Category: Special Days

Day # 5, what can I say about Day number five.    Actually, what can I not say about that day.  It was absolutely crammed packed to the limit, and I almost don’t know where to start.

The beginning is probably the best place, isn’t it?

We got up early, and left the house around 8am headed into North Vancouver.  We were going to have breakfast with Great Grandpa and Aunty Ruth and Aunty Hope at the Eighties Restaurant. 

A little background history for ya’ll….My parents started going to the Eighties Restaurant back in 1981 when Debbie was born.  My dad took us kids there when Mom was in the hospital and had just given birth to  my sister Debbie.  So, we’ve been going to this restaurant for quite a few years.  I was only 6 years old, and Dad fed me split pea soup.  I barfed it all over the green vinyl booth, and have never eaten split pea soup since then.

Back to Wednesday morning…….we made it into North Van. in record time.  I don’t know what was up with traffic, but there was none.  Yah for summer time!  We got to see Grandpa and my two Great Aunt’s, and it was the first time that they got to see and hold Josiah for the first time (outside of pictures on here). 

Another weird tidbit of info……I’ve taken all 4 of my kids to Eighties shortly after they’ve been born, to visit and meet family.  It’s almost a tradition of sorts.

It was so nice to see my grandfather and Aunt’s, but also it was sad, ’cause my Grandma wasn’t there.  I thought about how she would have loved to have seen Josiah.  I have pictures of her with Geli, Xan and Jeremy, but not Josiah……too sad!  I tell myself that it’s okay ’cause she’s holding the babies that I never got to, and loving them until I get there.

Josiah was a little stinker (literally), and pooped almost as soon as Aunty Hope got to hold him.  This kid is a champion pooper, and we have gone through SO MANY diapers.  I’d say that it’s not even funny, but at this point, it’s gone beyond being not funny, and way passed over into being halarious.  I kid you not, the kid can go through 20 diapers a day.  He’s a pooping machine.  I think that his system might finally be starting to regulate because Jon’s changed him twice now, and there was only pee in the diaper.  I know that’s relly not exciting to anyone but us, but to us……..it’s a MAJOR EVENT!

Anyway, we had a really nice breakfast other than totally messing up the waitress by ordering 4 of the same breakfasts with just slight variations, and for some reason…asking for “no toast” really threw her off.  And then I ate Grandpa’s meal ’cause they switched ours by accident…..oh well!  It all worked out in the end, and no one ended up hungry.

I love this picture, and it’s neat that you can really see my Grandpa’s two different colored eyes.  There’s nothing wrong with them; they are just two different colors.  Neat, eh?

Here we have the oldest and the youngest men in the family.  Actually, Everyone says that Josiah looks just like Jeremy did, and even I have to agree that there is a strong resmeblance.  They have the same nose, and………I’ve always wondered where Jeremy’s nose comes from.  I like to be able to see the different family members coming through in the different children, but I’ve never really been able to figure out where Jeremy’s nose came from. It’s not weird or anything, but it’s just not the same as my nose or as Jon’s.

Jon took some pics of Grandpa and Jeremy, and I think the mystery is solved.  Jeremy has Grandpa Kennedy’s nose.  See for yourself.

……here…….

 and here…….(stupid picture won’t center)

I see it….can you see it? 

Click here to see all the pics from Eighties on Flickr. 

After Breakfast, we headed into Vancouver to do a fly-by drop-in on Uncle Chris.  We weren’t planning on staying for a loooong visit, just long enough for him to be happy when we left.  We can cause quite the commotion wherever we go.  The girls and Uncle Chris played a few games of Dung Beetle…..don’t know what that is????  You’ll have to go in and visit Chris to find out.  He’s a champion Dung Beetle player, and is ruthless.  He won every game that they played, but it’s still fun!

After the card game, Josiah had a quick cuddle with Uncle Chris.

He loves to cuddle.  (Josiah, that is.)

We stayed for about 45 minutes, and then left to go to down to Granville Island. 

Chris had been hooked up to the IV all day at this point.  Normally, he gets about an hour around lunch time, but because of the way the nurse hung the meds, he didn’t end up getting his lunch time break……..

So, hopefully we were a bit of a diversion from staring at his four walls.  Fabulous walls that they are….it can get a bit much to spend ALL DAY EVERY DAY cooped up inside your room.

He’s definately feeling and looking better.  It’s nice to see him getting more mobile and recovering more and more every time we go in.

Click here to see all the pics from our visit with Uncle Chris.

Then we headed on down to Granville Island.  The kids had been waiting for quite a few days to go here.  We parked, and hit a small playground first, to let the kids burn off a bit of steam.

