The MomUnit Celebrates Another Birthday

You think I'd actually tell you it's her 63rd? DOH...dammit!

Well happy birthday Mom. You don't look a day over 29!

Back in 1947 a little baby girl came home from the hospital. The dog wasn't so sure about this new arrival.  But I have on a good authority that the dog came around eventually and the baby girl and the dog were inseparable.

Then sometime later a baby brother came around and the Baby Girl didn't seem that thrilled. She put on a good fake smile, but behind the gritted teeth she was thinking all the attention she well deserved was now lavished on this thing that cried and poo'd all the time.  Only later would she and this "thing" grow up to be best buds and recite the Three Stooges together. Even now as the Baby Girl reads this she's make motions with her hands saying, "WOOO OOO OO ".

Like I said, they eventually became friends, but you couldn't tell it from this photo.  "MOM, this thing weighs a ton."

The Baby Girl grew up. She had a couple of birthdays.

She learned to fish.

She learned to dance.

Which then turned into "showing off" ...

She was very stylish.

She became an adult. 

She eventually got married and had two baby girls of her own. One baby girl was sooo beautiful she had to wear shades.

After some challenges in the first marriage department, she eventually met and married a handsome prince - and she and her Baby Girl became a family with this handsome prince.

She traveled and saw the world with the handsome prince.

And sometimes she took her BEAUTIFUL baby girl with them.

It was frightening how close she and her Baby Girl looked alike.

Almost twins.

Eventually she and the handsome prince retired and traveled some more...

Then the day came when she turned another year older.  She's the best Daughter, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, GREAT Grandmother, Aunt, GREAT Aunt and BEST FRIEND that every existed.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM - from one beautiful BABY GIRL to another!

Victoria Day 3 and Day 4

As our weekend wound down, the last two days we did less it seems.  The hotel guy asked us when we left if we did everything we wanted in Victoria and what we did, I thought,"Its probably quicker to tell what we didn't."

So day 3 was Sunday. The Highlight of the day was High Tea at the Empress Hotel.  The Empress, as you can undoubtedly see, is an impressive hotel. It's old. It's historic. And it's huge.  It was designed by Francis Rattenbury, who coincidentally, is the same guy who designed the Parliament building.  The hotel was built in 1904 originally, but has sense had misc wings added or renovated.  All shades of dignitaries and celebs stay at the Empress.  This dignitary couldn't afford a cupboard in the Empress.  Some day maybe...

Empress at night. Ignore the stupid signs on the fence to the left, they were having a field hockey tournament on the main street.

The sun shines brightly on the Empress.

The Empress is probably best known for its classic Victorian afternoon tea service. I wasn't a huge fan of the idea of "tea" and have shunned it many times in the past when Blueberry has recommended it.  But being that I'm more mature now, I figured I'd give it a try. And boy was I glad I did. 

When we entered the Tea Room you could almost feel the Miss Manners vibe.  If ever there was a time to pull out the world famous Wraspir Table Manners it was now.  The MomUnit had taught me well. 

Our first obstacle was to decide on a tea.  Each guest could pick a tea flavor from a list of about 10.  Us gals chose two tea types: The Empress Blend (supposedly the best) and one called Kai Lani or something like that - with hints of pineapple and orange.

The server, we'll call him Ray since that was his name. Was so polite and so exact with his manners, that I realized teasing with this guy, or my normal sarcasm would not be welcomed here.

They placed these white chocolate covered strawberries in front of us and almost immediately Seattle SIL asks, "Do we use our fork and knife with these?" I'm sure the right answer is Yes.  But our table decided it was okay to use your hands with these little viddles.  It'd be tricky to try to cut them with fork and knife.

Next the tea was served. Two pots of very HOT tea.  Ray offered each of us individually a lump of sugar and then followed with some milk.  We took it all.  He poured the tea and left us to ooohhh and ahhh over the tea.

It was so damn good!  Apparently the Empress Blend is a "second flush" I think he called it. When the tea leaves are first harvested those tea leave go to make ALL the tea. Then a second batch of leaves begin to grow and before they get very big they are harvested - thus a second flush.

Ray returned with the food.  To say there was enough food to feed a small army is an understatement. Queen PopUp had expressed to us earlier to not eat a big breakfast because the food at the tea would be fantastic and a lot of it.  I will never doubt her again.  

The food consisted of small sandwiches (bottom level: Pork Pate, chicken curry, cucumber/horseradish, egg salad and smoked salmon), then fresh made scones and sweet cream with preserves, and finally dessert (top level: chocolate shells with mousse in them, lemon meringue, shortbread, little cakes with marzipan, and raspberry cheesecake dipped in white chocolate). So, um yah, we ate well.

