vancouver: day one

David had to go to Vancouver BC for work on Friday so we made it a family affair! It was nice to have an extra day all together as a family and go to somewhere fun! William was so excited to go to another country. He doesn't know what that means but he still found it terribly exciting.

We arrived early Friday afternoon and, after David went to work for about an hour, checked into the hotel and then took the water taxi over to Granville Island. The kids thought the hotel itself was pretty awesome since it had an elevator, two big beds and cable! We could have stayed there the whole time and they would've been happy. Ha!

The water bus over to Granville Island was also a big hit, even if the 5 minute ride was too short in the boys' opinions. We walked around the public market for a while and I ooed and ahhed over the beautiful branding of many of the vendors and shops and also the beautiful produce and flowers.

The boys enjoyed a slice of pizza while we enjoyed this beautiful view and listened to a musician sing David Gray covers and shooed away seagulls on a park bench.

We stopped at Edible Canada and saw this really cute fish and chips take-out (more cute branding). They also had poutine on the menu with duck gravy so we bought an early dinner and I have to say "meh" about the poutine. The fish was excellent though!

Traveling with kids isn't always the easiest thing to do. We had to deal with lots of whining and tired feet, carrying heavy toddlers on shoulders, overtired baby from no naps and we didn't get to see or do many of the things that we would've done had it been an "adult-only" trip. However, because we had the kids, we also did things that we wouldn't have normally seen and we were able to make a lot of great memories. We found parks at almost every opportunity to give the kids a rest from walking and Vancouver is full of beautiful parks! More on that tomorrow, though...