sid's sixth birthday (may 23)!

this one is for you, grandparents!

i decided to give this one its own post, because a) the last one was getting quite long, and b) it was an epic day!

it was an early morning, the day after the wedding - for a morning after a wedding, that is. we probably didn't get up until eight, but i for one could have slept till noon. but we had babies to collect, and it was sid's birthday!!

my dad (grandpa glen) picked us up just after ten and we drove out to horseshoe bay. wayne was kind enough to walk the kids over on the ferry, so we just had to be there in time to pick them up. they came in around 11:30, and even though they had only been gone a few days, i was sure excited to see them! wayne, sid, and sage came down the ramp off the ferry - and i swear sid looked bigger! lots of hugs, and a quick hellothankyougoodbye to wayne, and we turned once again to head back into the city.

our first stop was dropping their stuff back at the boat and doing presents. it was really fun to show the kids where rafiki was anchored; i think it kind of blew their minds a little to see our boat there, where you wouldn't think a boat would be. yet they didn't pay much mind; they were too excited about presents! sid got two little lego sets, a kids digital camera, and a jar of honey (the last to which sage said, "what a wonduhful pwesent" *heart melt!*). he was thrilled with them all! and so sage didn't feel all the way left out, i got her a few rolls of sparkly craft tape. she was stoked.

once our things were safely stowed, we met up with grandpa again to go on a jaunt on the skytrain! we headed towards new west, the kids wedged up at the front of the train to see the city whizz by.

riding the ghost/robot train ("who is driving?")

we made it to the river market, on a quest to find bubble tea. the market was a fun, colourful place. on our way in, we were snagged by a lonely pinball machine, which ignited everyone's sense of competition at least a little. then the kids discovered the escalators, which conveniently ended directly in front of the bubble tea place!

i warned the kids that the bubbles feel like tadpoles in your mouth, and maybe that was the wrong choice of words. while they liked the juice part, the pearls weren't their fave and they declared an aversion to bubble tea. oh well! now i can enjoy mine without harassment.

we lingered at the river for a while, reading the plaque about where the fraser comes from and how it has been helpful to the people in the lower mainland since time immemorial (arguably not helpful for some, since it undoubtedly hastened industry and development… glerk). there were tugs and a paddleboat - seemingly ancient relics, especially compared to the single-wheel electric hoverboard-type things touring the boardwalk.

after a few more ferocious rounds of pinball, we hoofed it back to the skytrain for a sushi mission downtown. for once, grandpa glen's internal map of the city led him astray, and the kids' fatigue was getting the better of them, so we returned to the boat and i brought some sushi back to enjoy there. i also picked up some cake from a restaurant along the way - my options were limited, so i took what i could find. after dinner, we did cake with candles and a happy birthday - sid extinguished the candles one at a time, silly goof! at bedtime, sid said, not unkindly, that he didn't like the cake. i asked if i shouldn't have got it, and he said, "no no, it's just that i like homemade cake better" - that's my boy! then we let them watch a show of sid's choice, tucked them in, and called sid's sixth birthday a wrap.

32 and 6, yet equal in maturity

well, kind of a wrap! tuesday was also kind of birthday-ish. in the morning we headed to great-grandma mally and bob's for a visit. it was a hoot buzzing down false creek in the dinghy with the kids. sid had his new camera at the ready and took some great photos. he also did a lot of the steering, which is a challenge in those busy waters and requires lots of focus. he did great!

little skippers, skippin' along

we made it to the aquatic centre dock and walked along the beach. sid was captivated by the barge that had blown up onto the beach, and sage was hunting for treasures in the sand. we stopped lots for photo ops, yet somehow we made it to grandma's on time. there the kids raked in a few more gifts, and of course they were pumped. it was lovely as always to spend time with my grandma and bobby.

the kids with their lovely great-grandma mally

our visit was short and sweet, and soon we were headed back down to the dinghy dock for our pickup from dad. we buzzed back down false creek, had a lunchsnack, and then headed ashore to check out science world! it had been looming over us for days; what excitement to finally be heading inside!

on shore we had a too-brief visit with auntie wendy. it's hard to give people notice of when we will be where on the boat, so we had to take what little visiting time we could on other people's schedules. i was so grateful to wendy for coming all the way across the city for a five minute visit; she is one of my shiniest friends and i would have loved to spend days together! but alas, life rolls on, and so must we roll with it.

