Retroblogging the megatrip: Part 6

So where were we now? Oh yes, rolling into East Vancouver for a snooze after a dinner to remember in Chilliwack.
We set up camp in our friends' deluxe basement suite and, the day after we arrived, we set out to soak in the sights and sounds of the city where Holly and I first lived together. The cool part about that first day in town was that it was Leo's fifth birthday!! We drew up a menu of options for Leo to choose from (frolicking at Kitsilano Beach, visiting Science Centre and exploring Granville Island). Leo settled on Science Centre (remarkably, none of us had ever visited in any of our past time in Vancouver) so that's what we ended up doing. Leo opted for a birthday lunch at the White Spot that I promptly almost ruined by ordering all of the burgers without removing any of the sauces...a lot of bun-scraping later and it's possible that nobody except the grown-ups noticed. Here are some pictures of our visit to Science World:

There were live interpretive sessions throughout the day covering topics like air, balloons, and electricity. The most amazing session of the day was this guy (above) - a self-declared metalhead who explained concepts related to sound through heavy metal music. The highlight was when he contrasted death metal with European power metal to demonstrate pitch. I'm bummed to see that it doesn't seem to be on the daily slate anymore.

Holly, Henry and Leo being plasma-car-riding beavers (?)

The above pictures are from the outdoor Ken Spencer Science Park which had a large water-based area covering ecology. The kids didn't absorb too much about ecology, but they did get wet and have a good time.

This is another area in the Science Park. Great for picture-taking.

The boys, mugging in front of Science Centre.

There were some pieces of art around the Science Centre lawn - the kids liked this one.

So Henry is actually shorter than Gheorghe "My Giant" Muresan.

Henry got to drive a train around a track.

In the kids' play area, the big boys got to build big marble runs with these magnetic tubes on a giant metal wall.

Well those two rules are pretty straightforward.

Later that night, we had a multi-family party for Leo featuring TACOS!!

I think he had a good time.

After a brief dress-up session...

...out came the birthday dessert platter!!

The next day, we woke the kids up very early and fired them into the van without getting them dressed. They were a little disoriented but we promised them a big surprise if they could just be patient. We drove all the way downtown to Canada Place where a cruise ship from Alaska was just coming in. And who should be disembarking but...Nana and Auntie Jan!!! Everyone was blown away. The best part is, rather than riding in comfort on a spacious bus to get back to their ferry on time, we hijacked the weary travellers, stuffed them in a van full of noisy kids and took them out for breakfast just long enough that they'd have to wait for the next ferry! It was a great surprise visit and I thank Holly for having the wherewithal to coordinate the whole thing.

After leaving the ferry terminal, we decided to pay a visit to Granville Island. It was still early in the morning so we headed down to explore and grab a lunch. Of course, the boys wanted to hit the kids' market. They ended up spending time in a gag/magic shop where the proprietor zapped them with a squirting camera. Then, it was time to poke around the toy stores where Max and Leo picked up some Pokemon souvenirs for themselves. Holly was devastated to see that her favourite bakery is no longer there (apparently they still exist, but they have no storefront and only cater to businesses) so no hazelnut florentines. We forged on and got some bagel sandwiches to enjoy while listening to buskers in the square.

The boys in the gag shop.

Yeah, that seems typical - Max and Leo leaving Henry to fend for himself. Good thing he's capable!

After leaving the Market, we whisked the kids back to Chateau M-C, insisted on a nap and then whipped back downtown for a pierogi/pyrohy/varenyky (wow, there are a lot of ways to spell that word!) dinner with my family. This was a long-standing tradition back when we lived in town: the Ukrainian church on E 10th offered a homemade Ukrainian dinner (pierogi, cabbage roll, kielbasa, salad, borscht) on the first Friday of every month. As fate would have it, there we were on the first Friday of July, hankerin' for some grub! Two aunts, two uncles and two cousins were all able to make it out for dinner and it was great to catch up and reintroduce them to our brood. We all had a great dinner and were enjoying the chit-chat so much that we made a date to hit a Vancouver farmer's market two days later. YEAH!

L-R: Cousin Sarah, Cousin Sky, Aunt Christine, Uncle Ian, Aunt Mary, Uncle Don, John, Leo, Max, and the back of Henry's head.

Before moving on, the above picture was taken on the way home from the pierogi dinner - Holly found a candy food truck selling German goodies!

