Home Again

We got home late last night. Saturday morning my hubby and my son-in-law flew into Victoria and we all spent the afternoon at Beacon Hill Park and the waterfront. It was quite windy and cloudy, but not pouring rain so not a problem. We enjoyed wandering the shore and even saw a sea otter, as well as many kinds of birds.

This may have rated as one of my best Mother's Days ever. My daughter-in-law made a yummy breakfast for me (well, for all of us, but it was a Mother's Day brekkie!) Our big plan for the day had been a sailing trip for the whole family, but the weather was too poor. There had been gale force winds all night and it was still plenty windy all day Sunday, so that was rather disappointing.

However, we decided to go to the Royal BC Museum instead. Jim and I hadn't gone for over three years and enough exhibits had changed to make it worthwhile. The Victoria kids get to go relatively often, but Hanna hadn't been since she was little, and her hubby had never been to this one.

The special exhibit this time was War Brides: One Way Passage. Very cool.

We had a picnic at Beacon Hill Park, then returned to the museum for the IMax: Wild Oceans.

Later Jim cooked fresh scallops and halibut filets for us all.

Wonderful!!

We drove home Monday, long day, safe and sound. And back to work today. Time to settle into our spring routines.

Busy Days

It seems I should have more to say here. We've been keeping really busy. In fact, yesterday (Wednesday) was our only low key day thus far. It was Jen's first day of her summer co-op job, and Hanna and I did some laundry and cleaning, watched a movie, and dropped the car off to the VW dealership to get repaired.

Tuesday the girls and I went to Saltspring Island. That required a 45 minute bus ride to the ferry landing, then a 35 minute ferry ride. Once on the island, it was another half hour by bus to the main town where we hung out for about four hours (lots of walking! That day tallied up to 7.9 miles) before setting off on the return journey. Saltspring is a place of arts, crafts, and organics, and one of the main reasons we went was to buy organic heritage vegetable seeds. Sadly the rack was well picked over and we didn't come away with as many varieties as we'd hoped. Still, we plan to try some of these in the garden this summer.

The girls did a lot of shopping earlier in the week--clothes, fabrics, etc. It's been fun traipsing around with them, even while I am definitely not attracted to the same styles as they are!

Today looks like rain, and I think Hanna and I will be picking up the car after a bit, then wandering out to do some shopping ('cause we like need more stuff). Well, I guess we're in need of a bit of groceries at least. There are a few other things we'd been meaning to see/ do while here also. Tomorrow we are planning to see Butchart Gardens (supposed to be mostly sunny tomorrow). And then Saturday our hubbies arrive :) That will be nice.

Anyway, much randomness here. I'm still learning to use this machine and the thought of re-figuring out how to load up photos is a bit daunting. Guess I'd better get that firm in my head while we're still here, though, and Joel can walk me through it yet again. I have a fair investment now in saying *I can do this*!

Greetings from Victoria :)

So here I am, writing to you all from my brand new (happy) MacBook! :) Ah....here's hoping for a long, content relationship.

Friday we started out on the road beforae six am, me and my girls. The road trip was going along nicely, let the (sedated) kitty out for a walk at Osoyoos. She wasn't all that impressed with harness, leash, or the walk.



It was very pretty along the lakeshore there, though!



The trip become much more interesting after that. We heard a funny sound, like tearing rubber, maybe, shortly after Osoyoos. We pulled over but couldn't see anything wrong (we were thinking tires), so assumed we'd run over a stick or something that got tangled for a sec before being flung off. We went merrily on for another three hours. Jen was driving up the last summit (Hope Princeton) when she mentioned seeing a flashing light on the dash. I got her to pull over and leave the car running for a few minutes to cool down while I dug out the car manual to double-check what was wrong. Indeed, coolant light, which I had met before last year or so. We popped the hood. Yes, could see the coolant container low. Popped the trunk, yes, we had a jug of coolant. (Thanks, hon!)

The three of us stood by the car with the manual out making sure we were doing the right thing when a semi pulled over in front of us and a guy in a pickup did a u-ey and came back to see if he could help. The coolant issue was relatively quickly solved, but one of the guys noticed that we had belt problems. One belt (I'm forgetting the names here--water pump, I think) had come right off, and the alternator belt had torn--we were missing almost half of it (must've been that rubbery sound by Osoyoos! Oops...) The one guy went digging in my toolbox, then in his, came up with the tools to put the dislodged belt back in place and tightened it back up. The other belt was deemed *good enough* to get us the rest of the way down off the mountain and into the town of Hope. We took it easy and made it down.

