Daddy is my superhero - biking Stanley Park to Whistler.

Stats: Whistler GranFondo
Date: 7:00 am -Saturday Sept 7, 2019
Start: Stanley Park, Vancouver
Finish: Whistler Village, Whistler
Total distance: 122 km
Elevation: 1900m / 6200 feet (Oh my!!!)

I don't know about you but I checked out after I saw the elevation gain. I mean I am tired just driving up to Whistler, so we are all pretty proud of Simon's personal best of finishing the race in 4:33.

That's quite an accomplishment considering that it took me almost 3 hours to drive up there on Friday evening. It was nice to get up there before race day, we rented an AirBnB condo with my friend whose husband was also doing the Whistler GranFondo too. Her kids and my kids were thrilled to have a room with bunk beds and there was a lot of laughing and giggling and not very much sleeping that night.

The next day we gathered our crew together and worked on our cheer posters.

My friend's husband finished with an impressive time of 3:43 qualifying him for the World Championship next year!  I knew we would have to wait at least half an hour longer for Simon to finish and the kids were happy to ring their cowbells and keep cheering but after I ran out of cheesies we decided to take the kids to the playground area instead. They were happy playing tag and I was planning to head back to the finish line after I let them run their energy out for a bit.

It was close to lunch time and I went quickly to buy hot dogs for the kids and I got a text message from Simon that said "3". Obviously he's not spending a long time composing text messages while he's racing so I assumed that meant 3 more kms to go so waited as patiently as I could for the teenager making the hot dogs SO.VERY.VERY.VERY.VERY.SLOWLY. Oh my goodness, it was painful starring at him.... I swear it was like that sloth scene from Zootopia!!! (That's me in the picture below - I'm the bunny wanting to bang my head against the wall and scream HURRY UP!!!!!!!)

Anyways, after what took an unjustifiable amount of time to put two precooked wieners into a hot dog bun, I threw the food in my back pack and sprinted with the kids to the finish line but alas....we didn't make it!!! We had been there for a couple hours but we missed him coming into the finish line. Apparently the cryptic message "3" meant he was going to be at the finish line in 3 minutes and the sloth making those darn hot dogs took waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than 3 minutes. Such a disappointment for the kids. At least when we found Simon in the crowds of people, the kids proudly held up their signs and ran towards their SuperDad, the announcer noticed them and said, "Look at those kids running to meet their Dad! And look at those signs, yes your Dad is a SuperHero!" They were excited the announcer made them and their SuperDad feel famous for 2 seconds and that softened the disappointment of not seeing him cross the finish line.

 I'm pretty proud of Simon not because of his personal best finishing time but because he said he was feeling great on his ride all the way until Alice Lake and then after that he hit 'the wall'. With 50 km of the steepest elevation left to do, he said his legs were feeling awful and he was contemplating quitting but willed himself to just keep pedaling...even if at times it was painfully only 10 km/ hour. What a great testament to our kids and living out my constant mantra of 

The kids must get so sick of me chirping "We Can do Hard Things" alllllll the time. But I hope that the kids can see us live out that when things get tough and you want to quit, we try our best to find the strength to just keep going...even if it feels like you're not making any progress forward.
Simon lived that out and pressed on til the finish and even completed the race faster than the previous two times he has done it.

And I think that's what makes him a SuperHero to the kids and me.

Greetings from Garabaldi - our first family backpack camping adventure.

All summer we have been talking about "The Big Hike" with the kids. Every time we went running or biking we told them it was good training for The Big Hike. We bought or borrowed all the camping gear and watched every single episode of Bear Grylls' You vs. Wild so we now we were totally ready.

Several times leading up to the trip, I had a terrifying thought that this was a really bad idea and that there was no way the kids could hike that far with back packs but I pushed out those thoughts and bought more gummy candies instead so we would be prepared to combat any possible tiredness with copious amounts of sugar.

And they made it!

5:45 am Saturday morning Aug 24, our alarms went off and we put our heavy backpacks in the car. They were loaded with just the essentials - the tent, sleeping bags, the food, head lamps and of course giant Beanie Boo dragons and a stuffed leopard. 

Shortly after 8:00 am, we were headed up and for at least three hours, it was just steep switchbacks straight up....we kept the kids distracted by hunting for the perfect hiking stick and playing endless rounds of "I Spy", rhyming games, guessing games and scavenger hunts. We were pleasantly surprised how little candy we had to dispense to keep them trekking up the mountain. They were happy to find spiderwebs for 200 points and chipmunks for 1000 points. They even found the Super Mario mushroom for 4000 points.

 I was surprised how well maintained and popular that trail was.....not a lot of 5 and 8 year olds hiking up but there was a constant traffic of people passing by and giving the kids high 5's and lots of encouragement along the way. According to my Garmin, it took us 4 and half hours to hike 10.25 km from the parking lot to our campsite at Taylor Meadows. It also says the elevation gain was 1,312. Wow. And we haven't even made it to the Lake yet.

