Kidding Around Vancouver Island

Readers of this column know our family loves going to live theatre – pantomimes in particular. Well, all of that has given Grace the acting bug, for which we’ve found an excellent cure. It’s called Red Room Studio in Nanaimo and they offer year-round acting programs for kids 7 – 15. What we love in [...]

Have you heard of Wacky Woods (or Funny Forest as others call it)?  It’s up in Fanny Bay and I think it’s a real Island place – fun, unique, creative, quirky, and off the beaten path (literally).  How to describe it.  Well, it’s a woods (or a forest as others call it), and it’s wacky [...]

Need a relaxing spa getaway for an afternoon, where kids have plenty to do, but still taking it easy on your pocket book?  Look no further than the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre.  Ok, maybe “spa-like” would be a better term or “sort of spa-ish” – the point is, a few hours swimming with the kids can [...]

You’ve heard of catch and release, but what about read and release?  That’s the idea behind a fun website called Book Crossing – you read a book and instead of putting it in a garage sale, you release it into the wild.  You attach a note to the book with a special code from the [...]

Six young kids, bags of flour, mounds of sugar, and shakers full of sprinkles – recipe for disaster?  Not if you’re having a baking party, which is what we did this past weekend.   We called in Kelli Burton who runs Baking Bandits and she arrived with all the ingredients, showed the kids how to [...]

Looking back over all the years, wouldn’t it be nice to keep those memories alive in a scrapbook? Yes, I said slowly, wondering what prompted a seven year old to ask that, why don’t I look into it. And so it was that we met Jennifer at Scrapbookin’ Adventures in Parksville. She started Grace and [...]

Hockey fans in the Central Island area are being treated to some world-class hockey right now, with the 2009 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge taking place at arenas in Port Alberni, Nanaimo, Campbell River, Courtenay, Cowichan, and Oceanside. View the entire schedule and get up to date scores here at the official website.

Having taken a break for Christmas, it’s time to continue our central island pantomime crawl: There’s Mother Goose at the Bailey Theatre in Nanaimo, from December 26 to January 3, with matinees most days. Then it’s on to Chemainus for Rumpelstiltskin at the Chemainus Theatre Festival. It runs now until January 3rd, with special Family [...]

Panto time is here! For those who’ve never been to a traditional Christmas pantomime, it’s a bit difficult to explain in words. Imagine being in a movie theatre and wanting to jump up and boo at Darth Vader or cheer wildly for Hans Solo – well at a pantomime you get to do just that. [...]

Our kids always enjoy a visit to the North Island Wildlife Center and during the holiday season this year they’re extending their hours – Friday and Saturday they’re open until 8:30pm and Sunday 11am – 5pm. They’ve also decked the halls, so stop by and say hello, and consider giving the gift of an animal [...]