School year wrapping up, last tournament this weekend!

We are officially two months into Spring, and today it finally feels like it! It's been pretty cold and rainy for the most part, again I am struck by how lucky we were to get such good weather when my sisters were here! Lynsey and I finally finished our Twilight house Lego set, such a fun project for us to do together:-). I had a lovely Mother's Day a few weekends ago, we went for brunch in the morning and the kids and Brian went out in the afternoon to do some yardwork which was literally all I wanted for Mother's Day. It was so nice to get a good chunk of the weeding done! Last Saturday, my friend Jaqui and I went to Paramount to see Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach for their I Can Do Hard Things tour, it was so good! So glad I got tickets so impulsively when they went on sale, so worthwhile.

This weekend is my last tournament with my team before the season ends:-(. I'm sort of looking forward to having my evenings back, but I know I will miss it when it's done. I'm going to do one last practice on Tuesday where the girls get to choose what we do and then I'll have some pizza and cupcakes brought in to celebrate, give them their gifts. I think there will be another season end party that the parents are planning that will be on the weekend in June, I will likely go to that for at least part of the time, but I thought not every girl would be there for that so I should do my celebration now. They really have been a great first group to coach, I could not have asked for a better situation. There were definitely some challenges along the way but I learned a lot, I think I will be better next year. I hope they come out hard this weekend and play their absolute best - who doesn't want to go out on a high note!

The Oilers are in the Conference final against the Stars, and things were looking pretty good in Game 1 after two periods. They were dominating, up 3-1. Well, they crapped the bed and ended up losing 6-3. Oh the roller coaster of being an Oilers fan! Hopefully they collect themselves and play their game tomorrow, it really looked like we had them those first 40 minutes:-(. Trying to just let this go since I can't control how they play or anything, but we are so invested haha. Hopefully they at least make this a good series and don't just fizzle out:-l.

 

Sister Trip Take 2, and the Oilers are moving on!

The second sister trip in less than a year has come to an end! It was a blast, but I will get to that in a minute. First - other life! Adam had a filling done at his regular pediatric dentist, and we did not know if it would work out. They gave him some laughing gas so they could administer the freezing needle, that part went pretty smoothly. We waited for the freezing needle to do it's thing and then the dentist moved in to do the filling. This is where Adam decided he was kind of done with this whole process. He didn't flail around physically which was what allowed the dentist to finish the job, but he was definitely complaining the whole time. I'm just grateful it got done! Every time he does something he hasn't done before it feels like progress, very proud of him!

The hockey playoffs started the week of the 21st, and things didn't look good for the Oilers early. They lost the first two games to the Kings and it was starting to look like maybe this wasn't going to be our year. Thankfully, they turned things around and won some exciting games in Edmonton over the weekend. I went to Centralia Saturday for my 16s regionals tournament. It went okay, had it's ups and downs. Soph (my setter) hurt her ankle the first game and didn't play the rest of Saturday. It was a bit of a situation but Kyra did really well in relief. We went 2-1 that first day which was enough to get us in the gold bracket Sunday. We unfortunately lost our first game (Soph was playing, although not at 100%) which put us in a consolation bracket at that point. The good thing about that was that our last game was pretty early and if we won, we would be able to go home and not ref. The girls rallied together and played a great game to win in 2 sets! I was so happy! It meant I would be home for most of game 4, which ended up being super exciting - an overtime win by the Oilers after tying it with 30 seconds to go! Great weekend:-D.

Monday and Tuesday I was busy getting the house ready to have my sisters here. Andy had been here until Tuesday so I had a day to get the room turned over for my sisters. They got in Wednesday around 1 and we came back to our house, hung around outside catching up. We had dinner here and an early night. Thursday we had beautiful weather and drove up to Mount Vernon to Roozengarde - finally I got to see the tulips! It is right at the end of the festival so lots of the tulips are already gone, but it was still quite a beautiful garden. Mary's friend Deb joined us as well which was really fun, I knew her a bit back in my Prairie days. After the tulips we drove to La Conner for lunch. We found a nice restaurant with a patio and enjoyed the sunshine and good food. The plan at that point was to drive to Coupeville and get right on the 4:15 ferry to Port Townsend where we were spending the night. I had looked on the ferry website last week and somehow did not see that this ferry route requires reservations. We found out the hard way when we got there that they do indeed take reservations, and standby wait would be until 7:30:-l. Yikes! We had a little conference and decided that instead of waiting by the ferry for nearly 4 hours we would go into Coupeville for about an hour and hope that when we got back, we would still be good to go for the 7:30 ferry. We wandered through Coupeville, had some ice cream, made our way back to the ferry around 5pm. Unfortunately, they told us we would probably be waiting until the 9:10 ferry. Ugh. At that point, I told Mary and Becky to get on the 7:30 as foot passengers and if I squeezed on in the van I would see them there. The car in front of me got on, I did not:-(. It all worked out okay, Mary and Becky got checked into our room in Port Townsend and went to get some food before everything closed (they got me a takeout meal which was awesome). I had the hockey game on my phone so I was able to watch that and not be bored waiting for the ferry:-D. Great game! A little too exciting at the end when LA scored to make it 5-4 with a minute to go, but it all worked out haha. Oilers are moving on to Round 2!

