Vancouver

I've heard many times that Vancouver isn't the most kid friendly city and I have to say that I outright disagree. We took a trip there to visit friends a few years ago and can't wait until we go back. Here are a few reasons why.

Granville Island Market is one of the most amazing places ever. It's one of our absolute favorites and must-visit places every time we're there. Whether it's getting lunch at the farmers' market (and mouth-watering ingredients for dinner), or shopping for local art and seeing the artists at work (the last time we were there we picked up a piece by each of these incredible artists), or visiting the Kid's Market and its great shops, it's easy to spend the entire day there (or at least a good half day).

Farmers' Market at Granville Island

Kids' Market at Granville Island

Fritz using the wrong door at the Kids' Market

Watching a totem being made at Granville Island

Another place we stopped by at was Cupcakes on Denman St. A great little shop in the West End, you can never go wrong with one of their little cakes for desert. Nevermind that they actually have a cupcake called Ella.

Cupcakes on Denman Street

After seeing the totems being carved, go spend a day in Stanley Park and see them in all their splendor. Unfortunately the day we went it rained, but that only encouraged us to visit what is probably the best aquarium in the world. The Vancouver Aquarium is in Stanley Park and although its admission is a little pricey and I've been to many different aquariums this one outranks them all, by far. They are even the people behind Ocean Wise  a conservation program created to educate and empower consumers about the issues surrounding sustainable seafood who just happened to be having a sustainable chowder competition. You can't really ask for more for a fantastic lunch. If they aren't having their annual chowder competition while you're there, they also have a great menu and kids menu.

Totems in Stanley Park

E looking at the aquarium from under/inside

Sea turtles swimming overhead

Another great place to see is the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, about 20 minutes by car from downtown. It's a great Asian mall with all kinds of shops with products you've never seen before in your life. This place was probably Fritz' favorite. My favorite was by far the Daiso where you can get anything you ever wanted, or never knew you needed for 2$ (weird translations included). Kind of like the Japanese version of Dollarama. It's awesome. They also have a great food court.

Lastly, a great little independent book store called Sophia Books was also going to be featured in this posting. Sadly, they closed this past May. They were a great multilingual bookstore with an amazing kids selection. We picked up some Italian books for E. Fritz picked up some Japanese magazines, I gazed nostalgically at french childrens' programs DVDs from my childhood. Sophia Books, you will be missed.

Vancouver, we'll see you soon.

Getting away from it all... in my dreams (part 2)

My husband and I often talk about an eventual trip to Florida in the near future. One that would probably have to include a few days at this family tourism mecca, but one that would also include a few days in the Keys which we have both been very interested in visiting. However, following my 1/3 (kid friendly), 1/3 (city and things to do), 1/3 (total relaxation) rule explained in the previous post, I have found my getting away from it all, not-available-to-life-in-general location:

View at Pelican Inn. I could get used to this.

The Pelican Inn. Dog Island, Florida

The Pelican Inn is the only hotel on Dog Island, a tiny little  accessible-by-boat only island off the coast of North Florida. It truly is the Island that time forgot. And although for the most part that doesn't always sound like a good thing, sometimes,  when the little ones are getting too crazy, or you find yourself counting down the days to the weekend a little too often, time sometimes needs to stop.


Each of the 8 self contained units offers everything you would need to be comfortable. All units have a deck or balcony with gorgeous Gulf view and full kitchen. You do need to bring your own food and supplies though, because you won't find are stores, many cars, or restaurants, because food, drinking water, and garbage must be hauled on and off the island. Getting to Dog Island seems fairly decent from Carabelle, you can charter a boat (for those of us sans yacht) for about 60-70$ each way, and rates seem reasonable, starting out at $150/night (2 night minimum) but get less expensive if you stay longer than 2 nights. 


Pure relaxation.

Getting away from it all... in my dreams.

Getting away from it all and relaxing, is lately quite often at the forefront of initial vacation plans. However, lately, I find myself trying to think what E. will want to do, because to be completely honest, there's not much worse than a bored child. Especially E. So what I try to do is squeeze 2 or 3 days or isolation and 2 or 3 days of activity and the balance usually ends up somewhere in between. But for now, i can still dream...

