Easter weekend was amazing. We had so much fun spending time with family. I loved every second of our weekend, whether it was watching all the cousins chase each other around the compound; or following them around the fort while we searched for eggs and scavenger hunt clues. The feast was good too. But the icing on the cake was Monday.
We had so much fun at Granville Island that we decided we would go back there on Monday. Our reasoning being that not everyone gets Monday as a stat (thank you TWU for giving us Monday off!) so it would be less crowded, with a smaller group we could follow our own whims more than you can with a large group, we didn't get to spend enough time there Saturday and I really wanted to go on a LONG walk (though I didn't tell anyone that part - I knew they wouldn't come with me if I was upfront about it!)
Look close and you'll see my little buddy on top of the Ferry Dock sign.
Views like this are the reason Vancouver really is one of my favorite places on earth.
Now that we were on Granville Island, I let my family in on the secret that we were going on a stroll. We headed off the island, and towards the Burrard Street Bridge.
It's cherry blossom season in Vancouver. A photographer's delight (and a flower lover's too!)
We stopped in a park, and I took the opportunity to take some portraits of everyone.
My new lens takes really great portraits.
Of course it helps that my family are so pretty.
We kept walking until we got to the bridge. Then we decided we needed to scramble around the base, and maybe take a few more pictures.
Just past the bridge is the park where they do Bard on the Beach. Right across the road from that venue is a HUGE tree and this eagle's nest. There was actually two eagles in the tree...and maybe some babies too? I didn't see the mama though, just two males.
From Vanier Park we kept walking until we got to Kits beach, and the big pool, and there we finally stopped for a quick break.
Then it was back to the island. It was a wonderful, warm day.
Perfect for our stroll...warm in the sun, cool when the breeze kicked up.
And then we got back to the island. That yellow building is where we parked, Bridges Restaurant. Beautiful.
Back on the island we stopped for lunch. The great thing about Granville Island is that it's like a giant food court, only the food is really, really delicious. David had pizza (of course), Elisabeth had Mexican food, Andrew had Chinese and I had Thai. The beans in my lunch were so good I made everyone else try them. And then David ate most of them.
After lunch, Andrew had to move the car, and we took the opportunity to go down to the private docks.
What an amazing day to be out on the water.
Or out for a stroll amongst the shops.
I wish I was a photographer, and that I could make a living of taking pictures here. It's just beautiful.
In the meantime, I'll happily take pictures of these two loons.
Those are houseboats in behind these two. My kids keep asking if we can move into a houseboat.
I'm pretty sure we'd have to be gypsies. Or maybe canal people like I learned about in England. That always sounded like a fun life.
So, now that lunch was over, and we'd found Andrew again, we decided to walk the long way around the island, stopping briefly for ice cream at Roger's Chocolates. Along the way we found an A key from a keyboard.
And more cherry blossoms.
And even more portraits.
Let's see...then we stopped at the kids' market and bought the kids the lava lamps we promised they could have as night lights. By this time we were all pretty much marketed out, so we didn't actually venture into any other stores. So we headed back to the car and up towards Granville Street.
It's a bit of a tradition for us to look around Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn Kids and Restoration Hardware. It's been a long time, so we made those four stops and had a great snoop around.
I think the best part of our day was the walk. Even though the kids were really, really slow on the way from Granville Island to Kits Beach, on the walk back we walked one parent with one child. David and I had a great conversation. Part of which revolved around the fact that he wasn't tired or bored of the walk anymore.
In fact he was quite happy to be walking. "Why did the walk here seem so long and now I don't even notice that we're walking anymore?" I told him it was because we weren't thinking about how long or how hard it would be, but we were just enjoying the walk and each others' company. So David asked me to keep distracting him. And we had the best conversation.
Later, after we got home and realized we'd procrastinated on his homework all weekend, I got to remind him of our conversation and that if he focused on how much homework he had to finish (and how long it would take and how rotten it was), he'd be miserable, but if he focused and distracted himself with the task at hand, he'd be finished before he knew it.
He applied the logic (such an obedient boy!) and we were finished in no time.
All in all, it was a great weekend. So nice to see all of my family and spend time making memories and having fun. We had some great discussions and I got to take lots of pictures. It was really hard to go back to work today, but I guess weekends like this one would not be quite so spectacular if they were common place, right?
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