Recent Happenings--Graduation and Vacation

June has been pretty busy for us with Trev's graduation and the traditional post-graduation family vacation.

This year graduation seemed to be later than usual, but on June 7th Trevor graduated!  This year a new feature was showing the graduates on the jumbo screen as their names were called.

Afterwards we took the family (including Grammy and Grandad and Grandma) out to dinner at Chili's.  It was a fun evening, and we're proud of Trevor and his accomplishments! 

Our family tradition is the year we have a graduate that child gets to pick the place we go on our family vacation.  This year Trevor picked to go up to British Columbia.  We spent a week in Victoria, enjoying the getaway and time spent with each other.

It was BEAUTIFUL up there.  I loved all the trees and the coastal feel to Victoria.  I was surprised to hear that the weather is very mild there in the winter: I was told that it rarely gets below freezing.  (The negative I did hear to winter weather [at least for me] would be that it's dreary all winter.)

Some of our fun included:

Butchart Gardens--Probably the closest thing to what I imagine the Garden of Eden would be like.  The flowers were beautiful, and Craig decided that it would be great if his backyard looked like that!
 

Kayaking and Zip Lining--We had a busy day with both the kayaking trip and the zip line course.  Both were great fun, although we fought the wind the first half of the kayaking trip.  We saw starfish and a seal followed us for awhile.  The zip line course was great fun!  I have only zip lined one other time (at Girl's Camp) and loved the zip line itself, although the way they made us get to the zip line was scary (it was a trust course type thing...climb a telephone pole and then walk on another telephone pole out to the zip line.)  The way to get to these zip lines were much less scary, although I will admit I was a little worried about the heights.  But by the end (8 lines) I was feeling much braver with the heights part.  Another time on the course and I probably would have been pro, haha!

A 20 mile bike ride--We rode down an old rail trail that was flat and mostly paved.  It was really nice to casually wind from the Swartz Bay area down to Victoria.  It was a mix of coastal, farmland, and city riding.  We stopped along the way at a place called Mattick's Farm to have lunch at a cute little restaurant.  Victoria is very bike friendly, which was nice when you were riding in town!

A Ferry ride--We took a ferry one day from Victoria over to Vancouver.   We didn't do much in Vancouver except drive around, but we enjoyed the ferry ride over.  We did drop by the Vancouver Temple site just to add it to our list of Temples we've seen throughout the world.  It is a smaller temple, but still very beautiful and peaceful.  We love the House of the Lord!

Beach exploration--We took a day and drove all along the coast stopping at beachy areas and exploring the tidal pools.  The beaches are quite rocky often, and the different nooks and crannies in the rocks would fill with various sea life.

We slept in as late as we wanted, which was lovely.  I rarely get to sleep until I wake up on my own!  We enjoyed our trip a lot.  Trevor told us he might move up that way some day, and I can understand his thinking as it is very beautiful there.  It actually was almost depressing to come home because it's not quite as beautiful here! 

All in all it was a fun trip, with lots of fun things to do.  We had a great time!