Surprise birthday weekend

Paul and Holly took me on a surprise weekend getaway for my birthday. Holly didn't know where we were going and when I asked her on Wednesday, she said "I don't know Mommy, maybe we're going to England!". A little far for just the weekend!

I knew we were crossing the border because I was told to have our passports ready - we ended up going to San Juan Island, which is just west of Washington state - and just east of Vancouver Island. We took the ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor.














Holly saw this mermaid carving outside a store and asked if I would take her picture with it.



















Our room - Captain's Quarters at the Hillside House Bed & Breakfast.














Holly loved wearing the hat and pretending to be a pirate - one of her favourite "pretend" games right now. We had to be Matey Daddy and Matey Mommy on the ship! We were all tired from a few long days of work (Daddy was in Victoria until this morning for work) - and we were all in bed AND asleep by 8:30pm - thereby participating in Earth Hour, which was Earth Evening for us!

Birthday continuation!

These are some flowers I received for my birthday - the first one with the little teddy bear was sent by Paul's parents from Sooke, the next one was a bouquet that my mom and grandmother put together, and the last one was a bunch of tulips from Holly (thanks Mom!).














Tonight we went to Mosaic at the Hyatt Hotel for dinner - a treat from my Mom. Thanks to Elle, Paolo and Bel for coming too! The restaurant gave us this delicious chocolate cake for dessert (good thing it came before we ordered the 3 desserts we were planning on having!).

Make up?!

Holly was colouring her giant Princess colouring book with water-based, washable markers. . . it got a little quiet, which should have clued me into some "monkey business" going on. . . my multi-coloured child (with green eybrows, a purple moustache and red forehead) - although in the photo, it just looks like her face is really dirty!

More birthday fun

My mom got one of my favourite cakes for my birthday - a diplomat from Bon Ton Bakery! Yummy!















Holly with me and my grandparents - now 90 and 95 years young!














Family photo. . .














With my sister, Belinda and my mom.














We brought Holly's pj's just in case it got a bit late - and she decided to change - by herself!

"Girls' Night Out"

This one is about me. . . tonight I spent the night with my 2 sisters and 2 of my female cousins at the River Rock Casino Hotel for a "Girls' Night Out" package. We had a lot of fun - 3 of us went to the Absolute Spa for treatments - and got upgrades because we were staying over. Then we met in our 2-bedroom suite before heading to the buffet for dinner. My cousin Lauren got to the room first and found the package of swag we had been given - pens, key chains, playing cards, t-shirts, chocolate shot glasses and Mardi Gras beads for all! She laid it all nicely out on the coffee table as you will see below - I thought the hotel staff had done it!














2 more of my friends met us for dinner (thanks Paolina and Anna!) - we went to the buffet with the $100 gift card we had been given by the hotel - there was an hour's wait so we headed to the casino to kill time. After dinner we headed back to the casino for a couple of hours - we also got $5 each to gamble with our package! We all pretty much lost a bit ($30 for me) - except for my sister Ellena who ALWAYS wins at the slot machines! She walked away with nearly $90 for the night!

I was meaning to take some pictures at dinner, but forgot because I was eating sooo much!

After gambling, we headed back to our suite and watched a movie before hitting the sack around 2am. In the morning, we headed to Tramonto's for our free breakfast (also part of our package). I had a blast - thanks Elle, Bel, Alison and Lai for making my big "0" birthday celebration so much fun!

There is no crying in ballet!

This has to be the saddest ballerina in the world! Today was Holly's last ballet class for this session - so there was an open house and everyone could come watch - even my mom came for it! Holly was fine when she got in and started doing the warm up, but when it came to start dancing, she started to cry. Not sure if it was stage fright or something else, but she was not happy. I was finally able to get her to do a little dancing in the last 5 minutes of the class. This is our teary-eyed little dancer... I still think she's cute! Anyway, it reminded me of the movie "A League of Their Own", where Tom Hanks' character says, "there is no crying in baseball!".

Swimming

At the pool with our little fishy mermaid...

Music Shakers

Holly loves her Music Shakers class and today was our last class for this session so Daddy took a few hours off work to join us! Today the theme was Hawaiian music so we dressed up for the occasion.



















Ever seen a Hawaiian firefighter?

A wedding

After Sophie's birthday party, Paul and I went to our friends' wedding. Here are Josey and Matt - and check out the great cake topper their friend who made the cake found! Doesn't the groom look exactly like Matt?! Congratulations to them both!

Sophie's birthday

Today we went to Sophie's 3rd birthday party. Holly had fun getting her face painted - she requested a blue fish...


















Isabelle with a flower on her face.














Simon - ready for Mardi Gras!



















The birthday girl & Holly.














Holly and Isabelle - playing with the parachute.














Holly performing in her first puppet show...