More Summer Fun

Last week while Ethan and Riley were spending the day with us, we set up the slip-n-slide and little pool. It was a great way to keep cool on a hot day!

Grandma Jo-Ann came for a visit. We did lots of fun things while she was here. The picture above is of us watching "Stuart Little". We recently finished the book and so it was time to watch the movie. We had pizza, popcorn, and movie snuggles.

While Grandma was here, Spencer and I spent one night downtown at the Sylvia Hotel. This is becoming a tradition for us. The last couple of years we have brought the girls a book home. There is a series called "Mister Got-to-Go" written about a cat who ends up living at the Sylvia hotel. The girls love the books. So when we told them we were going to spend the day in Vancouver before Grandma travelled home, they asked if we could visit the Sylvia Hotel lobby. They loved seeing all of the places that were pictured in the book. Sometimes our kids want to do things that I would never think of - going to the Sylvia Hotel lobby seems like something a retired person would like to do, but our girls acted like it was Disneyland.

We then went for a bike ride around lost lagoon. We went there to see the swans (another post read aloud activity that I had promised we'd do after reading "The Trumpet of the Swan"). 

The swans were pretty, but they were not the biggest attraction at the lagoon... we also came across a family of raccoons. A mom and a few little ones - and they were incredibly tame.

Look at how close Juliette is to this baby raccoon!

It was a very busy day in Stanley park due to the long weekend and the fireworks. When we got into the bike lane, Ella looked at me and said "this is a race" and took off. We lost sight of her and Spencer had to sprint to catch up to her. When he caught up, and asked her to stop she said "but I'm going to lose the race!" Turns out she has never biked in such a big crowd and assumed it was a bike race - it was really funny! At another point, she and Juju got too far ahead of us and got pulled over by the park ranger who was also riding a bike. The ranger wanted to make sure they were with adults (please don't judge me - it was a very busy down there :). Ella and Juliette's eyes lit up when Spencer asked if they had been "pulled over by the bike police."

Later at dinner, Ella was still convinced that she had been in a bike race earlier that day and asked "why did I never see the finish line? who won the race?" So much for not wanting to pass anybody because that would be a "me-first attitude".