After a light breakfast in the lobby based dining room of the Super 8 Motel in Victoria, we headed over to my grandfather's retirement residence. A very upscale place and very friendly people. It was a joy to see him and give him a big hug and he was very happy to see us. We stayed for about an hour during which time Debbie came by, so we all had a great visit. We have made plans to all go out for supper together on Monday at The Old Spaghetti Factory to celebrate my grandfathers' birthday. It was fascinating to hear him tell stories of his youth: having had two older brothers with jobs, he quit school at 13 years old and left home to get a job. His first job was for 10 dollars a month on a farm in Treherne, Manitoba where he lasted a day. The farmer asked my grandfather to hitch up the horses and harness them and my grandfather did not know what to do. Realizing this, the farmer gave him a dollar and told him to get off his farm. My grandfather then decided to ride the trains, as he had heard good money could be made picking fruit in the Okanagan Valley. Unfortunately, someone told him that when riding trains through tunnels you could faint and fall off the train. Therefore, he decided to turn around in Calgary, Alberta and rode the train back where he got off in Regina. Having no money, he wandered into a Chinese restaurant and asked for a cup of coffee. When asked by the man running the counter if he had any money and hearing no, the man took my grandfather in the back and gave him a big bowl of a sort of stew and then gave him a bag of glazed doughnuts and told him to go home to his mother. My grandfather took his advice and arrived home to his very happy mother, who he surprised while she was in the middle of doing laundry. Bored again shortly thereafter, he borrowed a typewriter and an eraser and changed his birthdate on a copy of his birth certificate to end with a 2 instead of a 5, and thus was able to join the Navy, following some very brief negotiating with his father. After saving some money, my grandfather was able to have a suit made of green Irish tweed, which made him so happy as he had only hand-me-downs the whole time growing up. Amazing stories!! We took the kids to Beacon Hill Childrens' Farm, where we were able to pet and brush dozens of Pygmy goats and grin at the nanny goat with quadruplets who kept trying to run away from her kids :). Back at the hotel to let Cooper succumb to his exhaustion and James is taking the van across the street for an overdue oil change. Imagine our surprise to find out that there was actually no oil left in our van to change anyways (oops) and the transmission fluid was so dirty it was black and had to be actually flushed twice.... at this point what is another two hundred dollars really? I cheered mysf up with a visit to Crabtree and Evelyn and let the saleswoman do her job, even though I slightly insulted her when I let her know I hate the smell of lavender. I made some purchases, and of course picked up a double of an item to give to my mom (and I know she will love it so much that she would never even dream of giving back to me :) ) whom I think of whenever I see this particular store. The downtown area of Victoria is flooded with tourists and the "interesting" type of downtown dwellers which Winnipeg has as well. As tempting as the couple giving away "free hugs" was, we chose to continue on to our vehicle which was in the oposite direction by complete fluke. Victoria seems very upbeat with lots of trendy pubs, steakhouses, and variations of Thai style food and has great views of the water if you can navigate yourself there through the masses.