And as you can tell we did a pretty good job at finishing off the food.

We had to finish the day off with a photo in our crab hats. I mean, what's a high tea without the obligatory photo in crazy crab hats.

(Notice the folks behind us to the right. They'll be important later in the story.)

We finished our tea, hefted ourselves out of our chairs and proceeded to find something new and fun to do that would require some walking off of said food.  Seattle SIL and I headed to the Craigdarroch Castle, while Queen PopUp headed to miniature world. 

The Craigdarroch (pronounced craig derrick) was built in the 1890's by a wealthy Victoria man named Robert Dunsmier.  He died the year before it was completed so never got to live in the castle. His wife and 8 kids, however, did.

It was really hard to get good photos in the castle because it was dark and the flash just didn't do most of it justice. When you walk in you are immediate asked to Look UP. This is what you see.

87 stairs to the top of the castle.  Thankfully during the tour you do it floor by floor and work your way up. There was no way I could climb 87 stairs after the lunch we had.

I totally stole this photo from their website, but it really shows all the amazing wood work that was throughout the castle.

The wood throughout the house was spectacular.  All the wood panels and etc were shipped from Chicago and were the last items to be installed in the castle. 

Inside all the rooms had your standard Victorian stuff. Items of that era.  Most of the actual Dunsmier items had been auctioned off in the mid 1950's.  The staff that wanted to restore the castle started collecting items for several years to add to the collection.  Most, though, of what you see didn't belong to the family.

Still it was beautiful to see all the amazing artifacts. That piano there is a Steinway and was built in 1869.  Craigdarroch

The bathroom amused me.  There wouldn't be any long sits on that toilet that's for sure.

Craigdarroch, by the way, means "rocky oak place" - you never know when that'll be a Trivial Pursuit question.  

You may have seen some of the castle in a few movies too. It was host to Little Women and Cats & Dogs - the two notable ones to me anywho.

Post castle gawking, we met up again with Queen PopUp and then walked around through misc streets of Victoria.

We ate at the BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT EVER! We stopped at a coffee shop after we met up to rest and get a cuppa Joe.  I asked the barista where he'd go to dinner. He asked what I was hungry for and I said Italian. I barely got the word out when he said, "Pagliacci's." Now, the Pagliacci's here in Seattle is a pizza joint, so after confirming it wasn't we were sold.

This little hole in the wall was packed when we finally got there around 7pm.  We were seated and were almost literally in the laps of the people around us.  I'm still not sure who the wait staff served food here. There wasn't much room to move. 

As we were looking through the menu, Queen PopUp leans to a young man to her left and says, "What are you eating?"  She and he started chitchatting about the food etc. Turns out these folks were the people who were sitting behind us during High Tea (remember I pointed them out earlier).  We started chatting with them and mentioned we were the women who put on the crab hats. They laughed and said they were JUST talking about us. Go figure.

After a very satisfying meal of tortellini and cream sauce, we couldn't not have dessert. Queen PopUp wanted tiramisu, but sadly they didn't have any. Instead the waitress suggested their checker board cake.  White and chocolate cake - the white cake dredged in Amaretto and the chocolate dredged in dark rum.  OMG...it was so good we just sat in silence taking it in. 

Monday we woke, packed our bags and checked out. We had all day before the Clipper ride home so we arranged to have a Victoria City Bus tour.  There wasn't anything overly fascinating on the tour, but it was worth it.We got to see a lot of the residential neighborhoods and some other places we hadn't seen.

By the end of the day, we were pooped. We had walked and walked and walked for three days straight.  It was time to come home.  We hopped on the Clipper and said goodbye to Victoria.  I'll be back though.  Victoria sent us off with a spectacular sunset.

James Bay - leaving Victoria looking out the back of the Clipper.

Leaving James Bay looking to the side of the Clipper!

Victoria Day Two

Weird, I published Day One yesterday, and it turned out to be dated today. Oh well. You get a TwoFer today.

Day Two in Victoria shown bright and sunny. We really lucked out with the weather the entire trip - aside from Friday's torrential downpour.  Sunshine for Saturday was good since we were heading to the Butchart Gardens. 

We doddled in the morning and then found our way to public transportation to get us to the gardens.  The tour companies wanted $40 a person to take you out, give you 2 hours, and bring you home.  We paid $5 round trip, as many hours as we wanted out at the gardens, AND we got to see more of Victoria via the bus. 

What can I say about the gardens, but WOW.  Usually people would think gardens not in full bloom would be boring and useless.  We figured the gardens at fall just might be spectacular. And we were not disappointed.  I took so many photos and can't possibly post them all there.  Feel free to see them all on my flickr site though.

