On Monday we got back from a 5-day trip to Vancouver for Jill’s sister’s wedding. I set aside my irrational disdain for the city and had a really good time.
Day 1
Flight at 10am local time, so we got up and hopped right in the car to head to the airport. Poppy was great the whole way through and ended up sleeping for ~1h towards the end of the flight – just enough so that we could put her to bed a little early local time in Vancouver but not so obscenely early that she’d wake up at 4am.
Tip: discourage your children from playing with stickers of fire trucks on the plane so they don’t yell out “fire, fire!” when you’re mid-air. It’s only kind of funny.
Val & Cullen met us at the airport and we also met up with Jill’s brother who was on a different flight but landed around the same time. We picked up our minivan rental and cruised to the Airbnb in Kits.
A quick walk down to the beach, lunch/early dinner at https://mocvietnamese.ca/ (awesome vermicelli bowl with the finest shredded lettuce I’ve ever seen), and then a stop at the playground on the way back for Poppy.
Day 2
Right to the Vancouver Aquarium in the morning. So much better than the Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto. The fish actually looked kind of happy here. Saw sea lions get fed and otters do cute otter things.
Back to the Airbnb for nap.
After nap we went to the playground again, this time with Lolo and Lola who arrived later in the afternoon on Day 1. After the playground we drove to https://www.typizza.ca/ for a delicious dinner and got to meet Cullen’s mom.
Poppy slept with Lolo and Lola tonight so myself, Jill, and her siblings went out to the local Legion for some patio drinks. Bumping karaoke on Friday nights!
Day 3
Walked back down to the beach to hop on a ferry over to Granville Island. Poppy had a lot of fun exploring the toy stores and her and I spent some time in the arcade, pretending to ride the rides (I was too cheap and lazy to buy and load one of those game cards). We ate the requisite https://www.leesdonuts.ca, had lunch in the food hall (Jill and her bro swear by https://senpadthai.com/) and then hopped on a ferry back home.
There was some sort of children’s fundraising event happening in False Creek on Saturday morning so there were folks dressed up as pirates on their boats and lots of pirate flags, super soakers, and pretend sword battles going on. It was awesome and Poppy liked pretending she was protecting us from all the bad pirates (some are good).
After nap we drove up to The Shipyards where Poppy played in the splashpad, had some ice cream, and danced to a children’s celtic band. A serious wipeout on the splashpad where she hit the back of her head pretty hard slowed us down for a bit, but she bounced back fast.
Another yummy dinner, this time at Strathcona North, and we went back home to rest up for the wedding the next day.
Day 4
Took it easy in the morning and left around 10:30am to get to the wedding venue, https://thegardenstrathcona.com/. The lovely ceremony kicked off around 11:30am. Poppy was plowing through her nap so she wasn’t the most eager ring bearer, but Jill held her and together they got the job done. Post-ceremony Poppy was getting pretty antsy and tired so I just took her downstairs to a quieter spot, grabbed a steamed milk and a cookie, and she rallied to party it up for the next hour or so. We left early to get home by 2:30ish and she crashed, falling asleep on the floor.
She rallied again, the whole family convened at our Airbnb and we ordered delivery for one last dinner together (Moc again, I had the banh mi this time with the most perfect baquette). Just like that, the whirlwind trip was drawing to a close.
Day 5
Same flight back home, 10am local time. Poppy didn’t nap on this one so she was getting pretty squirrelly towards the end but we gave her extra iPad time and calmed her down.
Found our car, got home around 7pm and after much wrangling got Poppy to bed where she promptly knocked out around 8:30pm.
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