Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea...

This is our last night in Canada and I must say we are excited to get back to the states.  Neither of us really knows why, other than the ketchup here is too sweet and our credit card has gotten such a big head because of all the comments about it's shininess.  It's been a great run in Canada and we absolutely loved all the places we visited but there is no place like home.  

Yesterday Mark spent all day at the conference so the kids and I had a low-key morning.  Milo bullied me into going to Michaels and getting some craft stuff.  Forty dollars later and we were ALL set.  We also made a visit to the Vancouver Public Library and took advantage of the children's department.  We put together lots of puzzles and Milo read a wordless picture book to us about a beaver. It was a really cool library (shout out to all my librarian peeps).  Milo is crazy for this cartoon on PBS called Wild Kratts so we made a shirt like the ones they wear on the show.  I got to relive my middle school glory days and whip out my mad puffy painting skills.  Odelia also wanted a little Wild Kratts on her shirt and A LOT of everything else (hearts, flowers, polka-dots).  

This morning we went out for breakfast and ate some delicious Nutella French Toast.  Some days eating with a 2- and 4-year-old feels like exercise.  Today it felt like a full on contact sport, complete with rapid breathing and sweat.  They were just so busy and not nearly as interested in a leisure vacation breakfast as Mark and I were.  After breakfast we headed to the Vancouver Aquarium and had a great time.  The kids loved the exhibits.  We went to a 4D movie about the sea.  They did not recommend it for children under 4 but we plowed right through that suggestion and took both kids to it.  I tried to explain to Milo that 4D meant we would be feeling things like they do in the ocean.   I said we might smell things too.  I said our chairs might do silly things.  I felt like I gave him a pretty good explanation (especially since I had no idea what we were in for).  The lights dimmed and the movie started with a spray of water (Milo begins to tremble) then our chairs start vibrating and then swimming snakes come on the screen and we feel a poke in our back (much like a snake running into us).  He wailed.  I asked if he wanted to leave and he said no.  He crawled in my lap and remained there for the duration of the 4D experience.  I spent a good part of the time wondering if this was going to be one of those moments he'd hold over my head ("I would have been a marine biologist if my mom hadn't scared the pants off me when I was 4.  It's all her fault that I'm jobless and still living with her...").  We walked out of the theater and he said, "That was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO cool!"  Phew...the therapy bills will fortunately come from a different scarring experience.  (I suppose I don't need to mention that Odelia was unphased by the movie.  It brought her no pleasure or pain.)  The favorite animal exhibit was the Beluga Whale.  I could not get the Raffi song out of my head which took away from my excitement a little but it was amazing.  

We are heading to the Cascade mountains tomorrow.  We'll be camping so I'll blog on Sunday when we get to Montana.  Thank you, Canada, for a great 3 weeks!  We will miss your beauty (but not your nasty ketchup).  

Wild Kratts T-shirt
He hasn't taken it off since it dried.  

Odelia puffy paints her first (but not her last) hot pink t-shirt

This was part of our breakfast fun.  Milo is drawing things that are "refreshing" right now.  So, we've drawn a lot of lemonade and watermelon.  This morning he drew a slip and slide and two sprinklers.  The cool part is that he wrote all of our names.  Dad is directly above Mom and I think he was trying to make his "D's" as block letters.  Funny kid.

Odelia still talking about her birthday...not until January. 

Mark was trying to re-live his glory days, telling Odelia stories about how he used to be able to hang 5 spoons on his face when he was younger.  

Demonstrating his spoon hanging skills

Chillin' at the Aquarium

And then Milo attacks

Children's exhibit at the Vancouver Aquarium

4D, baby!

They found the coloring at the aquarium (surprise, surprise)

Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea!

Beluga whales start out gray as babies and then gradually get white.  You're welcome for that little fact.

Watching the Beluga Whales

We went through an Amazon Rainforest exhibit and Odelia squealed at every butterfly.   This one  she requested to be photographed.  Pointing, "Daddy, you take picture."

When she saw these two birds she said, "Awwww, it's mommy and daddy".    Ok, seriously , could she be any cuter?

This is Odelia waking up from her nap.  Really not very exciting unless you're her mom or dad.  