Entrance to the gardens...der...Captain Obvious again.

We entered the gardens, rounded a corner and was blessed with this site. The Sunken Gardens.  This was just stunning in so many ways. So well maintained. All the fall colors shining bright...it was breathtaking.  I thought I had found paradise.  Only to discover the Japanese Gardens later...

See those people up top? That's where we stood when I took the photo above.  This is looking back from the Sunken Gardens.

The Japanese Maples were just so vibrant and colorful. I must have taken a hundred photos of just those trees.  I didn't realize they came in Red, Orange and yellow.  In Seattle you mostly see the red and the orange.

One of the several ponds in the Sunken Garden.

I thought she looked cold.  Brrr...bring me a coat!

There's this little hill in the middle of the Sunken Garden. We climbed to the top and took some shots, but I really liked the way the staircase twisted around the hill. 

 

Poor Puck. He can't float.  It looks like he's had too much to drink...

This gnarled mess of branches intrigued me.

Now we've moved on to the Japanese Garden.  I've seen many Japanese Gardens in my day. In fact, just visited one a couple of weeks ago.  This garden truly felt what I think paradise would feel like.

The colors!  Just so vivid and beautiful.  This particular Japanese Maple was so gorgeous. The sun was hitting it just right and casting an orange glow all over the place.  Stunning really.

This is the Lucky Boar! Not so lucky for Puck though. The original little pig sits in the market in Florence Italy (I might even have a photo of the original somewhere in my stash at home).  For generations, his nose has been affectionately rubbed to bring good luck. Naturally, I rubbed its snout. We'll see if it brings good luck.

Puck enjoying the view of the Italian Gardens.  If only he would have turned around ... he would have seen more.

All in all the Butchart Gardens were fantastic.  Spectacular! Gorgeous! Sensational! Vivid! and Glorious!  I'm so glad we went there when we did and would love to go back in the Spring sometime.  I've seen other photos of the gardens in the spring and summer and have been wow'd by their beauty. Maybe a PhotoGods trip to the gardens is in order.

After we finished with the gardens, we hopped back on the city bus and found our way back into Downtown.  By now we were somewhat hungry and thought we'd find a nice little restaurant to eat. But before that, we checked out a few stores, and a few other sites in the downtown area. 

We were standing on this corner when Seattle SIL said, "I want Irish food." She was staring at this building. So I looked and turns out its an Irish Pub. So in we went.

Its an old historic building too. And thankfully it was also an Irish Pub.

Puck decided on Shepherd's Pie.  OMG it was so good.  He also decided, after dinner, on Bailey's Irish Cream Crème brûlée!  That should never have been ordered. I told my buddies that I'd take this one for the team. That they certainly wouldn't like it. I'd be the food martyr, but they didn't listen. They had to take a bite. Which meant less for the Food Martyr darn it.

All the Victoria photos can be found here.

Victoria Day One...

My little Victoria get away came and went.  Those 4 days were so full of doing stuff, and walking, and laughing, and eating, and eating some more that I can barely remember what all took place. Thankfully I had a journal with me and was lucid enough to write in it every night. I'll not bore you with the account of the $$ spent in each journal entry, but I will bore you with all that we did.

Seattle SIL and Mrs. Braspir (Henceforth to be known as the Queen PopUp - until I forget that I renamed her.) and I took of at the butt crack of dawn and hopped on the Victoria Clipper. (Did you know it's called the Clipper because it "clipped" time off the ferry ride to Victoria? Me neither. Learned something on our voyage.

Let me back up a bit. This trip was the annual Hunting Wives trip.  You may recall in past years we went to Leavenworth and San Fran.  This year we needed to stay somewhat close to home and so we opted to go to Victoria.  As the years have progressed, each of us stand out to own a task. Something we're good at and so it becomes our assignment.  For example, Queen PopUp is usually really good at navigating - especially public transportation.  I am usually good at cooking. So I opt to bring the snacks for the trip. 
You might recall last year I made up these HEFTY Muffalatas for Leavenworth.  I bragged about them for days before the trip. Then promptly left them behind.

Turns out I'm not so great on the remembering the snacks. This year I said I'd bring the snacks for the voyage over to Victoria.  We were leaving at the butt crack of dawn and I wasn't sure what, if any, decent snacks the Clipper would have. So I bought some mini cinnamon rolls and pistachios to bring along for the ride.  And I promptly left them behind. Der.

Anyhow, back to the trip. So we hopped on the Clipper and off we went. Victoria is about 2 hours 45 minutes from Seattle.  And it was looking like a gorgeous day leaving Seattle.

 By the time we arrived in Victoria the sky had opened up and was down pouring buckets of water.  We hopped into a taxi and found our way to our hotel, the James Bay Inn.

