Leprechan Traps

We never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day when I was growing up. Maybe because we have absolutely no Irish heritage? But now I'm thinking that this may become one of my favorite holidays with a 4 year old. We prepared by making leprechan traps the night before. Rob, being the engineer, was in charge of this project. And quite the traps they were. The traps had silver rocks inside and a special gold nugget hanging from a string. (You all know that Leprechans love gold, of course.) Once the leprechan pulled the gold nugget it triggered a rubberband which SNAPPED the box shut! ha ha! The boxes were also decorated with rainbows to further entice the leprechans inside.

Lukas woke up at 5:30AM the next day, all excited to check the traps. Alas, the boxes were shut, but no leprechans were found. The little troublemakers did wreck havoc on our house, though: bananas were hanging from the fireplace, chairs were upside down, one of Lukas' stuffed animals was dressed in an astronaut suit, boots were hanging from doornobs, Lukas' cars & trucks were piled high, etc. Lukas thought it was HILARIOUS & ran around the house trying to find all of the things that the leprechans did. Also kind of fun to celebrate a holiday that doesn't have to involve candies or presents!

Vancouver Island

We all headed to Vancouver Island in February to help celebrate Anne Marie's "big" b-day. We weren't too convinced that heading to Canada in winter was the smartest move, but we ended up being blessed with beautiful sunny days.

We spent the first few days in Nainaimo with Joris, Elizabeth & the girls. I think I got about 5 minutes of Lukas' attention in those days as he was completely enthralled in hanging out with his cousins. They also have cats, dogs, a trampoline & a huge yard for play - no shortage of fun here!

The pizza chefs in action


All zonked out from too much fun

We then drove about 3 hours west to Tofino on the coast where we had rented cabins for a few nights. The drive to Tofino was beautiful - & Tofino itself was gorgeous too. Our cabins were right on the beach so we could some nice walks.


Standing on the beach looking back at our cabins tucked in the woods


Sunset on "our" beach

On our first night in Tofino we went to the Wickaninnish Inn for the big b-day celebratory dinner. The restaurant had amazing views of the coastline & delicious food. We managed to enjoy a 3 hour dinner which is amazing in itself considering all together there were 4 kids under the age of 5! I think the grandkids picked up on the fact that they needed to be good on Grootmoe's special night.

The next day we took a one hour boat tour to a nearby island. The captain pointed out bald eagles and seal lions - but unfortunately no whales - we were a bit early in the season for that. On the island we took about a 2 mile hike to some hotsprings. It was kind of funny, the walk was completely on a raised wooden walkway which made for a really easy hike. But when we got to the hotsprings, we had to carefully manuever our way over slippery, mossy boulders. Of course, that didn't stop us & we all enjoyed a soak!


Our yellow boat docked & ready to bring us back home when we're done on the island


Family pic along the hike


The Wiggers family soaking it up!

We had such a great week on Vancouver Island. Wonderful time to relax & catch up with family and a truly beautiful place.

NO SLUGS ALLOWED

The one thing that I love about being back home is that I once again get to work in the garden. The garden was sorely neglected while our house was being rented, so Lukas & I have been busy trying to bring it back to life. We planted a salvia about a week ago, but when we checked on it the other day, many of its leaves had been eaten by slugs. I showed it to Lukas & was complaining about the slugs when he said "hold on a minute!". He disappeared inside. I few minutes he emerged with the following sign:

"NO SLUGS ALLOWED!"


I thought it was pretty funny, plus I didn't know he knew how to spell "No".

The next morning we were eating breakfast. He wanted to watch The Magic Schoolbus, but I told him that he couldn't leave the table until he had finished his breakfast. We were going back & forth on this for about a minute when he said "Can I be excused for just ONE minute?". I said yes, & a minute later he returns with a picture of a stick figure (with long hair) and big NO. As in "No Mommies Allowed". Kind of disrespectful, but kind of funny too....