Eating our way through Vancouver

Our trip took a sharp turn away from outdoor relaxing to a journey of major caloric consumption.  We've eaten a ton of great food since we've been here.  I had forgotten what it was like to be in a major metropolitan area and have too many yummy options.  Today we had fish and chips down near Granville Island.  We also went to a kids market which was very fun.  It was two floors of toy stores, costume shops, craft stores, games, etc...  The kids liked it but they didn't go as crazy as I thought they would.  They had a really cool store of wooden toys and Milo picked out a car to paint there.  O's got a little beaded necklace.  We also went to the world's largest free waterpark on Granville Island.  Odelia wasn't tall enough to ride the waterslide which seriously annoyed her but she held it together with some minor diversions to the sandbox and fire hydrants.   We also went to the HoneyBee Centre just outside of Vancouver.  When I begin to long for an urban living situation I always seem to get involved in a colossal traffic jam and then it makes me very happy that my commute to work is 8 minutes.  Our trip to the HoneyBee Centre was supposed to take 20 minutes and we were in the car for over an hour.  They have some very interesting traffic solutions in this city.  The HoneyBee Centre was a bust.  We paid for a self-guided tour (no guides available) and we didn't get to see any hives.  Boo!  On our long trip there Mark and I concocted possible bee tour scenarios, one of which was comparable to a stunt out of Fear Factor.  By the time we arrived at the Bees we may have been expecting something more along the lines of an action adventure film than a peaceful two-room guided tour. We headed for dinner at Central City Brewing. Award winning beer, happy children and lots of coloring. Good times had by all.

Morning cupcake break (yesterday).  

Muira Waffle and Milk Bar (lunch yesterday)
They had savory waffle sandwiches.  Mark and I had salmon and Kimchi .  The kids were a little less daring with  strawberries and cream.  

Granville Island harbor

Mark and the kids watching boats

More boat watching

The Kids Market

They had an entrance just for kids.  Milo and Osie thought that was pretty special.

This is O's showing off her necklace.  

Waterslide at the World's Largest Free Waterpark

Odelia not on the waterslide 

We ate Fish and Chips by the water today at a place called, "Go Fish".  Clever.  

HoneyBee Centre: We are being scientific

$15 for admission: Worthy of a chin scratch

Sampling the honey was great fun.  Seriously.

His favorite was the buckwheat honey.  I thought it tasted a little like what I would imagine horse manure to taste like.

The Holdhusens as Beekeepers

The bear that is disguising himself as a beekeeper.  I  didn't even attempt to explain the humor in this to the kids.  I just made them pose.  They are becoming very compliant about holding still (briefly) so we can take a picture.  

Mark at Central City Brewery
Yoo Hoo, Bryce: Can you say Imperial Pint Glass?

Hot on the drawing list these days: Birthday cakes, ballerinas, balloons, presents and ponies.

Small Coffee

Howdy from Vancouver! Our weekend camping was amazing. We camped in the Okanagan Valley. We almost had to put a halt to the camping because it looked like rain. We marched into a Starbucks and took blatant advantage of the free wireless to get a good look at the radar. Convinced that we wouldn't end up soaked we forged on. The campground was in a valley on a huge lake. We made acquaintances with another family in the campground that provided Milo with hours of little boy fun (thank you to the little extrovert, Jason, who I kept calling Mason). Nary a grizzly in sight but they did have lovely signs up about all the rattlers which prompted a long discussion between Mark and me about which attack we would prefer. I say give me a rattle snake bite over a grizzly attack any day. Mark doesn't like the sneakiness of a snake attack. Feel free to weigh in...  We experimented with some camping desserts. The kids were excited to get off the s'mores path and venture on to something a little wilder. The first one was a bust. We made bananas with marshmallows and chocolate chips. We under-wrapped the product and instead of sweet goodness we all determined that it tasted like we took a bite out of a piece of charred log.  Gross.  The kids were a little wary the next day when we threw some cherries, strawberries, chocolate chips and marshmallows together thrice wrapped in heavy duty foil.  It turned out to be delicious but we practically had to force feed both of them to get them to try it.  We also went on a vineyard tour.  It was an hour long tour.  I was bored by minute 13 and the kids were too.  We all behaved very well despite the dry tour guide and very, very small samples of wine.  The kids got a huge glass of sparkling apple juice in a wine glass.  Mark and I were practically standing on our heads trying to make sure that their glasses didn't get hit the floor (though the loud shatter would have added some excitement to the tour).  We headed back to the campsite after the wild tour.  About 10 minutes into the drive Milo said, "Mommy, mommy, I just need to sleep".  I turned around to look at him and he was gray.  I didn't connect the dots fast enough and he threw up all over his beloved notebook, daddy's jacket and himself.  Thank you, giant glass of sparkling apple juice (mixed with a good dose of the backseat in a warm car on a hot day).  Today was our first day in Vancouver and we took the kiddos to a children's bookstore, ate cupcakes at a bakery at 10am and then went to the beach.  We dropped Mark off at his conference and then we headed back for a nap and then a matinee of Cars 2.  Milo LOVES movies.  Seriously, I can't imagine a child loving movie theaters, movies, popcorn, previews, credits as much as him.  We walked into the theater (which was considerably larger than our Wausau theater) and his eyes just popped out.  Halfway through the movie he said, "Mom, dad hasn't seen this, right?"  I told him no and that he could ask dad to go when we get back to Wausau (I assumed he was fishing for another trip to the theater) and he said, "No.  I'm going to get a huge piece of paper and draw the whole movie for him so he knows all about it."  What a kid!  We can't forget little O's at the theater.  Before the movie started she asked me if she could dance.  ("I dance, Mama?") and I said no.  Every 15 minutes during the movie she would ask if she could dance and I would tell her no.  Towards the end of the movie she asked and I told her she could dance when the movie was over.  No joke, that first credit rolled and she flew out of her chair and danced all the way up the aisle.  Gotta love that personality!

