Canucks Game and Aquarium

Jon came home from being gone and just kept right on going with his week. Two full weeks with no days off... it amazes me how hard he can work! But he had planned to take Thursday afternoon/Friday off so we knew we had some fun coming up!!

I also had to work on Tuesday, so Q went to the church with Jon as he got ready for youth group that night. These two are so goofy together. She loves "helping Daddy work"

Sitting with her Dad as he gives instructions about the outdoor game they had planned. She loves going to youth group and watching Daddy work. He is so good at what he does, I love watching him work too!

Sprouted! Q got this seed from Mom's Morning Out before Christmas and I planted it in some soil in this jar... I didnt have anything else to plant it in haha. I figured since it was a small glass far, it wouldn't produce much, so I was stoked to see it starting to grow and flower! Q waters it everyday and talk about "my pretty shower" (flower... she can't say "f"/"ph" sounds).

There's a class in Crofton on Wednesday's called Tiny Tumblers, and its at the Elementary school for 45 minutes. It's perfect for us because Wednesday's are the longest day for us with Jon being up at camp and there is just not much going on... this totally breaks up the morning and she can run around and play games and interact with other toddlers. It's really great.

I used to be so arrogant about Q's sleeping habits and would brag about what a good sleeper she was - 12 hours a night, in her own bed, no problems. PARENTS! DON'T EVER DO THIS! You don't know when it can/will change and then you will be eating your words, TRUST ME!! She still goes to bed fairly easy - she has started stalling, and will ask for things and so it takes longer than it used to, but overall still goes easy and smoothly. But for the past few months, she wakes up anytime between 12:30-2 crying and the only thing she wants is to come into our bed. We have tried soothing her, letting her cry it out, laying with her in her bed... nothing works. She just wants to come into our room, or into "shelby's bed" (as she calls the spare room), so then one of us sleeps with her and the other one sleeps alone. We try to all sleep together, but our bed it just way too small. Look at the room that this kid takes up!! Sheesh. We've talked about making her a bed on the floor, but right now that doesn't work because she's still too little to understand and just cries and won't sleep down there. But soon enough that will be what we will do! For now, we know that she won't be 15 and still sleeping in our bed, so we hold onto that haha. Also, wanting to feel close to us and needing that security is also very age appropriate for her stage right now... I try to remind myself of these things in the middle of the night when I am frustrated haha! Good thing she is SO STINKIN CUTE when she sleeps!

Thursday we got up and went to Mom's Morning Out at the church and Jon worked for a few hours and then we headed off to Vancouver! Tula travelling... no idea how we would travel without it!! It makes the ferry/bus/sky train/walking downtown so much easier!

And I get these snuggles. Win win!

She fell asleep as we were on the sky train heading downtown. What an awesome kid. So easy to take anywhere

Lois was downtown Vancouver for a conference already, and Tim was coming over to stay with her for a night. So they let us have the tickets to the game that night and they stayed in the hotel room with Q. It worked out so perfectly! I would way rather be able to bring her with and not be away for a whole night, and just leave for a few hours and know she is well taken care of.

When they asked her what she wanted for dinner she just responded with "noodles". That's all she ever wants haha. Noodles of any kind - I can cook any sort of noodles and put it with any sauce, it doesn't matter, she just loves noodles haha. So Papa ordered her a "special drink" and they got her noodles!

It was a really good game - Canucks dominated most of it, and it was exciting to watch. We lost in a shoot-out which was really too bad. But we had a great time together. I love hanging out with this guy! Also, I really like eating hockey game burgers and sugar donuts. So all in all, great night for me! 

They also sent us this - swimming in the hotel pool! What a lucky girl! So much fun with Nannie and Papa! They are so good to her.

And all snuggled in her pjs watching the game too. The funny thing is, is that she actually really likes watching hockey on TV. Start 'em young I guess!

This is how she was sleeping when we got home. Crazy girl haha! That yellow head is Elsa underneath of her, being squished. The positions this girl can find are unbelievable!

It was raining the next day, but we bundled up and head out to the Vancouver Aquarium! Neil had given us some money to go, and we were very excited! 

She loved it and was so into it! Jon is amazing, pointing things out and explaining things to her, and she listens and repeats what he is saying.

Here she said "Whoa Mama. Those sishies (fishes) are SO HUGE!" as she stared at them

Little animal lover trying to talk to the turtle.

