More Vacation; Converse Shoes and Rebar Cafe.

"Mom, Today was my favorite day!"
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One of the major destinations for my kids on this vacation was a little back-to-school shopping at "The Converse Store".

Otherwise known as Baggins, their slogan: "Possibly The Worlds Largest Selection of Converse and Vans."

I think it's possibly true.

I like them because they have a great selection and very few of the shoes are made from leather. Although I'm not obsessive about it, whenever possible, I try to purchase nonleather shoes for myself and my kids. It makes it easier when there's lots of fun patterns and designs to choose from...

And fortunately, my kids LOVE Converse.

OK, so I'd promised my Sprouts each a pair of shoes. You'd think that would be enough. But no. They had been saving their pennies as well. They intended to make the most of this trip! I think we happily left with eight pairs of shoes. (The store owner was probably just as happy!)

Fortunately my teen's feet have stopped growing so these shoes will actually last longer than a nanosecond.

And even better - they actually delivered the giant box of shoes to our hotel so we didn't have to lug it all over Victoria!

After our Converse adventure, we were revved up for more sightseeing, tourist-y shopping, crazy pictures and plain old browsing.

We went through Victoria's Chinatown district (which our tour driver yesterday pointed out was the second-largest China town in...well... somewhere... obviously I was taking such careful notes.) Plenty of hamming for the camera at the Dragon Gate and stuff.

My oldest Sprout was happily trying on furry hats in the Hudson's Bay store. Just after her sister snapped this picture, I mentioned the hats were REAL fox fur. (I don't think she'd ever seen real fur). She screamed and threw the hat across the store and muttered "murderers!" the whole rest of the time we were in the store.

*ahem* I don't think anyone actually noticed, and I don't particularly condone horrified screaming and throwing merchandise in stores... but secretly I thought her little activist tantrum was amusing. (Not saying fur is funny - don't send me hate mail or anything!)

Finally we decided to slow down and have a late lunch. Our restaurant of choice (well, MY restaurant of choice) was ReBar. If you're ever in Victoria, go there!

Let me tell you this is my favorite restaurant, the Holy Grail, Mecca, the BEST EVER vegan friendly restaurant on the planet. OK, maybe I'm prone to slight exaggeration, but it IS a wonderful place and I wasn't disappointed in the least!

I was even happier that my (sometimes picky) kids all found things on the menu that they really LOVED!

This was the first time they'd ever been here so I was a little worried... Little Sprout had to take all the veggies and tofu OFF her curry and rice bowl. ("Don't they KNOW I don't like stuff all mixed up, Mom?") and even though the chopsticks were a bit of a mystery to her, she still gobbled every bit - she said MY tofu was better though... awww... I love my kids!

I had an amazing lemon-pesto pasta with kale and pine nuts. YES, I could throw the same ingredients together at home, but it wouldn't be the same somehow...

Of course we shopped 'till we dropped that afternoon, definitely walking off lunch, dinner and all the snacks in between! When we were finally exhausted, we returned to the hotel for a light supper, a little bit of catching up on e-mails and of course...MORE swimming!

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I'll close this post with a picture to prove to all you doubters out there that YES! I did indeed put on a bathing suit and go swimming each and every night. (*grumble*) I actually LOVE swimming... but to save your eyeballs, I made the picture as small as possible.