AUGUST 4 - Where The Heck Is The Festival?

Saturday morning, all aboard the bus for the Spirit of Sea Festival in White Rock - Lizzie sitting with her mommy,

Chris sitting with me, and across from us, a cute little fellow with his mommy, and an older native man with a feather stuck in the back of his ponytail. So what does a mom do when this guy takes the dirty old feather from his greasy locks and presents it to the little fellow? Grabs the little fellow's hand back, and refuses possession. She was very polite though - 'No, thank you, he puts everything in his mouth.' And the little fellow adds to that truth by starting to chew on mom's bus transfer. And the feather goes back in the ponytail. All is well, a place for everything, etc etc.

 Meanwhile, some people obviously don't have any kids to take to the beach, so they take their dog instead. Poor little dog panted all the way, the bus was so hot, and why don't some people have better sense, and leave their dogs home on hot summer days?

 There was a big old bear on the beach when we got there.

 There was a great difference from today and the day in early March when I went  Day Trippin' there. For one thing, I didn't need woolly hats and gloves today.

 A whole group of people building a Castle fortress.

Once Chris got over the fear of seaweed, he had lots of fun walking through the tide pools and hiding his toes in the wet sand.

 Lizzie preferred the sand and the clear water. No yucky seaweed for her or her not-so-brave mommy.

 A gaggle of geese were enjoying the water too. I think they were also disappointed at the unfestivities.

 However, a pirate ship was hovering off shore, and every now and then it would blast one of its cannons, and a cloud of smoke would poof out. However, that's about as close as it came - and this was taken with my zoom camera.

 No one wanted to take Chris up on his offer of hugs or handshakes.

We stopped in a little fish'n'chip hole-in-the-wall diner as Nikkie had a hungerin' for halibut. The food wasn't the best, but the signs on the wall were pretty neat. I loved the one on the left - and Nikkie, of course, loved the one on the lower left corner of the picture on the right. Are you confused yet? I love to confuse.

It's amazing how two little bowls of ice-cream can take away tiredness and squawkiness and general all-over feelings of the 'Maybe We Should Have Left The Kids At Home Blues.'

So, after fish and chips and ice-cream, it was two hot rides in two hot buses, then a hot walk up the hill from King George Boulevard to my kinda cool house and a tub full of cool water, to remove any sand from between twinkling little toes. And then, a good dose of Diet Pepsi (the only pop in the house, God forgive me for poisoning these little angels,) and an even better dose of Treehouse TV and Peanut Butter bread.


They're heading for the park soon, to watch Toy Story under the Stars in Holland Park, and as soon as they're gone, I'm heading for my turn with the bathtub.

In case you're wondering where the Festival of the Sea post is - this is it. The Festival was very disappointing - Steveston Farmers Market has much more to offer every second Sunday. Maybe all the festivities were taking place in the evening, or tomorrow - but we weren't going to hang around today, and tomorrow the Pride Festival is a definite Go-To.