Parkside Victoria

Here are the photos from when we stayed at Parkside. It's not letting me upload the rest so I'll try in the next post.

My view

Some might not like the view from our room, but I really like it. I like old red brick, it makes me feel like I'm living in a part of history. Makes me wonder what it was like to live back when the hotel was built over 1o0 years ago. It's quiet, there's not street noise and it's cool as the sun doesn't directly shine in but it's still really bright. There's 2 tall windows in the living room and the desk sits across them. It overlooks a pretty closed in court yard that houses the Palm Court dome so at night it glows and is really pretty. There are also some nice trees and shrubs to break up the brick. Most wouldn't like it and might complain, but I think it's beautiful. (sorry the photos isn't so great!)

New Owl!

Ok, I actually looked up how to do the mystery stitches and I realized I had missed a row - big difference! This owl is much better! The first one I stuffed with kleenex tissue which was all I could find at the time, but for this one I realized there were cotton balls in the bathroom and it took everyone - perfect!

Only at the Empress!

Only at the Empress would they have kids BMW cars! The hotel has a BMW SUV and bicycles. Staff can drive the SUV to give guests rides or run errands and guests can borrow the bikes to get around town etc. So BMW gave them 2 of these little kids cars as well. One is in the Human Resource office which Aubrey is well aware as we pass it to do laundry and the other is behind the front desk where Jared's office is. They let us borrow the one from the front desk for a little while and Aubrey got to ride it up to our room.

My first attempt

I found a crochet pattern for an owl and attempted it yesterday while Aubrey napped, but I was stuck in our room which didn't have internet connection and I couldn't look up how to do different stitches so I just kinda made up my own pattern, and well it's pretty funny looking. The ears are too big and when I gave it to Aubrey she just laughed out loud at it!

Visa Update

Things just keep getting weirder . . . The lawyers tried for 2 weeks to get the receipt number for our claim to resubmit the paperwork to and they just found out there is no number, they don't have any record of this so Blaine must have not submitted the paperwork to California! So, with the approval of Seattle, they have submitted for a brand new Visa straight to the headquarters in California. It will take 15 days which will be Oct. 13th. If they need evidence of qualifications etc. it will take longer - let's hope it's just a quick and easy process as it should have been in the first place!

Halloween Costume

I wasn't sure what I was going to do for Aubrey's Halloween Costume this year as I didn't know where we would be living or if we'd even be doing anything. So I didn't want to spend too much money in case it wouldn't be used! Then I got the idea for her to be an owl since she likes them so much. It's amazing what you can do with some felt and thread. I used an existing brown hooded sweater and sewed on some felt feathers, eyes, beak and ears. I happened to have the two buttons in my crochet bag which I had with me, but all my craft stuff is packed so I got a little sewing kit from the hotel so I had a needle and I used little curved nail cutting scissors to cut all the felt, that was not fun! Anyways, it didn't take long and I like how it turned out. Now when Aubrey wears it she pats her head and then who's like an owl, it's pretty cute.

On the move (still in Victoria)

Well, we've moved out of the Empress to The Oswego for one night, which was nice but then moved to Parkside Victoria for a week which was much nicer and larger. Since being there Aubrey has learned how to climb up the highchair and get in herself. She also managed to climb out of her crib and onto our bed which was too close, I'm not sure what's next for her to climb. Now we are back at the Empress, hopefully permanently until we move. Things are definately in limbo with Jared's VISA. The lawyers are tracking down some number that they need to resubmit the paperwork (again) and they are direct contact with the head supervisor at the Customs office, so we're not sure if that means it will take another 15 days from the re-submit date or if they're bypassing some people to demand action. We might be here for Thanksgiving, Aubrey's birthday and maybe even Halloween at this rate. I asked Jared at what point they'd kick us out of the hotel and he said he asked and they said not to worry about it. Basically Seattle is paying Jared's wages doing the job he would be doing there, so the only cost the hotel here is incurring is the cost of our food which we've been pretty respectful of only ordering what we need. So we should be good here for a little while longer.
I'll post some photos of our place at Parkside next post.

Las Vegas - Finally Scrapbooked!

French Beach

Swimming at the Empress

The Suite Life

Silly outfit

French Beach photos

Aubrey with Aunt Bonny and Eli

Of course the boys had to create a competition of who could hit a floating log with rocks, and then who could hit it 5 times in a row.

Aubrey and Amber

Eli playing in the cold water

cupcake thief!

Little Diva

Journalling

I haven't had time to go through all the photos yet, but I thought I better write about what we've been up to lately. We are now in our 3rd hotel and are here for the week at Parkside Resort & Spa, it's really nice with a nice view of the Empress with living and dining space and a kitchen which will be nice. It also has 2 fireplaces and 2 bathrooms and a balcony. There's a large pool and a movie theatre room showing movies every night! It's a good practice run to see if we could manage living in a condo space like this vs. something larger when we finally do move.

This last weekend Dave & Ali's baby boy Roland, was blessed so lots of family were in town. Curtis and Bonny came on Friday morning and we went to Willow's Beach to play. Then on Saturday we went with them to French Beach. It was really nice and sunny and had fun throwing rocks and running up and down the beach. Aubrey definitely got a good work out running and it was surprising how she could just keep going and going. We tried taking off her shoes and letting her go bare foot and she just froze and was disgusted in what we had done with her and now there was sand on her feet and it had to come off! So we dipped her feet in the ocean to clean them and well, that was just as bad! Sunday Roland was blessed in Murray & Elaine's backyard with family all around. Even Murray's brother Marty was in town (he moved here) whom I've never met until now! I think that's all we've done in the last little bit.

If anyone wants to come over and play games one night, let us know! It's nice to have a separate bedroom to put Aubrey down in for the night so we can still visit with people.

Delayed Again . . .

Today we were suppose to find out if Jared's VISA was approved or not, but last night we found out that they haven't even looked at the paperwork because things were missing in it (which was not true), so now they have to resubmit everything and wait another 15 days! The Empress is sold out for the next couple nights so we are staying at The Oswego Hotel for 2 nights and them back to the Empress on Saturday, and we just keep waiting.