We flew overnight and landed at CDG around 10am. Poppy slept for about 5 hours on the plane which is probably about as good as it gets on a roughly 7h flight. Jill and I didn’t get much sleep.
We pre-arranged our pickup and were at our Airbnb by 11:30 to drop off our luggage. We knew the timing wouldn’t quite work out and we’d have to wait a couple hours until the apartment was cleaned and ready for us.
After we dropped off our luggage we headed right to BREIZH for galettes and crêpes. I really just wanted a ham and cheese, which did not disappoint, but the other more creative options looked awesome as well. We may go back. Poppy was obviously still very tired and barely touched her chocolate crêpe, she was getting a little silly and loopy which she does when she’s tired.
We still had time to kill so we found a nearby playground and Poppy was able to enjoy herself there. We then did a little exploring and picked up some groceries for the apartment before heading back.
We all had a quick 45 minute nap (didn’t want to mess with our jet lag too much) and woke up around 4. We left again to head to another playground, which was super busy with tons of feral kids running around but again Poppy was able to have some fun.
She was clearly tired though (as were we) so we left to find some dinner around 6. None of the places we had pinned in the area were open yet so we ventured back towards our apartment and had a very regrettable dinner. Hopefully that’s the only bust of the trip. Again, Poppy was too tired to do much at dinner and we gave her her iPad just to play while we ate as much of the crap as we could.
It’s now 8:40 and both Poppy and Jill are sound asleep. I’m sure I will be before too long too. Poppy did great with the travel today but just didn’t have enough gas in the tank to be herself throughout the day. We’ll see what tomorrow holds!
It was a pretty busy start to sabbatical with lots of friends and family visits along with catching up on chores around the house. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I’ve found it surprisingly easy to disconnect from work despite being worried that I’d have it on the back of my mind for several weeks at least. Perhaps my preparation paid off? Or maybe I’m a little too good at compartmentalizing, who knows…
Saturday the 28th we went to Toronto for a wedding. Lolo and Lola came to Poppy’s soccer in the morning and then took her to their place for the weekend so Jill and I could have a mini-vacation in Toronto. It was great being back and spending time with friends, not to mention a lovely wedding at The Gladstone Hotel. Sunday was spent visiting favourite old haunts and bumping into friends.
Monday we picked up Poppy and headed over to our friend’s house in town for a playdate with Harry.
Tuesday was Canada Day. It was a hot one but we spent a good chunk of the afternoon in the backyard with some neighbourhood friends who came over for a BBQ. We made chicken wings, a mexican corn salad, and a green pasta salad.
Wednesday – Friday was a few appointments, running errands, catching up on household chores, and prepping for our weekend visit to my parents.
Saturday, we went to Poppy’s soccer again in the morning and then drove up to Wasaga Beach to spend a night with my parents. The weather was pretty great so went to the beach Saturday afternoon and again Sunday morning. Poppy had a blast playing in the sand. It was a quick visit but an excellent one.
Monday – Wednesday was very similar to the end of the week before: running errands, household chores and then prepping for our next trip – a drive out to our friends’ cottage for the weekend.
Thursday we got up early and the hit road for a ~4h drive to our friend’s cottage out near Chaffey’s Lock. Our friend’s have a daughter a little younger than Poppy. They had fun playing together. The cottage is on an island, so the boat rides and swims in the lake were so awesome for Poppy. Since her first “of age” boat ride was a memorable one in Vancouver with fake pirates everywhere, she now thinks there will be pirates every time she’s on a boat. Only one mini-meltdown over a toy that had to be taken away (too popular amongst the kids) and a dinner she didn’t want to eat. Otherwise she was friendly and happy the whole weekend.
We got back Saturday evening and are now 100% in prep mode for our next trip: we leave tomorrow for a roughly four week vacation to Paris and Copenhagen.
I’m still trying to flex my blogging muscles. I hope to blog regularly while we’re there but only time will tell how successful I am at that.
Today officially marks the start of my 3-month sabbatical. It’s an incredible perk we receive every five years at Automattic.
We have one major trip planned: four weeks in Paris and Copenhagen, a handful of smaller weekend trips to visit friends and family, and plenty of time for me to relax, recharge, and putt around the house. All things I’m very much looking forward to.
Hoping I can build a blogging habit during this time as well. We shall see!
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.
Saturday morning we hit the road nice and early for a trip up to Wasaga Beach to visit my parents. We were due for a visit, but this was also essentially a belated birthday visit for my dad – he was born on February 29, 1948 – a leap year!
We played around the house in the morning, got some piano time in. Then after nap we took the sled out for some fun on the golf course in my folks’ community. Poppy had a blast. Then a nice dinner followed by more play before bed, we spent a lot of the evening playing train on their couch.
Jill has a few sledding photos I think, I’ll add those in later.
This morning, we went out for another quick sled around the neighbourhood. Most of our snow has melted around here, so it was great to be able to play in all the snow they still have up in Wasaga.
Before heading home, we all went out for brunch, along with some aunts, uncles, and cousins. Then it was back in the car for our trip home. Thankfully Poppy napped for about an hour in the car.
When we got home, I built the twin IKEA bed we bought for Poppy. She’s been sleeping in our bed for around six months now and we finally decided just to make the jump to a big kid bed and try to rip the band-aid off and get her sleeping by herself again in her own room.
After some tense negotiations this evening, we got her to agree to try it out tonight. Jill is going to stay with her in there the whole night and we’ll see how things go. Really hoping for a successful transition to her happily sleeping on her own again. Wish us luck!
