Victoria Vacation Continued and Continued

We're still vacationing.

But hey - the room is inexpensive, we brought our own food... we're doing so much better with the budget than most vacations half this length...

Speaking of budgets, My Middle Fashionista Sprout was still determined to blow hers and a little worried that we hadn't hit the famous Canadian ROOTS store yet. "We just HAAAAVE to Mom, this is our last chance". How sad!

OK, our first exciting event: we were nearly run down by a "parade" of Hemp Nationalists (they called themselves).

Now, I don't know exactly what that means except they felt the need to march noisily down the sidewalk waving Hemp Power flags, probably wearing Hemp underwear too, and who KNOWS what they were smokin'...

My oldest Sprout thought it was hilarious and snapped a picture just as they were rounding the corner.

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After that we trudged back downtown to the shopping district for our last bit of (note my excitement!) shopping. I would rather lie on the Interstate than shop two consecutive days in a row, but my Sprouts convinced me this was, somehow, a VERY important and overlooked stop.

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Plenty more photo ops along the way too - every shop and trinket store seems to have it's own mascot out front and my very UN camera shy Sprouts enjoyed every minute!

Well, we finally procured the precious and much coveted ROOTS sweatshirts... Oh, sorry, my children are appalled at my lack of fashion vocabulary. They're "HOODIES" of course, not sweatshirts. Whatever you call them, my kids live in these things, regardless of temperature. It can be 80 degrees and they still freak out if they don't have their "hoodie". That is why all the vacation pictures show my children in jackets... It wasn't cold! But I digress.

Hoodie -shopping finished, we grabbed lunch at a little sidewalk Hot Dog Kiosk. Yes, they had vegetarian (VEGAN actually!) hotdogs, all cooked and stored totally separate from the others. I was impressed! And it was fun to find vegan "fast food" for a change.

Then we headed to the Beacon Hill Children's Farm.

I'm sometimes hesitant of petting "zoos" and such, but this facility is actually part of BC's Animal Protection and Rescue League as well.

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All the farm's furry residents have been rescued from some situation or another. They make their homes at the farm or are adopted out.

It was our luck that right now, the Farm had quite a few babies. My Sprouts just fell in love with them.

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I personally liked watching the funny little Vietnamese potbelly piglets, and a sweet little Shetland sheep caught my Middle Sprout's attention. Every time she walked past the pen, the sheep ran over and bobbed it's head up and down and 'baa-aaa-ed' until she scratched it's head. We told her she'd have to stay there as official "Sheep Scratcher"!

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There was also a whole pen of goats and the Farm staff let us climb in and hold the kids. So fun!

After we'd loved on the darling little goats for a while and talking to the nice staff at the Farm, we hiked some trails in the park, stopped by the duck pond and then headed back to our hotel.

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While I was making supper, the Sprouts pointed out the VEGAN options listed in the room-service menu (hinting that they were tired of my cooking? Surely not!).

I told them we'd do room service for breakfast tomorrow as a special treat before leaving. (It was a treat for me too - That way I could pack all the kitchen gear ahead of time and no breakfast clean up!) Ordering room service sounded pretty exotic and exciting to them, though they definitely didn't want to leave!

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We played in the hotel's game room for a while tonight, learning valuable skills like shooting pool and playing chess and hoping the "hot guys" would happen by. (My Sprouts, not me!!) Swimming and a long, welcome soak in the hot tub ended our day.