Our island getaway...

I have quite a few blog entries to write to catch you up on the happenings of the last week! As well as various outings and social events - not to mention full time work - I am in assignment mode (and Ben was too until recently), so we are keeping extremely busy!

Last weekend (8-10 May), we spent a wonderfully relaxing two days with friends in a beach house and adjoining cottage at Qualicum Bay on beautiful Vancouver Island. There were 17 of us! (By the way, Vancouver Island is enormous - 460 kms long and up to 80 kms wide, so we only saw a tiny part of it!) Here are some photos and highlights...

View from the ferry on the way over to the island on Friday evening...


View from the backyard of the beach house on Friday night...


View from our ensuite bedroom on the second floor of the house...


Relaxing after brunch on Saturday morning...






Outing to Little Qualicom Cheeseworks and working farm near Parksville, where we saw cows and pigs and goats, learnt about cheese making, tasted cheese, and purchased some yummy goodies...







A leisurely hike in one of the island's many provincial parks...


Lazing around on Saturday evening...


Lunching at the Coombs Old Country Market on Sunday - an awesome store/cafe/bakery known as "Goats On The Roof" (no photos unfortunately, but there really were goats on the roof!!), and surrounded by a few smaller shops...


And eating leftover pie with ferry soft-serve icecream on the way back across to Van after the gospel meeting on Sunday night...


Other highlights included delicious brunch and dinner at the beach house, an entertaining group singalong, and a nice amount of lazing around. Big thanks to Janelle for organising it; this was one of our favourite experiences in Canada so far!