You can't really see her face, but she was very excited about the "Nemo" and "Dory" fish! We recently watched Finding Nemo together (when she was sick) and she loved it. So this was really exciting for her. So cute to watch.

Mimicking the Turle swimming. This was so funny. I asked her what she was staring at and she turns around and starts yelling about the turtle and making the motions that he was making. Funny girl!

And this was the highlight of the day for her - I think it was a Ling Ray? It looked like the same thing as what the teacher is on Finding Nemo and Quinny loved him! She spent the most amount of time at this tank than any other. The thing with this guy is that he would come out and swim rapidly past and then go into hiding and wouldn't come out again for a while. She would get so sad when he would swim away, and refused to leave before seeing him again. After quite a while of looking at this tank, we finally just picked her up and carried her away so that we could keep walking around. She was not happy about it, but got over it fast. This was definately the tank that interested her the most with this guy, the shark and the turtle.

Looks fake, but that is an actual tank of JellyFish in the background. Very cool! Jon and I were just as into everything, if not even more so, than she was. What an awesome place

What a face! She is saying "cheese" here, but it comes out looking like she is in pain. I love it haha!

The Dolphins kind of freaked her out. There was a little ledge that we let her stand on so that she could see right into the tank, and when he swam towards she backed away and whimpered a little bit. I took her hand to show her that they cant get through the glass and that helped. No crying or anything like that, but she was a little freaked out and didn't want to stay for long

But then we went and watched the trainers with the Dolphins and she loved that! As long as they were a safe distance from her, I guess she was okay :)

A highlight of the day. I love hearing that they are simply a rehab center and that nothing they do is for "show". The Dolphins and the trainers have a very close bond that is very clear and it was really beautiful to watch! Wow they sure can swim fast!!

There was a class sitting by the Beluga Whale tank, and she got right in there and sat down to watch. She wouldn't talk to anyone, but I was super proud of her for going in and sitting down without me prompting her to! Here she is pointing at one of the gorgeous whales

Fruit Snack break, her favorite treat. (welch's ones)

I love being able to be with her when she's experiencing new things and really learning and soaking in things around her. Her excitement and joy is so contagious!!! She gets REALLY giddy and excited about things, it's so cute

We ate lunch and saw the rest of what there was to see and she started getting tired and really clingy. She didn't want to walk anymore and didn't seem interested any longer. Naptime had come! We had been there three hours so we decided to head back for the 1:15pm bus back downtown which would get to the ferries and on the 3:45pm boat - we knew it would be close, but we could make it. Well, when we got to the bus stop, our bus was very late. It didn't show up until 1:35 and then stay at the stop for almost 10 minutes before it left. By the time we got onto the skytrain downtown, we were cutting it way too close and we still needed to go to the hotel and pick up our bags. Jon told us to go to the next stop and wait for him and he would sprint to the hotel and get the bags. He did, and he was gone NINE minutes total!!! When you talk from the sky train station to the hotel it takes 10-15 minutes EACH way. He really hauled!!! But when we got to Bridgeport, we missed the bus by 15 minutes to get to the ferries. DANG! So frutrating, but nothing we could do about it. So we spent two hours in River Rock, playing in the lobby (Q liked the escalator) , sitting on the comfy chairs eating snacks, and then going to the cafe there to drink hot drinks. Finally we got on the bus and headed down to catch the 5:15 ferry. We had time to kill before the ferry left, and Q fell asleep on Jon and I read my book.

White Spot dinner and playtime on the ferry. Q is so good on the ferries because she is crazy for them. She loves boats

THEN we dock at Duke Point and they tell us something is wrong with the ramp. Not our ramp (we parked our car and walked on), but the car ramp. Apparently BC Ferries have a rule that if one ramp isn't working, nobody is allowed to get off any ramp. OH BOY. We waited almost TWO hours while docked for them to fix the ramp!! They gave away free drinks and tried to keep everyone happy. Q was tired, but doing awesome and being super cute, so it was okay. But we were tired too and just wanted to get home! I was so glad that I had packed so many snacks! Usually I love living here, but on this day, I was super frustrated about living on an island! If we just lived somewhere we could have driven too, we could have saved ourselves MANY hours of travelling (9 hours from the time we left the Aquarium until we were finally home!). But it was a really great day and a half trip, so we were glad we did it. We all got home tired but happy.