On Saturday, we headed out to see some more of the city. Our intention was to hop the SkyTrain and go downtown, but for whatever reason, when we got to Nanaimo station, we opted to head out to New Westminster. We had never really spent any time out in New West (except for a couple of evenings) so this was going to be an adventure for the whole family. After getting off the Train, we crossed over to the River Market to see what it was all about. Before heading in though, the kids monkeyed around on a boat on the plaza and checked out the world's tallest tin soldier. I chatted up some DFO (Fisheries feds) employees, working to keep our coastlines safe, and then we all headed into the market for some savoury lunchtime crepes. Delicious!

As per usual, Leo found "cash money" just lying around. I believe this was a loonie.

Later on that day, some friends of our host's came over for a soccer fest (the World Cup was still on, after all). We booted the ball around a park for quite some time, had some treats and enjoyed a huge dinner together. The kids all got to watch the Lego Movie while the adults got some quiet time in the next room :)

The next morning, we headed out to Aunt Christine and Uncle Ian's place in Kitsilano to gather the troops for some farmer's marketing. Sadly, the rain really started coming down (if you're counting, this was only the third rainy day so far!!). We debated whether we should lay low until eventually we just left with raincoats and umbrellas and made the best of it. We got soaked, but we also ate some great food truck fare, got the kids some balloon animals, ate a Cronut from Geek Sweets, played in the playground and bought some CRAZY mushrooms we eventually fried up with breakfast. We all had a great time.

Aunt Christine was fascinated by minifigs. Max gave her the skinny.

The big boys muddled up under an umbrella...and got drenched anyway..

It's possible that Max could handle a west coast lifestyle:).

We spent Monday at Stanley Park. Started by getting out at the totem poles at Brockton Point (as per vancouver.ca, these are BC's most visited tourist attraction!). Ran around the cricket pitch for a bit. Headed over to the large splash pad before moving down to the beach nearest Lumberman's Arch. I grabbed concession food (fish and chips, of course) while the boys romped around nearly naked in Burrard inlet. It was super hot out that day so we eventually retreated to the shade to devour the food. After refuelling, we walked over to the aquarium to snap some pictures of the orca statue ("Chief of the Undersea World"). The boys know this statue really well as there is a replica on the 3rd floor of the Museum of Canadian History in Gatineau.

And now this is officially a Stardom event - the clothes have come off.

Good ol' Leo. Double-fisting a hot dog and battered fish in his underwear in a public park. I can't guarantee that this is the last time he'll be in this exact situation.

I swear this picture was taken fewer than 2 seconds before Leo wiped out on the wet ground and hurt himself.

After we left the park, Leo and Henry fell asleep and we decided to hit up Casa Gelato, a Vancouver institution with 218 flavours of gelato. We were hoping that Max would nap too, but he wouldn't bite. So instead we made him try some nasty flavours of gelato!

The kids' table.

The sushiholics' table. That's nori (roasted seaweed) that he's sampling.

After the pit stop (the other boys eventually got a taste when they woke up), we headed back to the home base to celebrate the birthday party of one of our host's daughters. We were treated to a gigantic sushi feast (one of our favourite things about Vancouver!) and more good company.

This might be hard to see properly, but it's Max going head-first down a slide while on top of a lawn chair cushion. Surprisingly, this ended well for him.

Here are some other pictures of the boys around the house.

So on our last day in town, we had a family meeting and decided to head back to Science World one more time to do the things we missed the first time around. As a major bonus, Science World has a reciprocal agreement with the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology so we got in free both times because we are members of the museum here. Score!

The boys found this boom box of unknown origin and functionality tucked away in a hollowed-out log. We left it where we found it, despite the protests of the young 'uns.

Happy Planet smoothies and treats from Uprising Breads Bakery. Man, just like the old days.

We spent a while watching the Rube Goldberg-type apparatus outside.

One of the exhibits was about sport and the science of the active body. Henry loved racing against projections on the wall. His favourite was the T-Rex, although Henry maintained that the dino cheated.

Speaking of cheating...

Of COURSE they had a place where one could "shoot" a gun.

Captions would just ruin this picture.

As it turns out, my reflexes are pretty good. It's my memory that's the problem.

This scale weighed you in animal equivalents. The StardomBoyBiomass was equivalent to something in between a chimpanzee and an aardvark.
Those 5.5 days in Vancity went by way too quickly. We had a wonderful time reconnecting with our west coast peeps and are forever grateful for the hospitality shown to us by the Mishna-Chauve clan. I'm hoping it won't be 4 years before we're out there again.