Once there we were finally back in cell service and I called hubby to report our adventures and ask for advice. Should we try to have the parts replaced in Hope or did he think we were safe to carry on. He figured we were okay if we took it easy. So we started out on the last couple hours of the drive to the ferry landing. I must say taking it easy on the freeway is almost the same thing as a death wish. Some of those semis swerved around us with inches to spare. Nasty stuff.

Made the 7:00 ferry and on into Victoria in the evening. The car made it! Yay!

The next day I lost power steering while driving but made it back to the house alright. There it sits until further instructions from hubby, who will call Victoria Volkswagen and see if they can fix it this week. Otherwise he *gets* to fix it when he flies in on Saturday.

More adventures have followed those, but none so traumatic. More later!!

ROAD TRIP!!!

Me? Excited? Not in the least! :P

Hubby's changed jobs a time or two too many to get significant vacation time this year, so I'm getting a week with my girls. Jen has been in our general neighborhood for the past week or so and has a summer co-op job that starts next week in Victoria. Her hubby (my son!) Joel is in Victoria right now, just landed himself his own co-op job. Hanna had her last working shift yesterday so we are stealing her to come along for a little vacation too. So Friday Jen, Hanna, Lelu-the-cat, and I head for Victoria. (I've got sedatives for the cat--it's a long drive, so hope it helps enough!)

I'll be checking in from time to time, no doubt. My hubby and Hanna's will be flying down on Saturday the tenth to have a couple days on the Island, and the four of us will drive back on the Monday.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to good times with my girls--and lots of walks by the ocean. Oh yeah.

Christy nominations

Christy Awards are designed to "recognize excellence in Christian fiction written by contemporary authors and highlight the breadth and diversity of Christian fiction".

Nominations have just been released for the publication year 2007, with final decisions to be made by July '08. Now, of course, there are many categories, and you know me well enough to know that I don't care a toad's toenail about most of them. However, there are a couple of categories I'd like to mention here.

Visionary is the category name for anything speculative. The three nominations are:
Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group)

The Restorer by Sharon Hinck (NavPress Publishing Group)

Scarlet by Stephen R. Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)

Pop any of those titles up in the search bar of this blog and you'll see that I've read and enjoyed them all. I am a particular fan of Sharon Hinck, having loved everything she's written (haven't gotten my hands on her sixth novel yet.) But Jeffrey Overstreet's debut novel was also very strong, very beautiful, and quite different from anything Sharon has written. I'm glad I don't have to vote.

The other category of interest to me is First Novel:

Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group)

Demon: A Memoir by Tosca Lee (NavPress Publishing Group)

The Stones Cry Out by Sibella Giorello (Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group)

The only book here I haven't read is the third one, which apparently is a murder mystery. But a closer look at the first two reveal that Auralia's Colors is up for TWO awards! Way to go, Jeffrey!! The other nominee here is Tosca Lee, who ran the contest that I won recently. I've only read the first chapter of her novel (definitely speculative!) and was impressed by the writing standard there as well.

So I'm definitely interested to see the results come July!

Fun Workshop!

I got back Sunday afternoon from a fun weekend in Couer d'Alene at a writers' workshop hosted by Idaho Writers' League. Had a lot of fun with my car-and-room-mates, Viv and Bonn, listening to Randy Ingermanson instruct on various writing and web-building skills, and just hanging out.

Here's Randy with *The Canadian Contingent*



We also had individual critiques on five pages (which we'd sent in ahead of time). I've found a few good ideas to tweak up the opening scene of Quest to Be Queen, thanks to the discussion with Randy.



Good times. Now I have a few days to re-group before heading out to Victoria.

Off to a Writers' Workshop Weekend

I'm headed out right after lunch on a weekend getaway in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, for a workshop put on by the Idaho Writers' League. The instructor is Randy Ingermanson, physicist and author of several speculative fiction novels as well as renowned writing teacher.

I was happy to discover that one of Randy's faithful blog readers lives not far from me, so I am driving down with her and her friend. I'm looking forward to a weekend of shop talk, new friends, eating out, and writing immersion.

Hubby's job is going well.