Strathcona neighborhood

Down the laneway, around the block, to the neighborhood park. Everyday we head to the neighborhood park. Zoe usually comes back wet, like a labrador. She loves the sprinkler fountains set up on the edge of the park for cooling off on a warm day... or a not cold day, that will do too.

Zoe's baby

Zoe has been into baby dolls lately. Even Bear has been taking a back seat to them.
Grammy has a baby doll for Zoe here in Vancuver, and Zoe looks forward to caring for her while we're here. She dresses her, soothes her crying, feeds her, takes her for walks and rides. To you it may look like shoving a stick in baby's mouth, but as Nico said, "In her eyes, she's feeding her a bottle", and by looking at Zoe's face, you can almost see the stick fade away, and the baby happily taking the milk.

Kitsilano Pool

Our first full day back in Vancouver. The weather is lovely, sunny but not too hot and we were all happy to spend the afternoon at the Kits beach pool.
This pool is gorgeous; it hovers on the edge of the beach in the Kitsilano neighborhood overlooking NorthVan and the mountains beyond on the other side of the water. It's a zero-entry pool with a wide area for kids and babies to wade, with lanes for serious swimmers in the back. I believe it's heated, chlorinated salt water. And at the family rate of about $15 for all 5 of us, we would be happy to go nearly every sunny day.
Juju of course was happy to drive his garbage truck along the pool's edge, making trips of garbage dumping into the lovely turquoise water. If only the Vancouverites knew what was going on in his little scenario.
Meanwhile Zoe bound into the pool like a labrador, barely getting her suit on. Always happier in the water, she dove and bounced and slid and yelped and swished herself until she was shivery and exhausted. A good day indeed.

Gelato a-go-go

Two hundred, yes I said two hundred and eighteen flavors of gelato- every nite.
You can try three and choose a different one, and no one would have any idea how many flavors have been on your tongue! The place is packed with every kind of family in town. I tried cranberry-rosemary sorbetto, strawberry cheesecake (Zoe's fave), amaretto, nutella, butterscotch- oh so many more to try! Like saffron (yuck, but still!), curry, grape-cotton-candy, dragonfruit, green tea... it's going to be a long week. The most beautiful part is that it's only 3 blocks away from us in Strathcona. If only it were a few more blocks...

Birthday Party

Zoe was invited to her classmate, Bailey's birthday party. It was a midsummer reunion of sorts, of her buddies from Christie's class. Her buddies, Bodhi, Bailey, Liam, Briah and Leah, Cole and Tyler were all there. Bailey is lucky enough to have a trampoline in his backyard, and Zoe had a blast bouncing with the girls, eating cupcakes and Cheetos (uck!) and having an all around ball.

In-n-Out pit stop

What's a trip down the I5 with a stop at In-N-Out?
Julian can say, "Buhrguuuuuurrrrr?" but won't eat one to save his life. He peeked at the family behind us in the booth who thought it was so cute that he would rather eat a jar of baby food peas than a burger. What-evah. At least he loved the paper hat.

Swingers

We haven't been to our neighborhood park lately, so up the hill we went for old time's sake. We spent a lot of time there when the kids were babies. Zoe took her scut and helmet, and then abandoned it for the swing. Good thing she left her helmet on- a moment later she flipped head over heels and landed on her head.

The proper utensil

Zoe's culinary tastes are expanding slowly, but surely. We took her to the nice Japanese place over on Fruitvale and she enjoyed practicing with the chopsticks. The staff was so kind to us despite the running, yelling, spilling, falling and general chaos emanating from our corner of the restaurant. Good thing it was early in the evening. They gave us a neat little contraption to help Zoe get the hang of her sticks, which made it even more fun.

Snipety Crickets

Julian get his blondies snipped at Snipety Crickets in Laurel Heights. Even after a long afternoon at the museum, and a big slice of pizza. He barely made it across town with his lids drooping further by the block. What a trooper.

Penguin Encounter

Zoe meets face to face with her favorite feather friends