Turns out the James Bay in is a historical landmark and apparently on the route for the carriage ghost tours in Victoria. 

We stashed our stuff, went and had lunch in the pub downstairs and then headed out. As I mentioned it was pouring.  We had to exchange $$ so I figured I'd also run in and buy an umbrella - since I didn't pack one.  All the chores done we were off.  We wanted to see the Royal British Museum and perhaps a tour of the Parliament building. First stop, Parliament. The rain was coming down so hard that as we turned the corner to past the Parliament building to get the the museum, Queen PopUp said,"I don't care if they're doing a tour right now, we're going in." So we went in.

Their Parliament building is beautiful.  I'd give you all the history about it, but that's more boring than my blog. If you wanna read all about it, you can...here.  Anyhow, as we squeaked in - all the water on our tenny's and the nicely polished floor - we saw they were starting a tour in 10 minutes. Phew. We sat and dried off a bit. 

Its almost the first building you see when you come into the Inner Harbor. Looming over the city with its ancient structure. But I find it a fascinating building. My next trip to Victoria I'm going to walk all around that building and photograph it more.

Once inside I was challenged with low light for photos. Thankfully there wasn't a whole lot to photography - yet I still took about a hundred. This is the dome from the inside. I love dome shots.  They seem so third dimensional to me. 

We had to shoosh Puck. He was getting a bit loud during the tour, what with all his quacking and all.

Their government structure is different from the US. I know, "Thank you Captain Obvious." It appeared to be based off the UK government, which makes sense since the UK owns Victoria in BRITISH Columbia.  Anyhow, what I found amusing about this photo was that they face each other during their debates and discussions. It would make it WAY too easy to throw something across the room.

Then of course you have the building at night. I found it much more interesting at night. All those little light bulbs.  We chatted about who was responsible for changing them, and how that person may have to be fired because we found some out. Its just so beautiful to me at night there.

This is looking through the Inner Harbor back to the Parliament building.

After the tour in the Parliament building, we were dry enough to venture out again. So off we went to the Royal British Museum. Now, I've seen a lot of museums in my time...a LOT of them. And frankly I get bored real quickly in museums.

Queen PopUp had been to the museum before and she, along with another friend, had told me it was the museum to end all museums.  Needless to say I was skeptical.

Can I just say, "OMG!"?  It was by far one of THE best museums I had ever been too.

Entrance into the museum. Boring on the outside, but fun on the inside.

The displays were all so interactive - and what I mean by that is that they were like replicas of big things. It gave you perspective on scenes along with history. I loved it.

When I got home and looked at my photos I couldn't figure out where I had been when I took this one. It looked to me like I was on a beach somewhere and these swans just happened to walk right by me.  This is one of the displays there. They had an entire section on water, beach, marine stuff. They even had a little tide pool with a happy volunteer telling you about all the fish, etc in the tide pool.

Though all of it was fascinating. The First Nation exhibit was by far my favorite. I love native art and hearing the history and stories of the Native Americans (They call them the First Nation).  The first room you enter appeared to be a show room where we suspected they put on rituals for tourist...none happening during the off season apparently. Then you enter into this room that has about 8 totem poles throughout it. All around the edges were mini rooms with artifacts and stories and history. Just fascinating.

Finally as you work your way through you enter into City Hally. This exhibit is a town they've set up. A town from the early days. There are store fronts all along this main street they've set up. In each store front they have all sorts of artifacts that would have been sold in that store. Then they had a whole area that was set up like a saw mill, an area for gold mining, a pirate ship (which by the way stunk to high heaven. I later found out they actually pump in smells into this exhibit and in the pirate ship they pumped in pine tar as a smell.)  This exhibit was sensational. I know I've said that about all the exhibits, but they all were just fantastic.  If you're ever in Victoria, take a couple hours and do...this...museum.

We spent the remainder of the day wondering through Victoria. It's a great little city.  We stopped at a coffee shop to have a drink and a snack and to rest our little foot-sees...

We asked the barista in this coffee shop if there were any good steak houses around she'd recommend.  She thought a moment and then said, "Well there was only one across the street." We asked specifically about a steak house that started with a B because Seattle SIL had been to one in that area that started with a B.  The barista said, "Nope. Nothing like that around here."

So we left and stepped out into the sunshine that had come out.  Looking DIRECTLY across from the coffee shop there stood the steak house called Barclays.  Which is where we had dinner that night.

Later in the weekend we discovered a number of steak houses in that little area, we figured she must not have been from around there.

Tomorrow I'll wow you with a blog entry about Butchart Gardens.  It was beautiful.  I'll give you a preview so you'll be sure to come back.