Although Its Been Said Many Times, Many Ways...

Merry Christmas!

The Annual Salmon Run At Goldstream Provincial Park

With the scent of hundreds of visible wild chum salmon literally rotting in the water, we made our way from our parking spot at the mouth of the park and walked down Goldstream river. We hoped to bare witness to nature's raw spectacle of life and death- the annual salmon run.

We first visited under the bridge where we could see a handful of pale dead chum floating lifelessly in the water. However being the furthest the salmon travel upstream, there was many more living, rowdy, mating salmon than dead salmon. You see, it is the wonderful cycle of life and death that plays out here before our eyes. The male and female salmon swim up stream from the ocean to mate, lay eggs, and then die.

More downstream was a mass grave of fish carcases just floating in the water. The birds were huddled around the banks gorging themselves on this once a year buffet. Although there are a diversity of different salmon species that spawn in Goldstream, chum outnumbered all others, being the most visible and abundant of those salmon spotted. After having had enough of this interesting event. We walked back to the car and made our way to Mount Douglas.

Trying To Remember Remembrance Day With Tieghen

Teighen came up over Remembrance Day long weekend last month with the main objective of getting us organized on our wedding. Beside doing a bunch of wedding related stuff we also had great fun around Victoria. On Remembrance Day we partied hard in remembrance (of course) and funnily enough can hardly remember that night!

We took Teighen on a walking tour of Cook Street Village then walked along the seacoast and along Ogden Point Breakwater then to the Fisherman's Warf and the Inner Harbour. After recharging at home we went to our favourite oyster place, Pescatores. We ordered 48 oysters and rounds of drinks and never looked back.

The night spanned the downtown hopping from place to place before things got a bit cloudy. Anyways, the next morning there was a friendly Japanese man from Osaka named Naoto sleeping on our couch. Later he sent me these shady photos of how the night went!

The Change of Fall To Winter In Victoria

Have been getting some flack for no recent posts. We have both been quite busy... too much work and not enough fun. The leaves fell off the walnut tree just outside our window and soon it was bare and covered with snow. Winter came early to Victoria as there was a whole week with snow on the ground for much of it in November.

Some of the highlights of the past few months have been Alissa passing her last exam for her bus licence, Matt finally finishing all his exams, going to a Stuart McLean Christmas show, a few Christmas parties/ pot lucks, and Teighen's visit in November (more on that one next post).

There have also been lots of wedding stuff that we have been trying to squeeze in. Oh yeah, Alissa bought her wedding dress and tomorrow we meet with the Catholic wedding prep people.