5 facts about Playland.

1. It costs WAY too much. I promised Birthday Girl that Auntie Rainbee and I would take her and Little Brother to Playland but its so expensive. I tried to win tickets like I did last year but alas, all I came upon was a promo code that saved a few dollars. At least this is the last year Little Brother is still free.

2. Don't choose a perfect weather day to avoid the crowds. The forecast said chance of showers and I think it kept a lot of people from coming which was nice so there were barely any line-ups. It did shower but we just stood under cover and inhaled cotton candy and in a few minutes, it was sunny again.

3a. Gravol is necessary. Thank you to my sister for doing the swing ride and the ferris wheel multiple times. Just looking at Birthday Girl going round and round made me want to puke.

3b. Related to my last point, everything goes in circles. Gosh, why does everything go in circles? Why do kids enjoy variations of things going in circles?

4. Sometimes you have to lie to get your kids to go on the rides. Birthday Girl was all smiles anticipating the little wooden roller coaster and all smiles during the ride. Little Brother was crying and telling me he didn't want to go on the ride. We told him it was just a little choo choo train and it doesn't go very fast and its going to be so much fun. We might have broken the trust. Little Brother was clinging onto the bar and screaming and crying hysterically that the operator asked if he needed to get off after the first lap. We did the only responsible thing and said, "Nope, let's go again!" I thought desensitization would be effective but I was wrong. Poor child. Epic picture though. Totally worth the $10 for it.

waiting for the ride to start

all smiles on the ride

Sorry kid, it kinda does go a bit fast

5. You can earn your child's trust back with cotton candy. I am pleased to report that the ride did not cause permanent damage, just a sugar fix and a dozen rounds of the carousel and the pirate ship and he hardly remembers the trauma inflicted from earlier in the day!

Cultus vs. Cancun

Before having kids I would of protested that vacationing at Cultus Lake is nothing like vacationing in Cancun. But now....having done both with small people, I have to say that a beach vacation at Cultus is pretty darn close to being in Cancun.

First of all, it only takes an hour (in theory) to get there. We did leave at 4:30 pm on weekday though and there was an accident on the highway, I thought we would make it there for supper but instead I was rationing out the one package of goldfish crackers I found in the car as we were stuck in gridlock traffic. But even with traffic, we made it there in time for them to run a lap around the lake before the sun went down. You can't even make it through customs in the time it took us to get from our front steps to the dock.

The beach (and playground) is walking distance from the beach house. Alas, it isn't the gorgeous white sand like in the Mayan Riveria but whatever, the kids still made the same sand castles that they would have with prettier sand.

 The water was warm (at least according to Big Sister who was the only one who actually jumped in). Both kids kept asking if there were sharks and I could confidently say that there were no sharks in the lake (perhaps swimmer's itch but no definitely no sharks).

 Cultus water slides was also walking distance from the beach house.  I was slightly disappointed the kids did not want to accompany me on any slides that were actually fun. Little Brother was content to go on this one slide that was as fast a sleeping sloth.

  Alas, there was no swim up bar here but there were mini donuts and mini donuts makes everything better. Entertaining and delicious.

One of the best parts of Cancun is the all-inclusive meals and honestly, Costco sponsored all the food and my mom graciously cooked all the meals so it was basically the same. Plus there was no risk of eating from the buffet and puking for days after (we know from experience!) Cheers to that! Husband can even drink Gatorade in a martini glass when you're at Cultus.

Speaking of meals, the dock was steps outside the beach house so we always had meals with a great view. Nothing says good morning like corn pops on the dock. So classy.

We have now invested in two SUPs so there was no shortage of good times out on the water.

There was lots of down time to play Uno, Scrabble and our new favourite game, Speak Out. If you have never played Speak Out, you need to google it and watch it on YouTube. We saw it on the Ellen show and I bought the game right after....let's just say it was worth every penny....best 2 minutes of the entire vacation was everyone trying to decipher  my dad saying, "bosses love free donuts"with the ridiculous mouthpiece. We couldn't breathe we were laughing so hard...I love that my dad is willing to play stupid games with us. If the video below doesn't work, then try clicking here

So yes, I am OK with skipping the potentially puking children on the airplane and I am glad we got some great family beach memories not far from home.

I know my husband will tell me to read my own blog the next time I am wishful for a getaway to the Mayan Riveria but at least for now, its really nice to be content with making memories in beautiful British Columbia.

The day I quit my job.

Let's just be honest. It's hard to do it all but that doesn't keep us all from trying. One of the 'conditions' I had set before having kids was to finish my Masters degree and pass my Board Certification exam. Other than getting shingles the week of my thesis defense, everything did work according to plan and I was pregnant with my sweet girl the same month I found out I had passed the BCBA exam.

