I’ve fallen a bit behind due to dealing with a lovely Springtime head cold, but to continue our saga of the Defense Week, Days 4 and 5 were a day of play and then a day of rest.  On Day 4 to celebrate Dave’s passing the Defense, Little Man and I went on a meandering Springtime adventure leading up to a picnic in one of his favorite parks.

We began our trek by stopping at Coco Cafe in Cedar for a picnic lunch.  After securing an amazing Roasted Chicken Club on thick, multigrain bread, a Carrot Muffin (Little Man’s arctic fox teddy apparently loves carrots), and a Mandarin Orange sparkling water for myself we were off again.  Cedar Street is a meandering half-circle, more or less, that goes through the town of Cedar and out towards North Oyster and the airport.  Along the way you also come across Fredrich’s Honey House, one of Little Man’s favorite places.

Today at the Honey House we’d brought along a couple of our empty honey jars to be refilled.  I’ve got plans for a post with the contents of one of the jars soon so keep your eyes peeled.  One of the jars we brought to be filled was Little Man’s own “tiny, tiny, tiny” honey jar that he was given there full of Blackberry Honey last summer when we visited for the first time.  We filled up the jars with their local wild flower honey and a gorgeous dark honey, sampling as we went.  Little Man liked them both, but thought the dark honey was the best.  Then with his little jar clutched tightly in a fist and a wooden tasting stick in Mommy’s bag we were off again.  This time we were heading for the park for our picnic.

Our destination for the day was Transfer Beach Park in Ladysmith.  Ladysmith is about 20 minutes south of Nanaimo, and is the town where we went for the Ladysmith Lights display last November.  It’s a cute town, perched on a San Fransisco-esque hill overlooking the ocean.  At the Transfer Beach light turn toward the ocean and follow the curving road down past an old steam engine, past the amphitheater and turn left into the parking lot by the playground.

An astute viewer might notice that Dave is in this picture while the post is about him being in New York. These photos were taken just after Dave got back, since I failed to take photos earlier.

There are two playgrounds, one shaped like a ship for the little ones and a larger contraption of swinging bridges and slides for the more adventurous kiddos.  We generally only spend a short time on the playgrounds, since Little Man’s favorite thing to do is to go down to the pebble beach and throw rocks into the ocean.  I think soon we’ll come back with a little cork boat on a string and see how that fares in the calm waters.

Skipping rocks is the best thing ever.

While the playtime was great, the picnic was a little less successful.  It consisted mostly of me chasing my toddler around the playground with the chicken sandwich and him giggling maniacally as he dashed this way and that, clutching the arctic fox under his arm, and sprinting for anything he could run around.  All in all a good time was had by all, including the fox, and we succeeded in a good nap time once home.

Day 5: Face Time

After our shenanigans the day before, we played Day 5 close to home.  Dave spent the day with our dear family friends in New York, and I spent the day wishing desperately that we were there with them.  The highlight was later that afternoon when we got to do some Face Time chatting with Dave and our friends.  Little Man was a bit confused as to why Daddy couldn’t appear at his door immediately after appearing on the computer, but in the end was just happy to get some time to chat with his dad.  The next day was to be an all day travel extravaganza for Dave, and a good bit of cleaning for us.

Operation Daddy Sign: Day 4/5

We finalized the Congratulations, Daddy! sign over these two days.  On Day 4 I took a gigantic Sharpie marker and wrote the words on the sign while Aiden took his nap.  Once the ink was completely dry we added a little more glitter glue to the sign, and I added some glitter glue accents to a few of the letters that were written over dark paint and weren’t showing up as well.

The completed “Congratulations Daddy” sign.

A detail shot of the added glitter glue to make dark letters a bit more legible.

Now the stage was set, all we needed was for Dave to make it home.