Victoria - Day 2

Today starts out by all of us just taking it easy. We have plans to hit Butchart Gardens today but all in good time - no rush. We're on vacation after all! Once we hit the road we need to find a place to have lunch. Just before we got to the Gardens we find a little town called Brentwood Bay and in that little town is an eatery called Breadstuffs Bakery and Deli. Should you by chance be on your way to Butchart I highly recommend that you go there to eat. Really, really good simple food. Rob and I shared an egg salad sandwich on Parmesan bread and both agreed that had we known it would be so good we would have gotten a full sandwich each instead of sharing. I also had onion soup, the kids shared a pizza and we each got a sweet treat. The baked goods were fabulous! We would have been happy taking home one of each of everything in the store if we could have and the people who served us were friendly and more than helpful. They carried our food outside for us and even rearranged tables so that we weren't troubled by having to do it ourselves whilst also trying to get the kids in their seats.

About the time that we finished a sweet looking lady stopped to chat us up and comment on our wise choice of establishments for lunch. We had a wonderful conversation this endearing lady who we discovered was an overseas missionary for a time and has since seen her children and grandchildren also serve the Lord in other countries. She had a lot of interesting input regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan when she learned that Rob would be going to that area soon. So if you are lucky enough to end up having lunch at Breadstuffs, you will be double lucky to run into Ms. Beth Haugen Deckers who will regale you with amazing stories of growing up in Saanich and getting into Butchart Gardens for free as a child as was the privilege of all the locals once upon a time. What a neat lady!

Well, onto the Garden itself. It was a great day weather wise. Not too hot and not too sunny. So you may know already I'm not a big sunworshiper, but more than that (and you already know this if you've read previous posts of mine) too much sun is bad for pictures. But today the weather was practically perfect. When we first stepped onto the path that tours the garden we were greeted by peace poppies. I'm in love. They may just be the perfect flower in my opinion. Might have to get some of those one day. There are beds carpeted with them and hanging baskets dripping with them in white, yellow, pink, orange and red. *sigh* Lovely.

At the beginning we also got a view of the rose garden which we toured later and the sunken garden which we skirted from around the top but never made our way into. Come to think of it, since we were following the wheelchair accessible path with the double stroller and another stroller borrowed (for FREE) from the garden, I don't think there was a way down there except for the stairs. Oh well, I was satisfied with the view from above.

At one of the viewpoints there's a little treehouse of sorts that Gabe had a great time going up with Rob. Then he came down and could hardly contain his excitement to take me up as well. I was happy that there were things that excited him and that this outing wasn't going to bore him. Zion mostly enjoyed it when she was allowed out of the stroller and let loose on her own. Typical Z.

I feel like I got some decent pictures and of course got too many to post them all here. I especially enjoyed the rose garden but pretty much just "shot" and didn't try to be too creative. By that time of the day more than one of us was starting to feel a little footsore and tired and we still had so much left to see. There was the harbor where you could catch a tour boat and the Japanese garden, the trash bins also covered with beautiful flowers and the Gelato stand. OK, that last part has nothing to do with flowers but I was really looking forward to it and it was at the very end. So the last thing we did before we left was to grab some gelato. Having had a chance to have "real" gelato while in Italy I'm pretty picky about my gelato. Most of the time what is called gelato in the US isn't close enough in my opinion. This was one of those so-so places. But still, it's ice cream so who can complain? It was still yummy.

Well, my brain has melted because it's so late at night and I should be in bed so ta-ta for now. Enjoy the pictures!