Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Life's a beach

Ben recovered and so did everyone else, so we continued our adventures with another visit to Stanley Park, Vanier Park, and Kitsalano Beach. Ben was christened by the Pacific and loved the waves and the sand.




I would love to live near the ocean, I could walk along a beach every day and never tire of it. Must be that maritime blood kicking in.


We spent a lot of time with Steve's family to end the Vancouver leg of the trip, we are sad to go, but are now looking forward to seeing Dan and Libby tomorrow! Here we come guys, wheeee! It's also our anniversary tomorrow and Dan's birthday, I sense a few alcoholic beverages in my future :-)

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Rain, fishes, and naps

Tales about west coast rainy-ness are not exaggerated. It's been cloudy and rainy since the day after we arrived. We ate at an IHOP, shopped, and napped on day 2 in preparation for our visit to see Melissa in the evening. She has a really nice place, complete with a cozy fireplace. Tucker was funny with Ben, and I'm sure Ben was amused to find someone to play with who is taller than daddy. It was so great to see her and Tucker, and far too short, but I'm glad we got to meet up before they left on vacation. By the end of the visit, Tucker and Ben were getting pretty cranky.

Day 3 began with a phone call from Steve's folks, looks like we brought the 24-hour stomach flu with us and gave it to Steve's mom, brother, and grandmother. So far, I seem to have side-stepped the bug, but I'm armed with gravol and pepto bismol! We went to the aquarium which was a lot of fun, but the constant rain made it difficult to enjoy the outdoor areas. That's ok, there was plenty to see inside and Ben loved the fishies.







We drove around Stanley Park while Ben slept in the carseat, it's huge and beautiful and only $5/day for parking! After our tour, we headed to Granville Island for a little shopping.

We had hoped to take a ferry across, but it was too yucky out, but we lucked out and nabbed some parking and had a nice lunch and look around. After all this I was pooped, so we headed back to the hotel, found out that Steve's family was feeling a bit better, and I passed out on the bed. We have a nice view from the hotel and Ben loves the sink.

We woke up this morning and Ben was sick all over our bed, looks like he caught the bug again, or he wasn't quite finished yet. He's sleeping it off while we wait for some pizza to be delivered. Hopefully he'll be feeling better by tonight.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Welcome to the west coast

Well, we're here and we're still alive! The flight went quite well. We had hoped to get an extra seat for Ben, but the flight was fully booked. The day before we left, Ben had a stomach flu of some kind - and of course on the day of our flight he had diarrhea, but luckily we avoided that during the flight. He slept part of the way.

We picked up our rental at the airport - a PT Cruiser. The guy actually gave me a choice between that and a minivan - what was he thinking? I gave it a hug just for you Maggie!

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Eight days

Only eight days until we leave on vacation and we have done no vacation preparation. Actually, that's not true, we have found our passports and asked the landlord to feed our cats. I should be making a long list of things to do, but for some reason I keep thinking that it's ages away. I think that part of me keeps thinking that I'm just joking about flying for 6 hours with an almost-toddler. Ben wiggles off our laps at home and just crawls off now, he pulls himself up and cruises until there's nothing left to hold on to in his path. What am I thinking taking him on a plane where he's not going to want to sit and there's a tempting Ben-sized hallway full of people to poke and meet? Unless the plane is lined with grandmas, we're doomed.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Vacation!

We are going on a vacation at the end of the month! We will be spending a week in Vancouver, visting Steve's grandma, and a week in San Francisco with our friends Dan and Libby. I've never been to SF before, the two times that I've been to California I managed to make it from San Juan Capistrano up to Monterey. I know that there's a ton to see, but we're trying to keep it relaxed, especially for Ben. Travelling with an almost-toddler should be an interesting experience. I just hope that he likes flying, because we're going to be going on four planes by the time the trip is through. The amount of luggage is nearly staggering - we'll need his car seat, an umbrella stroller, his clothes, toys, bottles, blankies, books, and I'm sure a hundred other things that will come to mind. If we're lucky, Steve and I may have enough room to pack a spare pair of underwear and a t-shirt to share. We'd also love to bring his backpack, but I doubt we'll have room. We're hoping that the flights aren't fully booked so that we can get a free seat for Ben. We had to get his passport so that he could travel into the States. It has his photo-it's so cute. I love to travel, but I haven't been anywhere, other than business trips to NY, in ages. Steve is incredibly untravelled, which is sometimes fun because I get to watch him discover new things, and other times a bit annoying. Between vacations and moving, I've been from one end of North America (Alaska) to the other (Florida), most of it by car, so I don't know what it's like to grow up without travelling. I'd love to travel a lot with Ben, give him a sense of what's out there. My dream vacation would be a month in New Zealand. I've wanted to go since I was a teenager. If we ever won the lottery, that would be our first destination.