With the arrival of Gil and Shelley came the rain! The first day and a half since they have been here the rain was here as well. But, we have finally had some nice sunny weather yesterday so we could go to the beach and enjoy the sunshine and the ocean.
Little Kendal fell into a hole the kids had dug. I stuck her in the hole in front of her and she wanted to get out and fell into the one she is sitting in. It was rather funny because she couldn't get out. If you ever need to keep a child from running away on you at the beach, dig a hole and sit her in it!!!
Gil, Ryan, Nicky and Julie played a little beach soccer! Ryan was very creative in trying to stop the ball when Julie got a penalty shot. She was laughing so hard she couldn't really shot all that well. It was rather funny!!!
I think the beauty and the grandeur of the ocean was lost on Julie. She said the ocean smelled funny!! I don't think she liked all the things floating around in the water either so she decided she wanted to sit on the towel and wrap up and keep warm!!
Lana on the other hand was having a blast with Claire digging in the sand and looking for clams.
And here is my son running back with the spoils of his "hunt".
On one of the more cloudy days we headed to Neck Point to let the kids look for clams and star fish. It was a good time! We did find some star fish and clams, so it was a successful outing. I like this picture of Nicky and I. He is basically tolerating me, I thought that happened when they were teenagers not 8 year olds!
Shelley and Kendal were throwing rocks into the water. Kendal was having a great time running around (or stumbling over the rocks, however you want to say it!).
Claire and Ryan scootched across this log and when they got to the other side they realized they were surrounded by water and had to make their way back across the log.
And here is the "other" Dueck family!!
The cousins have been having such a great time playing. Claire is taking such good care of Kendal! At the beach the other day Gil asked Julie what she wanted to do if she didn't want to play on the beach and she said "Go jump on the tramp with Claire and Nicky's"!! They get up in the morning and just play and play! It has been such a great time for the kids to play and make memories with their cousins!!

It all started when we stopped by John and Sara's house to drop a Tupperware catalogue off. It was Ryan's birthday so they invited us in to join them for pizza! John was working on his 2nd motorbike, fixing some wiring and such when we got there so I suggested they take the bikes out for a little ride after dinner. I didn't have suggest it again because they were both totally into it. So, after supper the guys suited up and headed out for a short ride. I should mention that John bought a 2nd bike for his friends that don't have a bike to ride (Ryan fits into that category!!)

Here are the guys just before heading out. John is very kind to let his friends ride his nice bike, the Kawasaki, and he rides his not so nice (but still nice) Ducati. John describes his bikes in terms of the old, faithful mare (Kawasaki) and the new, young, bucking Ducati!!

There he is in all his glory! Ryan was really excited to go for a ride!
And they are off!!!!! You can see Claire and Emma chasing the guys down the street!
Seeing Ryan off on the bike the other day made me miss riding with him when we used to go for rides on his Honda. On Sunday I asked if John and Sara and Scott and Kara wanted to go for a ride in the afternoon and I got a enthusiastic "yes". We arranged for one of Scott and Kara's daughters to come and babysit all 5 kids and then we got ourselves dressed and headed out!! It was so much fun!! The Kawasaki has A LOT of power and there were a few times I had to close my eyes and just hold on while Ryan made some tight corners!!

We are on our way to Cowichan Bay for a stop at a good ice cream store. Sara had her camera in her pocket so she pulled it out and snapped a few pictures while we were waiting at a light.

Now don't we look like two cool biker dudes (and dudette!!) It was a lot of fun and hopefully we can do it again!!

Summer holidays are here, and for the kids that means finding creative ways to keep themselves occupied during the day. As you can see in this video, this isn't a problem for Nicky and Claire. A few important details to make sense of this clip:

1. Although it's hard to make out, the beginning of the clip is Nicky talking about how "cool" he is and how many friends he has from all over the world.
   
2. The electronic piano in the back was donated to the church last year and has found a home in our basement. The kids mostly just play with the pre-recorded songs that are programmed into it, messing around with speed, volume, etc. In case you're wondering about the high-speed to slow-motion dancing routine...
   
3. The reference to buying "cake" with a coffee card comes out of a discussion we had at breakfast this morning about "coffee cake." Nicky wasn't too keen on trying it because he doesn't like coffee, but when we told him that it was cake you had with coffee he was OK with that.

Anyways, enough explaining... Make of this weird and wonderful exhibition what you will!

Mark and Bonnie made a quick visit to the island this weekend to spend a day with us! It was so good to see them and catch up a little on what has been happening with life. Ben and Elias have gotten so big. Elias was just a little baby when we moved away and now he is a toddler running around and talking (in toddler talk of course!!).
We went down to the seawall and had fish and chips at a little floating fish and chip place. It was a huge rip-off but hey, when you live by the water and want fish and chips I guess you end up paying a lot for it! We were going for the atmosphere, the water, the fishy smell!!
Claire loved Elias! She is so good with little kids! If it was up to her we would have a whole 15 passenger van of children!!
Nicky and Ben were building "inukshuks". There were a few big ones built on the rocks and Nicky and Ben built a few smaller ones with rocks they could actually lift.
And a trip to the seawall wouldn't be complete without a visit to the ice cream store. Elias LOVED his ice cream. He was covered in it by the time he was done!!
After lunch, Claire and Nicholas found a spot on the dock that they could reach into the water and pull off starfish that were holding on higher up the poles. I think they pulled off about 6 or 8 of them. It was pretty cool! After they were done looking at them and feeling them they let Ben toss them back into the water.

It was a great visit! Much too short of course but we will get to spend some more time with Mark and Bonnie when we make the trek back to Alberta in about 3 weeks.