The Day After the Wedding

Sunday, June 26th – Victoria, British Columbia - Day 135

As I was sleeping in, I found out Pat was driving down to the hall to pick up his car, so I hitched a ride. While I was downtown, I went to help set-up a gift opening drop-in the wedding the bride and groom were hosting. When I was of no use, I went back home.

We decided to walk ten minutes to the ocean. We made the mistake of not bringing swimsuits, so the kids were disappointed. The beach was nice and had a shoreline trail that had rocky lookouts. We wanted to drop-in to the gift opening, so we hurried back to the trailer and got ready to go.

I’ve never seen a gift opening event; Matthew was cracking jokes and there were lots of hugs. The kids eventually got impatient, we had to get out of there.

Gen wanted to go back to the beach to let the kids swim while I wanted to drive to the top of nearby Mount Douglas. The compromise was dropping the kids at the beach and Jo-Ce and I drove to the top of Mount Doug. Small hikes led us to two different peaks that had fantastic views of Victoria, mountains, the surrounding area, and the nearby islands. Stunning. Gen had wished she would have come along since high tide left little of the beach.

When we returned to the house, we joined in on a pizza order for dinner. The whole family was at the house. Their family seems so wonderfully close, the day after the wedding Matthew and Leah were hanging out with brother, sister, and parents. We were very fortunate to be a part of their lives at this very special time. Tomorrow, we are driving Mary to the train terminal in Vancouver so she can start her train trip home. We have exchanged one McDonough woman for another and are happy to welcome Josephine Cecilia (Jo-Ce) McDonough, Gen’s aunt, to the trip. We spent the night helping Mary get ready. Somewhere Mary lost her wallet, I conducted a very detailed search of the trailer, Pat’s house and the surrounding property with no success. We will probably find it when we clean out the trailer at the end of the trip. (Update: No wallet found)

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