Jon was sitting on the other end of the teeter totter in this pic, and would let it bump onto the ground, and Jeremy would laugh and laugh and laugh…until he had enough, and then it wasn’t fun anymore.

This was the smallest park ever.  It had 3 teeter totters and 3 swings, but it was in the shade, and had a bench and so I could nurse Josiah, which is what I spent most of the day doing.

I HATE “snack” nursing, but I was trying so hard to just go with the flow, and enjoy the day, regardless of the fact that Josiah wasn’t getting a FULL feed, and as a result wanted to eat every 5 minutes.

After the park we headed out to see what we could find.  We window shopped quite a bit`at all the little artist studios.  There is some really cool stuff down there.  We made it over to the Public Market where we had promised the kids that we’d check out the weird, different, and unique fruits and try them out.

 Once we got inside, the first thing we saw was the fish……always exciting.

YUCK!  But so much fun for little boys!

We picked out 6 different fruits to try, and not one of them was disgusting……so obviously we did not try that Indonesian fruit that smells like poo….what’s it called??? Oh yah!  Durian or something like that…..YUCK!

We took a bunck of pictures, and I was really proud that all 3 kids tried every single piece of fruit regardless of how strange it looked.

This one was all hairy on the outside, and I forget the name of it, but it was kind of like a Lychee.  It was a bit like a grape looking thing on the inside, and was kinda sweet tasting.  Everyone liked it in spite of the hair.

The absolute highlight of the Granville Island trip was going to Kid’s Zone. 

The kids had been asking since we got there if we could go over to the Kid’s Zone, and we used it to hang over their heads every time they bickered or acted up.  Finally we made it over there, and I was getting tired, but we wandered in and out of EVERY. SINGLE. STINKIN’. STORE. IN. THE. WHOLE. FREAKIN’ PLACE.

And we had a good time….gash darn it!

I think that the best part, was that Great Grandpa had given each of the kids $5.00 and they could spend it on whatever they wanted.

How fun is that?

 Click here to see ALL the pics from our Granville Island Trip.

 It was 5:30pm when we finally wrapped up at the Kid’s Zone, and the kids would have loved to stay, but I was wanting to get home by 9pm, and if we were going to finish up our day the way I had planned then we needed to get a move on.

We wandered back to the van, and headed out into the lovely world of 5:30pm DOWNTOWN Vancouver Traffic.

 It had been so long since either Jon or I had been tooling around Vancouver in traffic that we forgot all about it.  It took us a lot longer to head on down to English Bay than we had planned, but after some sweet manuvering on Jon’s part, and some serious eye cringing, passenger side braking, and arm rest clutching, and only one yelling match with a Handy Dart Bus Driver (Nice Jon!  Really Nice!  Way to set an example for the kids.)

We made it to the Beach.

The kids were so excited.  It’s been a LOOOOOONG time since we’ve been to a beach.

We hadn’t planned on going to the beach when we set out in the morning, as so weren’t dressed for the beach, and had no spare clothes to change into.

Apparently, that doesn’t matter if your 6.  It took him all of about 2 minutes from the time we hit the sand until he was soaked all the way up to his shoulders.  The girls were sure he was going to get in trouble, and were shocked when I said that I didn’t care if they got wet, it would just mean going home naked and cold.  That wasn’t much a deterrant, and as soon as dinner was done, they went swimming as well.

Here is another shot of how our time with Josiah is spent.

If I’m not nursing him, then odds are that we’re changing a diaper.  Gotta get a few shots that show our REAL life at this exact moment.

Diapers, Boobs and Sore Backs from cuddling a sleeping baby.  This is truely the life.

The funniest part of the evening was when Jon got back from getting the fish and chips.  He had even purchased an extra piece of fish so that he and I could have 2 pieces for……3 freaking dollars.  What a joke!

He put the box of fish and the box of chips down on the log that we were sitting on, and then walked away to take a picture of the kids dow by the water.

I was nursing the baby (what’s new) and about 6 seagulls came over and one actually stole a piece of fish right out of the box. It was only a foot and a half away from me, and I was hollering at the stupid thing.  But it was too late.  He had managed to drag it out of the box and into the sand.  One piece down, but thankfully all 6 birds hadn’t converged on us and taken everything.  It was pretty funny especially when Jon told me that he had to buy that one extra piece over and above the other meals that he had bought. 

Those seagulls are too cheeky!

We had a great day, and although I was tired at the end of it, to hear the 3 kids talk all the way home about how much fun they had….was worth it…almost!

Click here to see all the English Bay Pictures.