We found 2 campsites side by side at Taylor Meadows. We set up our tents and ditched some of weight from our packs and hiked onward to Garibaldi Lake. The second part only took an hour and the 2.6 km to the Lake was pretty easy compared the never-ending uphill of switchbacks. And it was well worth it.

The lake was beautiful and we captured some amazing shots.

We found a spot where people had stacked up some amazing inuksuk and Little Brother Bear was able to stack 3 more rocks on without having it tip over.

 We had a snack break and we were suddenly surrounded by chipmunks. Maybe the chipmunks knew that kids get spill just as much food on the ground as they get in their mouths because I didn't see any other groups of people inundated by chipmunks...

It was too cold to swim in the glacier water. There were some brave souls that were swimming but we were happy to just put our fingers in....all of us, except for my Dad who had a closer encounter with the lake than he was planning for. It really is Husband's fault. He found a log that was just under the water so it looked like he was walking on water. It was a pretty epic shot. My Dad, of course not wanting to miss a fantastic photo opportunity trekked out to the water by the rocks too... unfortunately, the rock he stepped on was not a steady one. He stepped into the lake to regain his balance but alas that rock was also tipsy and he fell backwards into the water I wish we had it on camera.  Now *that* would have been an even more epic picture.

 Fortunately he was not hurt, just very wet and all his extra clothes were back at the campsite. He took off his wet socks and he coped by wearing Ziploc bags as socks. He was a great sport about it, it was a great teaching opportunity about being flexible. That was probably the most memorable part of the hike. 

The only other part of the hike that did not go as planed was with Little Brother Bear. Poor guy had been pushed pretty hard that day and by 5:00 pm , he was just completely done. He was starving, exhausted and wanted to go to sleep right on the rocks. We cooked up the freeze dried macaroni as fast as we could...I know camping food isn't supposed to be 5 star gourmet but the mac and cheese was pretty terrible. The sauce was runny and soupy and the noodles were chewy. I had a hard time eating it myself so I don't blame the poor kid for not wanting to eat it. He begrudgingly ate some soupy mac and cheese and some mediocre freeze-dried spaghetti and said he wanted to go to sleep. It wasn't even 6:00 pm yet. We started the hike back to the campsite and he said he was too tired and his tummy hurt. SuperDadHusband carried him on his shoulders back to the campsite and steps away from the campsite, he leaned over and started puking up the less than stellar dinner.

We carried him back to the campsite with him still moaning that his tummy hurt. He lay down on his camping pillow inside the tent and was almost asleep in 30 seconds. I asked him to drink some water before he went to sleep and as soon as he sat up in the tent, my 'mom 6th sense' kicked in and I was able to pick him up like a burrito in his sleeping bag, unzip the tent and get his head just outside the tent before he puked again. *Phew* Close call. I did not want to sleep in a pukey tent. 

For a second I was worried he might have appendicitis or some terrible stomach disease and would have to be air-lifted off the mountain. It was good that my sister's room mate is a nurse and she was able to check him and assure me that he was just a really exhausted little boy. He fell asleep before 7 pm. Actually, we all went to bed before it was even dark that night.

My Little Bear woke up at midnight, a bit dazed and confused asking for his glow stick. I had let the kids choose special glow sticks for our hiking trip and I had promised them that at night time, we could play with them in the dark. But because we all went to bed before it was even dark, we never opened the glow sticks. He was a bit sleepy and delirious and kept on asking for his glow stick and I was trying to whisper quietly that there is no point to get the glow sticks now because everyone is sleeping and its 12:30 am. It took a bit of hushed negotiation but I convinced him to stop asking for the glow stick and go back to sleep.

It was not a stellar sleeping on my 20 year old foam mat from when I was in Girl Guides and without a pillow. Plus there was a person who shall remain unnamed that snores like a Grizzly Bear and I spent the night trying to cover my ears and bury my head inside my sleeping bag.... but who actually sleeps well when you are backpack camping right ?  At least we made room for essentials like stuffed dragons.

After pulling our food back down to ground from the food cache, we fired out my sister's Jetboil for a nice warm oatmeal breakfast, Little Bear found the perfect hiking stick and SuperDad taught him out to use a knife and carve it. Little Bear said that was his favourite part of the whole trip.

We packed up our tent and made the 7.8 km trek back down in about two and half hours. I thought going downhill would be a piece of cake but it was actually harder than I though with all the weight in my pack. SuperDadHusband had the most weight though, he graciously so much stuff I could barely lift his pack off the ground...never mind carry it all the way back down.
The best part celebrating with my Dad as he crossed our make-shift 'finish line' at the bottom. Pretty special to have both the youngest 5 year old and the oldest  65+ year old both complete the trip still smiling at the bottom!

So the big question is....will we do this again ? Panorama Ridge? Black Tusk ? Elfin Lakes? 

