At the Aquarium with Friends!

That's right, we have friends.  We've been here two months, and we finally found friends. Right before we go home.  Great.  Anyway, we went to church when I got back and ran into some old Calgary hommies, Jenny and Jeremy Coad and their three sweet boys.  Jenny has season passes to the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, a great little aquarium right off the ocean, full of all the creatures right from the ocean around us.  It was pretty cool.  There was a great touch pool that the kids could dip right into.  Silas did puke all over himself and me in the middle of our adventure, and the Coad boys weren't nearly as interested as Eli in all the things they'd grown up with around them all the time, so we had to go out for a lunch break, but all in all it was a great day.  I'd definitely take the boys back. 

Kay, Eli totally had a crush on this girl.  Her name was Sara, and she spent a whole hour with Eli answering his every question.  I loved her too. He'd ask, "What's that?" And she'd be straight up and give him the full name of whatever creature he was pointing at. Then he'd as "What's it do?" and she'd go into a full explanation of the life and times of said creature.  He knows more about jelly fish and sea urchins than any other four year old I know. I think I'll write a letter to suggest Sara gets a raise. 

This is a trick picture, for there are actually four kids in it.  Behind each boy you see is his little brother.  Can you see them?

 

We finished off a great day with dinner at the Coad's where they made a great "fruit cake" for Eli's birthday (it was the day before.)  We went home and he declared that he "really liked having cousins here in Victoria, too."