A day with the Huitemas

Vancouver Aquarium

 This morning I headed out for a city run over to Kitsilano (route). A fairly hilly run plagued with traffic lights I made my way over to Vanier Park just after the Burrard St bridge.  The park offered a decent vantage point over to the route I ran on Stanley Park as well as some early morning standard up paddler surfers (what?).  I've been wanting to try this since I had an opportunity in Dana Point, Cali -- but this wasn't the time.

The dark treed area is a portion of the seawall route I ran yesterday.

SUP'ers at Vanier Park

 While I was out, Julie and Owen were getting ready and watching some telly.

Once we were all showered up and dressed we headed down to Giovane for some breakfast before meeting Mike and Colleen en-route to Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium.

Owen going back for a second espresso

After breakfast we headed over to Shoppers to pick up some baby supplies.  Apparently everything in Vancouver is organic and therefore twice as expensive.  Since Owen prefers preservatives we ended up buying a few tasters before committing to stocking up.  Yup, he hated 'em.  Mike and Colleen met up with us en-route as we walked over to the park to find the aquarium.

Aunt Colleen and Uncle Mike on baby-duty

The aquarium was a busy place on the Thursday before the long weekend.  Particularly with multi-children families.  This made maneuvering the stroller a bit challenging due to the limited space.  In hindsight we should have checked it at the door; provided that was an option.  The aquarium was nice but relatively small.  The new penguin exhibit opened on the day we visited so it was nice to check out those guys.  Everyone seemed pretty jazzed, including the penguins.

A few of the colourful things we saw at the aquarium.

 
 Owen's favourite part of the aquarium was the abundance of ladies to check out.

Owen's favourite part of the Aquarium -- girls.

After the aquarium we walked around Stanley Park a bit more.  Since it wasn't the warmest day we didn't spend a great amount of time in the park but we got the gist of it.  It's tough to beat any waterfront park.

We've exclusively used the 'Cat in the Hat' cartoon (starring Martin Short) to remedy scenarios where Owen just doesn't want to act appropriately.  Up until basically this moment he'd hear the song, get distracted from being a brat, and be merry.  His attention span for the show would be the 15s the theme song lasted and then he'd be on his way.  Apparently he realized the show continues and that he doesn't mind it -- as seen here watching an episode.

 After the park we walked along the seawall through coal harbour and stopped at Mill Marine Bistro for some lunch.  Keeping up with the seafood theme the salmon wasabi vote won Mike and my votes.

Lunch at Mill Marine Bistro

After lunch we went our separate ways until dinner.  Julie ran out trying to find other groceries stores that may stock more varieties of baby food (to no avail).  Owen and I had a no-pants party in the room while Mommy was gone.

Sarah, our babysitter, showed up at 730 and off we went with Mike and Colleen to East is East restaurant.  The food was amazing and the only thing that could top the flavours was when the lady next to Julie dropped a massive roti on the floor.  Half the innards of said roti landed in Julie's shoe and on her pants.  The offender didn't even look over to apologize or anything -- although she did scoop the rice off the floor back into the roti -- back into her plate -- and lastly back into her mouth.  What?!?  Highlight of the night, no doubt.

While walking and waiting to grab a cab we checked out Safeway and were able to find Owen's preferred Heinz, unorganic -- extra preservative baby food.  Everyone was happy.