Pictures Part 2

Check it out! Retro....

Gotta love the glow of the washroom light on the wallpaper... All those hearts are sooo romantic!



In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki room...



Every good 70's home has a rock fireplace...



Beams, beams and more beams...



Our formal office, complete with gold stamped wallpaper and faux wood walls...



Rag rugs, rag rugs, red rum... (say that 5 times fast!)

Details

By special request, here is a photo essay of a few details of our new home. Did you really think I was going to give you more than a glimmer here or there? For that, you need to visit!

Today, we will explore our front yard....

Closer.....

Closer.... ribbit, ribbit... (yes, we have cougar and deer but so far no frogs)

The little guy's favourite window to sit in front of. The rocks at the bottom are inside the house on a ledge. The waterfall is the view outside.

And here I am looking up at that ledge from our stairway.

Tune in next time for shiny wallpaper, shag carpet and glow in the dark stickers!

Week One

Week one is pretty much done. Tied up in a bow. Blowed on by the endless yet gentle winds that push the sailboats across the view from our back deck. Champagne in hand, we watch them leave our sight.

This week, we relished in our new neighbourhood pets. Deer. Many, many deer. Deer that sneak through cedar hedges, eat our strawberries not yet born, eat our fruit trees (fruit yet not known to us) and magically make our perfectly plum-coloured bush disappear in a single gulp. Whoosh.

We are also in the process of stripping our yard of blackberry bush babies (a flock of sharp-thorned branches reaching for the sky, the world, the universe. Yes, we know the truth - they plan to assimilate us all. Be warned ye of sensitive prickle-proof skin!) Dig, hoe, dig, hoe, dig, dig, dig and still their roots cling to the ceiling of hell. Welcome to Victoria they whisper to us while giggling so loud the deer scatter and jump 6 feet over the fence to our neighbours reclaimed meadow.

While growing up, my dad used to sing "home, home on the range... where the deer and the antelope play... where seldom is heard, a discouraging word...and the skies are not cloudy all day."

Deer do not play, they devour!

Just not blackberry bushes.

All about Victoria

So... if you aren't interested in life in Victoria, you may want to tune out for a post or two or two months.

In the meantime, I will be sharing tidbits of life on the east coast of the isle on the west coast. Bits of blackberry and birds, beaches and boys. Farms and friends, lakes and waterfalls and little snippets of the day to day.

For those of you not here with us, I hope to give you a glimmer of our new life that continues down a tab-bit slower path, sort of an Old West Saanich Road kinda thing, with gentle grazing horses and white-picket fenced egg farms, Island ice cream and organic cat nip.

Enjoy the ride, you are always here with us.

Give a Hoot

Kje and I watched a movie a few weeks ago. One of the opening scenes showed a boy on his first day at a new school and of course, in stereotypical fashion, he gets picked on by the bully. A big, fat one at that.

Fast forward to tonight, after three bedtime stories on dinosaurs. (Have you ever heard of a Jubbulpuria?)

"It was a good day at school today Mom," Kje says all of sudden.

"I know," I replied smiling, "you told me already." He had made at least five friends and went outside four times.

"I didn't get picked on by the bully."

"What? Is there a bully in your school?" Mom alarm bells are going off and I am thinking that perhaps the perfect little school we signed him up in isn't so perfect after all.

"You know, like the movie, Hoot. He got bullied on his first day, I didn't."

All of a sudden I realize what he is talking about. Hmmmm...

"I was the only new kid today. I was special."

He snuggles down under his cover and gazes at the glow-in-the-dark wallpaper on the far wall.

My toes fall down on the yellow shag carpet and I look out the window at our forest view. New city, new school, new friends, new house, new yard, new bedroom, and what I hear back is that it was a good day at school.

Special indeed.

Ah Victoria

Well, it's official. I am now a Victorian as opposed to a Vancouverite.

It is always nice when you move into a new home and get a reinforcement or two as to why you decided to move. Yesterday, our official move in day, we got more than a few, in no particular order:

• A pair of hummingbirds came to greet us at the front door. I think they live in the hood.


• We saw the view of Mount Baker that was showcased on the "For Sale" promo sheet, but was conveniently hidden behind clouds the day we put the offer in.


• I met our neighbour and his dog. They both offered to play with Kje.


• The movers were awesome and I wish they could stay and be our neighbours.


• Paris and I managed to walk over the hill to the village on the twisting-turning trail without getting lost.


• Paris still loves his bedroom and bathroom and had his first shower ever without me having to ask him twenty times over four days (okay, I exaggerate, slightly).


• A deer found its way into our backyard, giving the Czech a reason to try out his mountain bike on our back steps and garden pathway. I have dubbed the trail "Czechworks." Who wouldn't want a bike park in their backyard?


• The house looks better than I remembered. Whew!


• More deer across the road, and down the road, and on the road.


• Time for our inaugural bike ride down Lochside Trail to Mattick's Farm, where Paris won the mini golf tournament and I indulged in a commiserating cone of Root Beer Ice Cream. Smiley, happy people everywhere.


• Closets, closets, closets. It's the simple things in life that make you smile!


• Waking up the this morning with the kitchen drenched in sunlight. Ah, you have to love a south-east facing West Coast Contemporary home! Thanks to Mom and Dad for introducing me to this style of home many, many years ago!

Look closely, you will see a deer on the left, Kje on the right and our huge strawberry patch in the middle. And of course, Czechworks trail all around.