Ravine cabins at Mount Tamalpais

The isolated cabins at Mount Tamalpais caught our eye as we were driving by them along Highway 101.  We almost died and never in our life did we think that we could actually rent them. BUT YOU CAN.

Renting is through the California State Park site and at $100.00 a night, it's not only an incredible deal, but possibly a reason in itself to go back to California. However, yes, I return to reality and do realize that E will not last longer than a couple of days here. The great thing about Mount Tamalpais is that it's just north of San Francisco. So if you start going stir-crazy after a few days, the city is less than an hour away. 

Also quite close is the area of Point Reyes and Tomales Bay where we were in May and if I had my way, I would have never left... With fantastic beach front cabins at Nick's Cove, which is also home to a great restaurant, a local creamery which makes delicious cheeses, oysters to die for, fantastic restaurants who are obsessed with finding the freshest most local produce, a great book shop where I wanted to buy everything in sight, and artist studios, cute shops, art galleries and great people, there is no reason to leave. So yes, I will most likely be going back in the near future.

E at Osteria Stellina in Point Reyes Station

Packin' in Style - Kindergarten Kouture

In case you've got an extra 500$ lying around, and your child is in love with Dora or you feel the absolute need for your child to have a one of a kind celebrity-designed backpack... I've got just the thing for you.
12 celebrities have partnered up with Nickleodeon's Beyond the Backpack initiative and each designed a one-of-a-kind backpack. Okay, so maybe if i'm spending 500$ on a backpack i'm not sure that I want E. or any child for that matter lugging it around to school everyday... Maybe this is the child equivalent to the Kelly or Birkin bag... All that being said, E. may just be the coolest kid on the block carrying this bag designed by Slash ;)

Check out Babble for the whole collection.

Sleeping & Traveling

Sleeping has never been one of E.'s preferred pastimes. There are those babies who always nap during the day, or sleep through the night form day 1, or at least 2 or 3 months in... not E.

When she was an infant, she almost never napped. If she did it was in 20 minute increments, when she was in the baby bjorn, when I was outside & walking. So basically no rest for mommy. Similarly, at night, sleeping didn't seem like a priority. She hated the crib. Wouldn't sleep in it whatsoever. I tried letting her cry it out... This experience ended with a crib full of vomit, pyjamas soaked (really) with tears, and a diarrhea explosion (excuse the details). So I did what I said I would NEVER do, and my husband let E. sleep in our bed for about a year.

This sort of made things easier when we traveled. All we had to do was find a place with a big enough bed (read king) to accommodate all of us. Sometimes we squeezed into a queen (and once a double!?!), but for the most part it wasn't a problem.

Until E. started moving when she slept (or decided to sleep horizontally) and I wasn't getting any sleep, and neither was she. This was when we had enough and decided that it was time for her to start sleeping in her room. This is the same story many parents have, with babies (or toddlers by this point for us) who have sleep issues. My husband and I started wondering if we would ever get any sleep, and what would we do the next time we traveled.

E. was an early walker, so as soon as she was out of our bed, she was in her toddler bed. No more crib. Well, no crib ever actually. I figured if she can walk, she can go in and out of her bed, she won't fall out. And yes she did go in and out, and she didn't fall out (well, maybe once), but she was still getting up many, many times a night. So we were wondering, do we go back to having her sleep with us?

We did when when traveled when she was about 18 months but then when we came back, we had to start all over again. Back to square 1. Sleep training all over again. Then just before she was 2 we went to visit my cousin in London who had a camping bed which his son would use. They're also called EZ beds, or ready beds. This was fantastic. It's like an air mattress with a sleeping bag on top. You can get them at Target or Toys R Us. We would put her to sleep in the camping bed, and then go to bed later. We were all sleeping in the same room, but not in the same bed. This was so great that we decided to get her one for our upcoming trip to California.

E opening her Cars EZ Bed

The choice in pattern was Disney Princess or Cars, and I figure that i probably have many years of Princess themed everything that Cars just seemed, i dunno, less stereotypical. So Lightning McQueen it was. She loves it.