We stopped at Emerald Lake on our way to the Okanagan Valley.

Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park

Picnic at Emerald Lake

They were hauling downed trees out of the lake when we were eating.  We couldn't have paid for better entertainment for the kids.

Milo drawing at Yoho National Park

The beginning of the banana disaester

Banana on the fire.

Smoked banana

Our campsite in Kekuli Bay Provincial Park

The kids winding down in the tent before bed

Odelia takes of her shoes a million times a day and then usually tries to walk on gravel or some other unpleasing turf and then screams out in pain and anger.  

This is the marmot Holdhusens.  At any given point I could only get 2 of the 4 of us in the shot but there was a marmot family of 4 living at our campground.  We developed life stories for each of them.  Daddy Marmot had a lazy boy and an inclination for staying out late.  Marmot Milo like chicken nuggets from Marmot McDonalds.  

Kelowna, BC: City Park

The castle-building obsession is 2nd only to the rock-throwing obsession

Odelia was waiting patiently to pounce on this castle.  She likes to sit on them when they are finished.  It makes Milo very angry.

Burying feet.

Man, 2-year-olds can be easy to entertain

Look at that face.  You'd have thought I'd just bought her a pony.  Nope, just buried her feet.

We were out of drinks for the kids so we bought them a sparkling lemonade at a fruit stand.  Just a funny shot.

Canada doesn't seem to worry as much about litigation for playground injuries as we do.  This was a zipline at a playground in Kelowna.

Yup, both of my kids have ziplined before me.  Odelia squealed with delight.  Milo...not so much.

Mission Hill Winery owned by some really rich man who likes wine.  Snooooooooooze!

In the wine cave at Mission Hill

They really were champs about the tour.  They didn't even know that they were getting a giant glass of apple juice at the end of the tour.  

Keeping it light at the winery

Notice the bead of sweat on Mark's forehead.  She desperately wanted to hold the glass by herself and  loudly proclaimed her desires in a very quiet tasting room with 30 other people (who weren't 2).  

This is what I think caused the puking...he chugged it.  

We got saucy on the grill.  Hamburgers, asparagus and potatoes.  

But this is all we had to cook with.  Itty bitty plastic spatula.

Hoity toity wine from the tour in our camping cups.  Take that, Mission Hill!

It always starts out looking innocent...

And then the laughter comes...

And then the screaming starts.  The chair then toppled over and both of them were hopping mad.

Beautiful rainbow at the campsite.

Making the cherry/strawberry goo.

Cherry Strawberry camping goo hot off the fire.

Milo had a new BFF so Odelia and I painted our fingernails with grape-scented polish.

This is his campground buddy, Mason, um, Jason.

The finished product.  Grape-tastic!

And another layer for good measure.

Canadians are serious with their sizes.  We ordered "smalls" and gosh darnit, they were small.