Our Trip to Victoria

This week is Sophie's mid-winter break which means no school. Since we don't have childcare in the mornings, I decided that it would be a good time to take Sophie on a mother-daughter trip. Somehow, she had gotten it into her head that she wanted to go to Canada to spend the 2 Canadian dollars she has, so I booked a 2-day trip to Victoria.

We took the Clipper (high-speed ferry) and stayed at the Empress Hotel (still here, in fact).  Here's a quick summary of the highlights and low points of our trip so far:

Highlights

1. Sophie is on Cloud 9. She has loved every single minute.
2. The Fairmont Gold Club. When we checked in, I got sold on upgrading to the Fairmont Gold rooms.  It was pretty cheap and includes hors d'oeuvres in the evening and breakfast in the morning.  Let me say, it is completely awesome.  Worth every penny and in the end, we saved money because Sophie ate so much at the hors d'oeuvres that she didn't want to go out for dinner.
3. High tea. Okay, it's a total rip off and the food's not good, but she loved it so much that I'm glad we did it.
4. Miniature World. This was actually really cool.

Low Points

1. She pooped in her pants three times on day 1. Not real poops, just, as she likes to say, "scrats." But we haven't had any of that in a few weeks, so I was not psyched for its return. That said, she hasn't had an accident since...yet.
2. She won't leave the hotel. Literally. She loves it so much that she doesn't want to waste her time with silly things like seeing the city. We did leave once to walk around the corner and go to Miniature World.
3. Technical difficulties. The hotel's pool is closed, they are testing their fire alarms and there's a blizzard.
4. She told me our room smells like "my bottom" (mine, not hers).
5. She told me I look like Nanny McPhee.