Hello Victoria!

As many of you might already know, Luke got a new job! After 9 years with Nordstrom, Luke moved on to a completely new role at a new company. He will be working at a company called National Purchasing Partners, which is owned by Virginia Mason Hospital. It's a group purchasing company that helps small businesses get discounts on a variety of products from large national vendors. Luke is really excited for a new challenge, and we are BOTH excited that we will have the same work schedules for the first time since we've known each other. It's such a blessing! And I will get way more work done at home since he won't be here to distract me in the mornings :)

So, in honor of his new job, we took a little 3-day trip to Victoria, B.C. We took the Victoria Clipper boat there, which takes about 3 hours. The weather was damp and overcast for our ride up to Victoria, but it didn't stop the mountains from making a debut!

A tugboat!

Pulling into downtown Victoria.

That day we got some breakfast at a delicious little bakery that was recommended to us, explored the town, took a nap in the park while we were waiting for our hotel room to be ready, and went out for dinner. I love vacation!

On Sunday morning, we woke up and grabbed some coffee at down the street from our hotel at Murchie's. We had seen it the day before with a line of people coming out of the door, so we assumed it must be good and gave it a try. We were NOT disappointed! Luke said he had the best Americano of his life! 

Here's me with our tray of goodies! 

After caffeinating, we headed off in search of Craigdaroch Castle. We loved walking through the neighborhoods to find this beautiful, well, castle!

King of the castle!

Here's a little bit of info if you're wondering about its history.

I have to say, we've gotten pretty good at the one-armed-self-portrait.

After that, we headed to Chinatown. Victoria has a very old and vibrant Chinatown - so many shops and restaurants! We had lunch at a sidewalk table at one of the restaurants - it was delicious!

We also saw a lot of other awesome buildings and landmarks, like the Fairmont Empress Hotel. It's a very old, fancy hotel. It's really well known for serving high tea in the afternoon each day. We didn't go to tea this time, but we hope to next time we visit.

And here's the parliament building.

Sightseeing! (That's a water taxi in the background.)

Later on Saturday we shopped around, went to a movie because it started raining, and had a fabulous dinner at a local restaurant. Luke said he had the BEST oysters of his life there :)

On Sunday, we woke up and went back to the bakery we had visited on the first day - it was that good.

Then we packed up our stuff at the hotel and headed for the National History Museum. It was really interesting, and we learned a lot about Victoria. After our visit to the museum, we headed out to the fisherman's terminal to find some fish and chips. Luke, however, took us on a meandering route that ended up being MUCH longer than anticipated. This resulted in a very crabby, wet and cold wife whining most of the way. Did I mention it was pouring out? Well, after what seemed like forever, we reached our destination, had some delicious fish and chips, and caught a water taxi back downtown. I was much happier then :)

Then we only had a couple of hours to kill before getting back on the Clipper for our trip home. There was an incredible sunset on our trip back and Luke captured these amazing photos!

 We ended up having a great trip and were so glad we got to celebrate Luke's new job. Now that we have weekends off together, I'm sure will be posting about lots more adventures!

Bon voyage, Clipper!