To Vancouver with us, Vacation Part 3

Monday morning we drove to Vancouver to visit some very special people and "vacation" for a few days as a family. 

 We visited Josh's Opa in the afternoon and evening. The girls enjoyed doing puzzles and playing a game on his coffee table while he and Josh visited outside and down in his shop. And then after an adventuresome dinner (thanks, Joy!) we went for a walk, in which the said overworked 18 month old fell asleep. :o)

 But I woke her up to play at the park, since it had mostly stopped raining, and so she would sleep on our drive back to Surrey, where we were staying.

 Watching Hope and Daddy on the other part of the playground. Joy was short enough to walk right through the tunnel standing up. :o) Made me laugh.

 Opa watching his Great-Granddaughter come down the short little slide.

 See what I mean?

 Then Hope thought she should play on the same slide as Joy. They attempted to go down side by side, but I put a stop to that rather quickly, lest it should have ended undesirably.

 "Come on Joy, you can do it."

 "Here, I'll help you."

 The next day we went to the Telus Science center, and found lots of fun things for the girls to do. Hopey and I built a couple puzzles with the triangle shapes provided.

 The music room enchanted them for a long time.

 Yes, Joy - that would be the music book. :o)

 Joy was all about this - a ball on a moving circular thing (like a slow-motion merry-go-round without rails.)

 Hope mostly just sat still and took it all in, but Joy loved that ball and rolled it to the other kids with great delight.

 But you know Joy, she doesn't stay sitting for very long, and soon utilized her an amazing ability to stay balanced on her feet, despite the object moving beneath her. :o)

 The center of attention - literally. :o)

 Reaching up to be like the big kids.

 This was a cool station, exploring wind and motion. You put these little balls in holes where they got sucked up by air and went through the various arms of the maze, depending on how the arrows were arranged.

 Once the balls reached the top they were propelled out and landed on the ground, to be promptly picked up by scurrying, delighted children.

 Hopey and some sparkly purple rock, purple being her favourite colour.

 This exhibit could have entertained Hope for hours on end. Water channels, and boats to float down it from one end to the other.

 Hope didn't really understand the concept of how to build channels herself, but she knew where the water moved fast and put her boats there so they would float to the other end. Wisely, waterproof aprons were provided for the children. :o)

 The little yellow ones were her favourite.

 While Josh arranged where we should meet his cousin for dinner, the girls and I built this fun structure out of some well-played-with pieces of plastic.

 Joy ended up finding it more fun to put the pieces we weren't using in the huge tub beside us, while Hopey and Mommy found the right colours connectors and pieces to build our creation.

 The cousins and their children, after a filling dinner at Red Robin. It was so good to finally meet Michael Schroeder, one Josh's cousins. Sadly, his wife Tracy was under the weather and couldn't join us that night, but I had a great time visiting with their son, Caleb, between helping Hope eat and participating a little bit in Josh and Michael's conversation.

Caleb's Mom, Tracy, is Taiwanese, and his Dad speaks Cantonese and English, so Caleb knows three languages and converses very well. He and Hope even carried on some conversation on their own. :o)

 Joy was all for the frolicking after. Not so much about sitting still or eating anything at the table. We were grateful for the time we could spend with them.