Kidding Around Vancouver Island

At Malaspina University College in Nanaimo, the 13th Annual Festival of Trees features over 50 Christmas trees and a 136-foot-long mural by local artist David Wick. The decorating theme this year is romance and the classic movie Dr. Zhivago. We missed Family Day, but there’s a Public Day this Saturday December 1st with Senior Day [...]

One month until Christmas – that’s our cue that it’s time for the lights. Not that we put up our lights on the 25th, that takes place on… come to think of it, we never put up our Christmas lights for one simple reason: they never come down! My husband is one of those “I’ll [...]

Up in Qualicum Beach, this Friday marks the first day of Milner Gardens’s annual Christmas Magic weekends. Festivities get underway at 5:30pm and feature candlelit walks through the 10 acres of gardens. There’s a Teddy Bear cottage which is supposed to be quite delightful and children can also enjoy storytelling at Milner House. And of [...]

Tis also the season of watching more movies, and that means deciding what’s appropriate for your kids. I’ve been surprised to see how many films young kids (under 13) are watching that are rated PG. We’d all do well to remember that PG means Parental Guidance and if you look at www.filmratings.com you’ll see that [...]

You can’t say we didn’t try, but with noses running and hands as red as beets, we had to admit that our trip to the local playground was the last of the season (save those occasional sunny bursts we get). It’s time to playbernate – to find indoor playgrounds. One place to start is fast [...]

With Remembrance Day approaching, we took the opportunity last week to stop by one of the many booths that the Royal Canadian Legion has set up in grocery stores, department stores, malls, etc. We made our donation and put on our poppies, and then we asked our eldest daughter Grace if she had any questions [...]