Since we were in Seattle for almost two weeks, we wanted to go on a mini vacation somewhere. Vancouver was at the top of our list. We decided to rent a car and make the two and a half hour drive to Canada for a short stay.
The first thing we decided to do in Vancouver was visit Granville Island. Granville Island has a farmers market and some unique stores. We arrived around lunch time, so getting some food was our top priority.
The kids mostly ate stuff we brought with us. Here is Caden enjoying an apple and gold fish. Amy and I bought a few things to eat at some of the many shops.
We ate outside where there were a lot of birds looking for food. The birds were fairly aggressive and would hang out under your chair and table. Here is a picture of Caden chasing some pigeons.
Later in the day, a crazy bird actually buzzed Caroline's head and hit her! It caught Caroline off guard but she didn't get too upset. Amy was definitely the most upset and wanted to track that bird down.
Here is a view from the dock next to where we ate lunch.
One of the cool stores on Granville Island was a kids market. It was basically a collection of a whole bunch of unique toy stores. For example, one store only sold classic wood toys.
Outside the toy market was a fake boat the kids like steering.
It was obvious our kids were getting tired and we needed to leave so they could take a nap. I told them the last thing we would do would be buy some gelato (which I called ice cream). Amy found a bench to sit on and I went to buy some gelato for the family to share. That is when I made a completely thoughtless mistake...
I ordered a small cup of chocolate gelato. The server then asked what other flavor I would like. I was not expecting to pick out a second flavor so, without thinking twice, I ordered a scoop of Butterfinger gelato.
When I proudly returned with my cup of chocolate and Butterfinger gelato, Amy said, "doesn't Butterfinger contain peanuts?" She was absolutely correct. We have been avoiding peanuts with the kids since they have a cousin that was allergic, and Caroline has shown a few signs of being allergic when eating things made in peanut oil. We just couldn't let them have any of the Butterfinger gelato!
But the kids knew I had some ice cream for us all to share. They even saw the four little spoons sticking out of the cup. They did not understand why I was being such a mean dad not allowing them to dig in. Their exhaustion made matters even worse and we soon had two screaming kids.
The tiny little cup of gelato cost $7 bucks so we were not going to go wait in a long line to buy another cup. Instead, Amy and I scarfed down the scoop of Butterfinger as fast as we could without enjoying it at all. Once that flavor was completely gone, we let our kids dig in. Caroline finally calmed down when we let her use a spoon to get her own ice cream. Caden didn't recover until we were on the way to the car.
I had ruined what was suppose to be a nice family moment of sharing gelato in Vancouver by buying a flavor containing peanuts. Oh well. I'm sure I'll ruin tons of moments during our lifetime. :) Thankfully, the rest of the trip went way better than this.
Here is Caroline eating some traumatic chocolate gelato.
Ten minutes after the gelato fiasco, this was the view of the backseat in our car.
We drove to the hotel to check in. I stayed in the car with the sleeping twins while Amy checked us in. She then stayed in the car while I took a load of stuff up to our room.
Here is our room. We were on the tenth floor and had a decent view.
The kids were very interested in the hotel room...especially the window. Amy thought the grandmothers would die if they saw us letting the kids climb on the window like this. The twins were very excited about the view where they could see buildings, buses, cars, people, and even a fountain.
The kids burned a lot of energy running around the hotel room and there was a lot of squealing. Hopefully, no neighbor was trying to sleep at that time. The kids even climbed in and out of their pack n play while we were playing. It was obvious the pack n plays would not contain the kids if they didn't want to be contained.
After letting the kids play in the hotel room for a little while, we left to walk around the city. There was a McDonald's next door, so we ordered the kids some fries and chicken nuggets. The twins ate that in their stroller and Amy and I walked around looking for our dinner. Here are the two food trucks we ate at that night.
The first sold rotisserie chicken sandwiches. In Austin, Amy had actually read about this place online and wanted to try it out. We were shocked to walk by it right after leaving McDonald's and we shared a delicious sandwich.
