Epic Trip Part One Billion

The final day in Port Hardy we went to YET ANOTHER beach (this one in town, with no wolves or bears), which was of course equally gorgeous.  We spent the day enjoying the beach, sand, popsicles, and tidal pools.  Then we went home for dinner and came BACK to the same beach for a campfire and sunset watch.  I felt so fortunate to enjoy this part of the province with our family and we couldn't get enough of it.  Hopefully we can go back again soon!

Although sunny, the wind made it c-c-c-c-cold!  Not too cold to eat popsicles, though.  ;)

Yeah, it was a plastic cutlery magic trick... with a dr. pepper and a popsicle?

All the Vose cousins; Matthew(7), Ruben(3), Riley(3), Ayden(9), Amarys(1), Ella(5), and Myles(6 mos)

The next day we hit the road again and made an epic 8 hour trek to Mill Bay to meet up with my sister and her husband Casey and baby Oliver, my cousin Sara and her hubby Leigh and kids, and my cousin Caolan and his girlfriend Vanessa.  MORE CAMPING!  It was awesome.  And the trip down was so fun because we took detours into all these cute little Island towns like Cumberland and Campbell River (we fell in love with Campbell River and Brent put in for a transfer there--we have transfers in all over the province so this is nothing exciting but we really do hope to live in Campbell River sometime soonish.  Or anywhere, really, other than here).  We stopped in Coombs which is famous for this little village market that has goats on its roof.  Grass grows on the roof and goats roam around up there and it is pretty quaint  =)  And remarkably original!  We didn't get photos of goats on a roof but here are some from the tourism webpage:

Actually, after i wrote that I googled Images goats on a roof vancouver island, and I found this blog post that sums the market up nicely, from a traveler's blog in NYC =)  Go read her post for a good overall feel for the goats on a roof market experience.  The photo above is swiped from her blog (evil me, but hopefully she won't mind, since I didn't swipe her post or take credit for the photo =P)  The kids LOOOOOVED the goats on a roof.  We will go back there again for sure someday.  And bring money.  We had pretty much run out of money by this point (yay, camping is cheap!  boo, gas is not!) so we didn't get any souvenirs except ice cream stains on our shirts.

We pulled into a Provincial campground in Brentwood Bay (near the village of Mill Bay) and yahoo!  So many cousins to greet us.  This campground was a 5 minute trek to the ocean.  So much ocean, so much family, SO MUCH AWESOME.  We really did not want to come home from this trip at ALL.  None of us. I wish we could have spent the entire summer camping and visiting and touring Vancouver Island.  There is so much we didn't see!  And so much spectacular beauty I had never seen before!  Van Island has it all as far as scenery; ocean that faces inland, open ocean, kayaking and boating of all kinds, lakes, dense pine forest, redwood forests, rain forest, arid farmland, mountains, prairies, wildflowers, deer, bear, wolves, cougars, (thankfully we only spotted a few bears from the van and a bajillion deer, which of course are harmless), aboriginal communities, hippie communities, Starbucks, fly in only communities (we didn't see those either of course), fishing towns, tourist towns, and several large cities.

I want to live there.  I wish it could be soon.  Fingers crossed (Brent is very good at his job so I'm not sure his current posting is keen on letting him go just yet... We need their permission to go, so there's that).

Matthew, Ayden, Ryen(3), Riley, Amarys, Me, my cousin Sara who is from my mom's side of the family, and sports two s'mores at once quite nicely, and my sister Megan.  Who is younger than me by 6 years and taller than me by 9 inches.  But I have bigger boobs.  Wellllll, not anymore; she's got huge knockers and oversupply to the point of pouring ounces of milk out of her breast shells onto the ground multiple times an hour.  And literally ringing out her shirts.  What's up with us Smith girls and making enough milk to feed dozens of babies?  Sheesh.  We could've made a killing in the wet nurse era...

We were obviously getting lazy with picture taking at this point!  We spent a day at the beach and two nights campfire and visiting, and this is all we got.  Lol!  But here goes:
Back row: Sara, Leigh, Casey, Megan, Oliver (5 weeks old), Me, Vanessa, Brent
Front row: Kaleb (7), Matthew, Caolan, Riley, Ryen, Amarys, Ayden

We have quite a few really good storytellers in this bunch so we had a ton of fun talking.  My cousin Caolan got lost in the woods last year and Search and Rescue had to go haul his ass out of the woods; it was fun hearing the story firsthand from both him and his girlfriend =)  We had a few stories to share, too.

The final day we drove to Swartz Bay and took the ferry back to Tsawwassen, and drove home.  We were dirty, smelly, tired, and so, so happy.  =)

The end.