It came in very handy for our Californian adventure. We didn't have to worry about getting a place with an extra bed, all we had to do was take out the air pump and blow up her bed. We would put her to sleep and move onto our evening. But like every parent knows, this wasn't the end to all our problems.

When got back home, we quickly realized that she got used to falling asleep with us in the room. So back to sleep training it was. Fabulous.

I have a friend who gets suite type rooms when she travels, so her son (E's boyfriend) can fall asleep on his own and they can enjoy their evening. This is definitely something to consider for next time. In the meantime, E is finally (!?!) going to sleep after story time, and for the most part, is sleeping the whole night.

Newfoundland

A few years ago, before Little E., we took a five week road trip across North America. The minute I begin telling this story to people they interrupt and say "this was before the baby... right?" Well, yes, it was before the baby, but the thing is, my husband and I love taking road trips and most people assume that it's not something you can do once you have kids because they create these nightmare scenarios of the kids screaming and crying the whole time. Well, my answer to that is "Get them used to it". If your kids are used to being in the car for half an hour at the tops, of course anything longer than that will seem never ending, but if you get them used to it, it's been my experience that it's fine for the most part.

Last year we drove to Newfoundland and spent 3 weeks there. It took us about 3 days to get there (and back) so we had about 2.5 weeks to explore and drive around. At the time E. was just over a year old, and yes, we did find many things to do which kept her entertained and us interested.

Over and above everything else, E. favorite place we visited on the trip was Terra Nova Park and it's incredible visitors centre. They have a "Touch Tank" which is basically an open aquarium which anyone can take the animals out of and touch them, look at them and see how they interact. E. loved this. We spent hours here, and really it was quite interesting and some of the most hands-on learning I've seen.

E discovering the Touch Tank at Terra Nova Park

Another great thing you can do at the park is take a private jet boat tour. Ocean Quest Adventures will do custom tours for you. They are absolutely amazing people! At first we were thinking of doing some snorkeling, but in the end decided against it, so a photo tour was what we opted for. (However, if you are interested in snorkeling, they have some amazing packages.) We got to see some incredible landscapes and because the boat is small and much quieter that usual tour boats, we got to see some great birds and animals without interrupting them. E being on the boat and so close to the water. Even the speed, she absolutely adored having the wind blowing in her face!!

On the private jet boat tour courtesy of Ocean Quest Adventures

Another great place we visited was Grand Falls-Windsor, which is home to the Salmonid Interpretation Centre, the largest of its kind in North America. Basically this is where the salmon swim upstream and return to every year. You're in this great beautiful, scenic park and you can see salmon swimming. A guide will tell you all about the salmon's cycles and tell you all about the area. You also get to see a film explaining how the centre came to be. A great partnership between industry and nature.

Salmon swimming upstream

E and me at the Salmonid Interpretation Centre

Gros Morne National Park is easily one of the most amazing places on earth. Take a boat tour and take in the majestic beauty. E. loved this and so did the other children she met on the boat.

Newfoundland & Labrador also have a pass the call the Viking Trail Pass which will get you in to all of the National Parks & Historic sites on the west coast of Newfoundland, including Red Bay in Labrador. L'Anse aux Meadows, in Northern Newfoundland is an amazing place where you can learn all about how the vikings who came to North America lived and explore the sod houses they lived in.

The town of Tilting, located on the north-eastern tip of Fogo Island is an amazing place. It's a Provincial Heritage District and National Historic Site of Canada and accessible by ferry from Twillingate which is also a great place to visit where you can take boat tours and see whales and icebergs depending on the season. If you go to Tilting, you must stop at Nicole's Café in Joe Batt's Arm, a small nearby town on Fogo Island. This was probably the best restaurant we went to in all of Newfoundland, and possibly in the top ten ever, hands down. They also have a great kids menu.

Newfoundland overall offered great things to do for a family. Be prepared to do alot of driving if you will be visiting both sides of the island. That being said, be prepared to be completely fed up of your child's favorite music. However, if your child enjoys napping in the car, which most do, it's easy to get a 5 hour-drive if they can handle 1.5 hour before the nap and 1.5 hours after.

Everything Newfoundland has to offer though makes driving absolutely worth it!