The second place was right in front of our hotel. We had an okay Philly cheese steak and some awesome
poutine fries. Poutine fries are everywhere in Canada. They are basically fries with
cheese curds covered in brown gravy. We loved the fries and agreed they were easily the best thing we ate in Vancouver.
We walked around exploring until it was time for the kids to go to sleep. We then returned to the hotel, where the kids went to bed much more easily than either of us expected.
After the kids were sleeping, Amy allowed me walk around down town for a couple hours checking stuff out. I took some pictures and even bought some more gelato. The gelato was much more enjoyable this time.
That night, we all had a surprisingly good night sleep. With the dark curtains, we actually slept in a little. If we had known how well the kids were going to do in the hotel, we would have stayed a second night.
In the morning, we wanted to take the kids to the most Canadian place in the world--
Tim Horton's. Tim Horton's are like the Starbucks of Canada except the prices are really good (probably, a quarter the price). They serve coffee, donuts, and breakfast food. No matter where you are in Canada, I think there is always a Tim Horton's in site.
Here are the twins enjoying some Tim Horton donut holes. There was an initial disagreement over who got to hold the box so I went and got a second box so they could each have one.
After eating breakfast, we headed over to Stanley Park. Stanley Park is kinda like Vancouver's version of Central Park.
The first thing we saw was some totem poles.
Despite the picture, Amy was not impressed. She was ready to move on immediately. :)
From the park, there are several nice views of the Lions Gate Bridge.
We spent a lot of time walking around the park. The kids enjoyed exploring.
I love the giant smile on Caden's face here as he ran towards me.
Here is our rental car. It served us well.
The kids had fun in the rental car. Here is Caden playing Cal's guitar. Cal wasn't so sure about loaning it to us for the trip, but his mommy convinced him it would be okay. We were happy to have it. Caroline was sitting in what she calls "Angie's seat." She calls the middle seat this because when Aunt Angie visits us in Austin, she often rides around in the seat between the twins car seats.
After leaving the park, we went back to downtown Vancouver to find some food. Amy ate at a taco truck that was suppose to make the best tacos in Vancouver. They might have been the best in Canada, but they would not have made the top ten in Austin. :) I ate at a Persian place that was different than anything I'd had before. It was probably a little two different for me, but it was fun to try.
One final view of Vancouver before we headed back to the Seattle.
We safely returned to the states. The border crossings did not cause any problems for us at all.
We all had a lot of fun on our family mini-cation to Vancouver.
Our kids enjoyed looking for animals. In some of the exhibits, there were no animals to be found so Amy told the kids the animals were sleeping. So, any time the kids couldn't see the animal we we were looking for, they would say, "night-night, animal." And yes, they said, "animal" most of the time instead of anything more specific.
Whenever we left an animal exhibit, Caden would say, "bye-bye, animal." And yes, it was still "animal."
Caden and mommy were looking at a sleeping lion in this picture.
Here is Caden and Mommy looking at, well, I'm gonna say, an animal.
Even though our kids love animals, by far their favorite part of this zoo was the Zoo Mazium play area. This is where we met the Baker five so our kids loved running into them. Wwe left home earlier than the Baker's so we did most of our zoo exploring without them.
Caden wanted to make sure the doors closed completely.
Inside, was a really cool play area. There was a mountain and tree the kids could plan on. Here is our little rock climber.
He made it to the summit and found a slide.
Caden slid down the slide and immediately went over to a nearby woman, gave her legs a giant hug, and then reached up for her to pick him up. He then noticed, he didn't recognize her. I think he thought she was Aunt Amy. Caden then smiled and walked over to me as I called him.
Big Cal smiling for the camera.
There was a series of caves underneath the mountain that the kids could explore. A few times, Will hid around a cave corner and jumped out to scare the twins as they came around. Our kids found that hilarious! Will cracks them up.
The last thing did at the zoo was got to a petting zoo. There were not any animals available when we showed up but they did have this cool tractor for our kids to drive.
We had a fun day at the zoo. It was well worth the Groupon.
