our trip to Vancouver Island

 Ronel and I on his very first ferry ride - Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay

 our morning at the Marina (there was a seal at the marina as well!)

Ronel's first touch of the Pacific Ocean (at Tyee Spit in Campbell River)

We had a fantastic trip to the Island! I got off work early on the Thursday, and we (Ronel, my mom & myself) headed out to Horseshoe Bay in North Vancouver to catch the ferry to Nanaimo.  We had decided to take this route as the ferry times worked better with when I could get off work and it put us a 1/2 hour closer on the other side, as well as the ferry ride itself is a 1/2 hour shorter.  Ronel was quite amazed at the size of the ferry.  We drove up the inland Island Highway and arrived at my granny's house at around 9pm. We found our rooms and then hung out in the living room for awhile with everyone before heading to bed. 

We were up bright and early the next morning (like 6am!) and I went to see if mom wanted to come for a walk with us (I knew she'd be up... she's an early bird!)  We went for a nice walk in the newer neighborhood that has been built around my granny's house in the last 4 or 5 years.  We came back, showered, ate and then headed out to show Ronel around Campbell River.  We first headed down to Coast Marina and a lady told us there was a seal in the inner part of the marina so we headed down to see it. After that, we walked around a bit and then headed out to Tyee Spit to walk down the beach. Ronel touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time and Mom showed us the sandstone that can write on dark rocks.  We then went and got lunch and after lunch we headed to Discovery Pier to get some ice cream!

 Ronel took this photo of me with both of our cones in front of the carved wooden ice cream cone at the pier.

The cones were HUGE and took us awhile to finish but was SO worth it! We walked down the pier and then came back to the parking lot and sat at a picnic table to eat our ice cream. While I was eating my cone, I noticed that the table we were at had a plaque saying that this table was a gift from my mom's high school graduating class! I thought that was neat (and she didn't even know about it so I got to tell her about it)

After our ice cream we headed back to Granny's. We went out for dinner with Granny at her favorite place -- the casino! before heading out to my sister's place. It was fun to see my oldest sister & my husband together.... we hung out for awhile enjoying my sister`s gorgeous house! and then we went out to the porch where Ronel & I spent some time trying to capture some photos of the hummingbirds enjoying the feeders my sister has on both sides of her porch.

and that was our Thursday and Friday... more to come about Saturday and Sunday!!