grandpa glen generously paid our fare for science world, and in we went. the main exhibit

was the t-rex, king of dinosaurs! but we started off with the regular science world stuff. puzzles, physical challenges, human antomy/biology, optical illusions, tricks with phsyics and light, the room full of balls and water courses, infrared music - and hey! out the window we could see our little floating haven, sitting pretty just below us.

sage loved the drawing stations. there was one digital kaleidoscope drawing centre, where you drew on one part of the circle and it was repeated equally around the circle. she also loved the pendulum drawing station, where you could get the arm holding the pen and the platform holding the paper to gently swing, either back and forth or in rotation, to make really cool, tidy spirals and shapes.

sid looked like he enjoyed everything. he handled all the things in the bodworks exhibit, being curious but not looking too closely at all the actual body parts. in the optical illusion room he dashed from one thing to another, touching the electric ball to see the lightning inside, wiggling his body in the heat-sensing camera, jumping on the light-up walking piano. the next room over, though, really grabbed him. there was a ball wall, with a sort of vacuum inside, where you could stuff the little foam balls into the tube and they would suck up, slipping around the corners of the clear tubes, and then shoot out the top and launch out on to the floor (that was my fave!). just past that they had a water channel station where the kids could alter the stepped "river" course to see where they could make the balls go. they even had a cannon to shoot the balls up to a target, where they would drop down and float along the little river. it was hard to tear him away!

but, sadly, we had arrived later in the day, so we had limited time to see all the things and we wanted to be sure to check out the dino exhibit. the promise of giant dino replicas was enough to get sid to move along - surprise! - and so we found ourselves taking a step back in time.

the t-rex exhibit was really neat. the first thing you see is a full-size t-rex skeleton, tip to tail, standing in the middle of the room. the whole room is dark and quiet (surely the absolute opposite of how the dinosaurs lived in their time - i found this comical), with the soothing voice of a narrator describing the life of this great creature. the skeleton display was quite clever. it looked to be illuminated from above, with the skeleton shadow cast on the floor. but as the narration went on, the shadow would start to move and fight other shadow skeletons, and then walk away to disappear before the whole cycle started again.

past the skeleton display was a fully made replica of a t-rex. it was impressive! the thing was huge and meaty, with enormous jagged teeth complete with highly realistic strands of drool and all! and apparently they were somewhat hairy, with a funny-looking tuft on the tops of their heads and the tips of their tails. the baby ones were fully hairy and quite chicken-like.

rawr!

baby rawr!

we learned there were lots of kinds of tyrranosaurs, and the exhibit showcased their

evolution over time. they had lots of casts of fossils to exemplify the size of these great reptiles compared to us puny humans. there was even one real fossil that we were allowed to touch: a toe bone the size of my arm. it was cool to be able to touch something that was once part of a dinosaur, shrouded inside its actual flesh, an integral part of its body... then entombed in the earth for millenia to be chanced upon by creatures capable of excavation. while i find the concept staggering, i, for one, am grateful we didn't share time on this earth with those colossal beasts.

the last fun part of the dino show was a mini excavation. instread of dirt, they had tiny scraps of rubber and a ton of paintbrushes. you just pick one up and start brushing to reveal a "fossil" underneath. it was verrrry satisfying to do (excepting the kids flinging their "dirt" back on my excavation site, but oh well) - i could see paleantology being a very cool career, though you might end up with a crick in your neck.

and then it was time to go! science world closed down around us and we said farewell to all the cool things. what an enriching experience!

thank you grandpa glen for all the good city fun!

aaron and the kids headed back to the boat to get a jump on dinner while my dad and i headed back down to the market to get some fresh food. on the return journey, i jokingly asked the ferry driver if he could drop me at my sailboat just ahead. he thought for a second.... and then said sure! i was totally joking, and fully expected him to say no, but he handed me a pair of bumpers and changed course to head for rafiki. i tied the bumpers on to the handles outside the door and he came along rafiki's starboard side. i said goodbye to my dad, grabbed onto my boat and climbed aboard. my dad handed me my pack, i blew a kiss, said a laughing thank-you to the ferry driver, and waved them away. it was awesome; i laughed about it for an hour! just goes to show what can happen if only you ask.

simple fare for supper and soon to bed for tomorrow's journey. what a way to conclude our time in this pretty city.