Victoria, British Columbia

Kerriann is calling this our first vacation ever since: 1) it's longer than 3 days, 2) it's not in conjunction with a visit to family, and 3) we're traveling alone. I guess with all those qualifications she's right...

I had very little to do with planning this trip. I asked Kerriann to make the all-important decision of where to stay and promised she would get all the credit if it were nice, and that I wouldn't complain if it was lame. The Delta Ocean Point Hotel is awesome. We've had some bad hotel luck in the past, but Kerriann hit the jackpot with her choice this time. We can to downtown Victoria from the hotel by walking five minutes across a bridge,

or by taking what we like to call a "water taxi" for $4. This is a view of our hotel from our boat (below).

We wandered downtown today and around the harbor (the building over my left shoulder is our hotel from downtown),

took a peek at the Empress Hotel and gardens,

where we'll have high tea tomorrow, and spent some time in their miniatures exhibit, one of K's biggest pleasures. Check out the window washers in the upper left corner of this huge city/circus scene.

Blackwell's Boatshed

There are tons of totem poles around the Royal BC museum where K's leaning - and other places in town. The super tall one is near our hotel.

We also wandered around the Fisherman's Wharf area and along some floating streets between several very humorously decorated house boats.

There's so much to do here, and we had no plans when we arrived. Now we wish we had another couple days. Of course, with all the available excursions, we ended up going to a casino tonight. It was, however, the most fun I've ever had gambling. Kerriann was on fire tonight and she actually doubled her money, and to top it all off, you can't smoke inside. God bless the Canadians.

And after all of this, the absolute highlight of Kerriann's day was opening her Kindersurprise package to find a fire engine. Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?