If I can just get a decent pillow and some ear plugs....it's game on.

Everything is awesome in Legoland.

Everything is awesome. At least in Legoland it is. Having 2 little Lego-enthusiasts and married to a self-proclaimed Lego Master Builder, we were all pretty excited to go to San Diego and check out Legoland. If you are planning a trip there, read below or check out the video of our trip to Legoland and the beach town of La Jolla.

It's worth it to stay at the Legoland Hotel. Yes, it is expensive. I had the 3 night stay in my online shopping cart for over 6 months before I winced and clicked to proceed with payment. It was worth it though. Both the older 'brick' hotel and the newer castle hotel are right in front of the main entrance of the theme park. When you stay at the Leogland Hotel, you get in an hour earlier and we did 2 days of 9:00 am to 9:00 pm! When you've been out all day for 12 hours, it was the best thing ever to walk a few steps to get back to the hotel room. Plus the hotel has a pool with huge foamy Lego bricks you and can build with and an outdoor movie screen where they show a Lego movie every evening.

The Legoland Hotel Room, the rooms are awesomely Lego-themed. You can pick Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Lego Friends, adventure themed...my kids decided they wanted to be Lego Pirates and had so much fun in their pirate-themed room. When you stay in the Legoland Hotel, the kids also get to do a daily scavenger hunt and the code unlocks a security safe and inside is a Lego set for each of them. Three little Lego sets for each day of our stay! The kids thought it was just awesome.

The Legoland Brick Buffet restaurant serves delicious foods. Your hotel stay comes with buffet breakfast every morning and we also had dinner there one evening. They have a kids buffet area that is built lower down so my kids could easily self serve piles of chocolate chip pancakes, fruit loops and yogurt. The adult buffet area serves made-to-order omelettes, bacon, waffles, pancakes, bagels...basically every breakfast food you could want...even churros and soft serve ice cream.

The rides at Legoland are geared for younger kids. If your kids like thrilling rides, the rides at Playland are probably more intense than the rides at Legoland. But a lot of the rides are Lego-themed and driving a Lego car and a Lego boat is pretty awesome.

 There are also some Legoland-specific rides like the Ninjago ride where you put on 3D glasses and you need to ninja chop your way through the ride. There was also a really fun ride called Deep Sea Adventure where you go in a real submarine and go on a mission to spy things in the water where there are real fish, sting rays and sharks swimming!

Don't forget to check out the Lego 4D movies. There are several different 20 minute Lego movies showing throughout the day. A good break from walking around the theme park and also to get out of the hot sun.

Spend a day or at least an afternoon at the Legoland Waterpark. We spent part of the second day building lego rafts and jumping waves in the impressive Lego Chima wave pool. My kids are pretty wimpy when it comes to waterslides, there were some really fun looking slides and tube rides that they were too scared to do. They were more than happy in the Lego Duplo play area...a shallow pool with little slides made for toddlers and preschoolers.... and my wimpy kids.

Do Legoland Sea Life at night. The Legoland aquarium is open from 8:00-9:00 pm after the theme park is closed so we did it at the end of the day and it worked out well. It didn't take longer than an hour to see everything in the relatively smaller aquarium and the kids had a scavenger map where they had to go to different stations and stamp their Sea Life passports.

Bring your Lego mini-figures from home to trade! All the Legoland staff from the server at the restaurant, the cashier at the gift shop and all the ride operators have Lego figurines with them and you can trade with them anytime. The kids loved scoping out all the mini-figures out there and trading up.

Ask for Lego Pop Badges and look out for Mr. Gold. Each ride operator has "pop badges", these free collectable souvenir badges that they will give you if you just ask. Did I mention they are free ? This mama is always on the hunt for freebies. They sell Legoland lanyards to keep your pop badges on or you can bring your own ahead of time and save yourself the money. And then there's the ultra exclusive "Mr. Gold Pop Badge". This is what it is - there are 9 random Legoland staff members wearing the rare Mr. Gold pop badge each day, no one knows who they are and where they will be but if you spot someone wearing Mr. Gold, you run up and ask for it and it is worth a FREE ticket to Legoland! We were lucky enough to find someone wearing Mr. Gold on his board shorts at the Legoland water park. We already had tickets for our days at Legoland so we have decided to keep this rare souvenir. Apparently you can sell it on eBay for a lot of money so if the kids ever need more money in their college fund, we can cash in Mr. Gold!

Collect pictures of all your memories. We bought a multi-pass photo bracelet and it allows you to have digital access to all the pictures from your time at Legoland. You just scan your bracelet and the pictures get loaded onto your account so at the end of your trip you have  all the pictures from the rides and every character meet and greet there was. We don't get family pictures very often and now we have a dozen hilarious ones with all the different Lego characters. I think our Christmas card this year might just be us trying to eat the Lego hot dog guy.... ..good one right?