difficult.  It is VERY finicky re publishing pictures, alignment etc ... good thing I'm on a relaxing vacation cuz I tend to curse when trying to post this blog!!  Apparently the text will just have to be centered from now on ... it refuses to change!  I suppose the pictures will just have to go wherever they want!!)

Maki was equally interested in the forest surroundings and my ponytail that was bobbing just far enough ahead of his face that he had to really work at grabbing onto it. He did succeed a few times though!

Today is the halfway point of our holiday. Hard to believe … it seems like it’s going by so fast! We walked through the woods with the Reids this afternoon to a quiet little beach spot. River was the only one brave enough to get in the water though!  Still … the view from the beach was awesome … we had a great time exploring, sunning, and chatting.

(And yes ... it randomly switched to left alignment all by itself).

We walked back all along the beach.  We walked; Maklin napped:

After a tour of the quarry (great work Dallas -- the lot looks fantastic!! What is finished rocks (HA!) and the potential is amazing!  Menno -- we thought you'd enjoy this photo opp:

Our last supper together, we ate together at the B&B.  I was pleased to find that Robyn was equally annoyed by the piercing ding of our microwave!  (Justin feels the microwave has brought out my inner rage ...) It's not the newest machine ... in fact, we considered holding frying pans in front ourselves as to not catch any stray radiation!!  The Harvest Thyme wraps and pizza were totally worth it though!

We of course had to take/post this picture for Gramma K before we parted:

A great few days of QT with the fam.

Tomorrow morning -- Vancouver-ho, and in good spirits.  Justin thinks it's good therapy for me to be blogging:  "it's a good outlet.  It's good that you're writing about your anger."  Punk.