Everytime I come home for a visit the weather is usually gorgeous... a nice treat for the west coast and all it's usual rain. I always have these romantic notions of living here, in the city, close to the water in a gorgeous old home. Ron could run through the park and we'd take evening walks on the water. It really makes me homesick. The reality is, it is so expensive to live, let alone buy a home, that we'd be hours out of the city in a not-so-nice house, both working long hours to maintain some sort of standard of living... all in a mostly rainy place. Not exactly how either of us picture life. It makes me grateful for Ron's job and the lifestyle living in the US affords us.
Victoria would be an ideal retirement destination, a small place with everything we love nearby - the ocean, downtown, the park...
We spent the day wandering downtown and had lunch on the warf. When the weather is nice, it really is the most gorgeous city to be in.
Yesterday would have been my Mom’s 57th birthday so we drove out to the memorial gardens to talk to Grandma. After a short visit, we drove around my old neighborhood and stopped at the beach to see the ducks. When I was growing up, we used to feed the ducks bread. Now, apparently, they are on a diet of whole grains and turn up their noses at anything else. Ella saw the ducks, swans and geese being fed grain by an elderly lady, who I’m not sure worked for parks or is just a very good citizen. Every year I come back, there is so much new development. The houses keep getting bigger and more extravagant, and land that was nothing but rock or forest has become some fabulous shopping.
Ella went over to play with Erin’s nephew, Zachary, for the evening while we went out for dinner with Suzanne and her sister. It was a great dinner, especially because we are all parents of young children. We might have scared Erin from ever having children after seeing how much we relish a simple dinner out with adult conversation. Seriously, it might as well been a vacation, dinner without wiping up spills or indulging a toddler so they don’t throw a temper tantrum – heaven… even if it was only a couple of hours!
Everytime I come home for a visit the weather is usually gorgeous... a nice treat for the west coast and all it's usual rain. I always have these romantic notions of living here, in the city, close to the water in a gorgeous old home. Ron could run through the park and we'd take evening walks on the water. It really makes me homesick. The reality is, it is so expensive to live, let alone buy a home, that we'd be hours out of the city in a not-so-nice house, both working long hours to maintain some sort of standard of living... all in a mostly rainy place. Not exactly how either of us picture life. It makes me grateful for Ron's job and the lifestyle living in the US affords us. Victoria would be an ideal retirement destination, a small place with everything we love nearby - the ocean, downtown, the park... 