Our hotel was really cute! Very old school. The room was a bit bright in the morning, but all in all not a bad find. We had coffee in the morning at this really cute coffee shop by the water and wandered around Port Townsend for a while. Found a really interesting underground area with a few shops - so random. We got in the van around noon and drove down to Bainbridge Island to get the ferry over to Seattle. This time, the ferry worked out perfectly! We only waited about 20 minutes before driving right on:-D. We had lunch right by the Great Wheel, walked through Pike Place Market for a bit. Then it was time to get home and have some down time after a great few days of sight seeing. We went to Target in the evening to do some shopping, Lynsey and Nathan came along as well and I got a few things for them as well as myself. Mary and Becky also found some great things - always a success shopping at Target! 

Yesterday was a very laid back day. We went to the gym in the morning and did Body Pump together, took Jasper for a short walk. Had some lunch at home and went to Farine (while Lynsey was working of course) for coffee. After that we drove into Kirkland and walked around the marina for a while. A quick stop at Trader Joe's and then back home for some more downtime. A delicious dinner all together at Tropea in Redmond capped off a really fun trip! Mary went out that night with her friend Bob for a few hours and Becky and I stayed in a watched a (dumb) movie. Early trip to the airport this morning and the trip is over! It was so much fun, other than the ferry debacle everything worked out very well:-D. 

Today we did some yard work and I have been resting a lot as well after being a bit short on sleep. This week it's back to volleyball practices and regular life without visitors!

Spring Break Fun in Whistler!

We are back from a great trip to Whistler last week! We left Wednesday just after lunch and headed up north to our home and native land. We were all looking forward to setting foot on sane ground again, the sanity literally seeped through the ground when we stepped on it (Brian doesn't think it did but I definitely felt it:-D). We got to Whistler around dinner time and were so happy with the location of our hotel - right in the middle of Whistler Village. Mark and Frances had arrived just a bit before us and were across the hall from us which was really convenient. We got some pasta takeout that was really good (and reasonably priced which was a bonus!) and hung out for the evening in the room, catching up. 

Thursday we started the day with some pool time, even convinced Lynsey to join us! We had lunch at this great spot right outside our hotel that we ended up going back to for lunch the next day because we liked it so much. Great location, GREAT prices, and really good food! After lunch we walked to the Whistler Gondola and made the trip up with spectacular views on a beautiful, clear day. This was not so reasonably priced, but definitely a world class experience so worth it I guess:-). We got to the top of the first gondola and then got on the Peak to Peak Gondola as well. Once at the top, we took some pics with the Olympic rings and had a drink on the patio. We made the trip down and went back to the hotel for some down time before dinner. We went to this place called 21 Steps that was pretty good. Great day in Whistler!

Friday we had some pool time in the morning again and as already mentioned, went back to the same place for lunch (it was called El Furniture Warehouse for anyone going there, apparently they have off peak prices that we were taking advantage of haha). We got in the car for the one and only time on the whole vacation and drove down to the Train Wreck suspension bridge. It was about a 1km walk to the suspension bridge and abandoned train cars, really cool site! Adam was a bit persnickety when we got there but he did settle down thankfully. It was another beautiful day, we were so lucky with the weather! We got back to the room and headed right back out to go for some Cows ice cream, they had a Nanaimo bar ice cream that was sooo good! For dinner, we picked up some Old Spaghetti Factory takeout for the kids and the 4 of us adults when to a Tapas place for dinner. We got to sit in this little corner of the patio that was really secluded, it was the most lovely dinner! So glad we didn't take the kids as they would not have appreciated it, but we all really loved it:-). Great end to a really fun vacation!

We checked out at 11 the next morning after another quick swimming stint (they warmed the pool up so nicely, very swimmable!) and headed to the Watershed Grill in Squamish for one last lunch together before parting ways with Mark and Frances. It worked out sooo well! What a great local spot! The drive home felt quite long, we stopped at Superstore in Vancouver to get some groceries and met with some traffic on the I5 which was a pain, but we got home safely. Such a fun trip! I would totally go back to Whistler again sometime!

Andy is here again for work and staying with us, he got here yesterday. Today is the Oilers first playoff game and I am so nervous. No one really knows what to expect from the Oilers this playoff season, are they ready? Can they do this? Who knows! Hoping for another fun playoff run this year!