If only trying to be Supermom while working was as easy as I had imagined it would be. I have always loved my job, I get bored really easily so I love that as a behavior consultant, I am never in one place for longer than two hours and I see so many different kids across the week. I get to mentor junior consultants and coach parents and design interventions for kids that need to learn everything from vocalizing sounds, matching, playing nicely, toileting training or sleeping through the night. I am in family's home, preschools and community outings. I love being constantly on the go.

                                 

I am self-employed so I never had the benefit of maternity leave. Before I had my babies, I imagined myself leading a meeting while my sweet baby would sleep in a bassinet. Ha. Or how I would be able to time my meetings with nap time so they wouldn't even know I was gone. Ha. Instead, I remember showing up to a IEP meeting when my baby girl was only 6 weeks old and I had less than 2 hours of sleep the night before and I was mostly thinking about if my boobs were leaking milk than my client's goals for the school year.

Taking on less clients and having my mom, husband and friends help with watching the kids has been the only way I have been able to maintain this logistical nightmare of managing the kid's drop-offs and pickup's with my own work schedule. And Hallelujah that finally both kids sleep through the night so I can stay up late returning work emails and usually still get enough sleep to be semi-functional in the morning.

But I am feeling the pressure. The pressure to be there for every single drop off and pick up. I love how their face lights up when they see me. I want to take them to soccer practice and piano lessons and gymnastics class. I want to take them to the playground after school or go to the library and read together. And it's not like I don't do those things now but I don't want to miss any of it. But with my work schedule, I can't be there for every pick up from school. I hate missing family dinners and tucking the kids into bed because of work. Its like yesterday my baby boy was just learning to walk and now he's finished his first year of preschool. Just stop growing up so fast.

But I also love my job. I have worked so hard to get my degree. So much stress and tears went into that framed piece of paper on the wall. And I love the little kids that I work with. I love being a part of their story...that I played a little part in them saying their first words, eating a new food, making a new friend.

So in the same year we decided to register Natallie at a private Christian school, I emailed the principal and just attached my resume. There was no job posting that I was responding to, I was just networking to see if I could have a career within school hours. The principal told me that it was God's timing that I emailed her then because the Special Education Coordinator had just informed her that in a year or two she wanted to retire.

So long story short, after conversing with the principal in the past year and half,  its official. I have quit my job as a behavioral consultant! I will be joining staff at Vancouver Christian School! I will be overseeing the Special Education department, doing assessments, writing IEPs, working with teachers and education assistants and making sure all the kids who need extra help are well supported.

I have been consulting for a decade now so it's bittersweet as I am leaving behind colleagues who have become good friends but excited for this new opportunity to be working during the hours that my kids will be in school. I will be able to do after school activities with them, have family adventures on the weekends and have the summer off with them.

I am just envisioning me driving to school with my kids, we will all hold hands as we walk from the parking lot, I will kiss them both and they will traipse off into their classrooms. I will occasionally spy on them during the day, watch them play during recess, make sure they eat their vegetables in their lunch and at the end of the day, we will all go home together and share about our days at school. Well, maybe not exactly like that, but that's the dream and this mom is so ready for it.

goggle tan.

So Facebook kindly reminded me of this memory from nine years ago exactly. Makes me reminisce what that weekend must of been like nine years ago....we probably slept in (since there were no early-rising whining Little People), packing up for the day probably didn't take complex calculations of how long we would be gone and how hot/cold/hungry/whiny the kids would be. We probably just drove up all care-free, hiking in snow, holding hands while the whiskey jacks sang their love songs.

OK so maybe it wasn't exactly like that but a lot has changed in nine years.  There was no sleeping in, Little Brother's special Gro-clock (which I love) tells him it's OK to wake up at 7:00 am and promptly at 7:01am, I can hear on the intercom "Mommmmmy, it's MORNINNNNNNG TIIIIIIME!" I tell him he can get up and play in his room but to no avail I hear "Noooooo, I neeeeeeed you to help me peeeeeee." So I stumble into his room and 'help' which means just watch him go because if I actually try to help, I get an angry "NO! I can do it by MYSELF!"

Packing up for skiing with Small People takes infinitely more logical planning and effort. My sister comes over and helps us load skis, boots, poles, snacks, and oh right, Small People in the car. Both kids didn't eat  breakfast while Simon and I were running around madly trying to find goggles and ski passes so as soon as they are strapped in the car, they are hungry. I brought scones that was supposed to be my breakfast on the drive but they neeeeeed a snack so I relinquish my scones to the starving children. I'd like my mother of the year award now. (or just another scone please)

At least everyone is stoked when we get to the parking lot. I forget one of Little Bro's gloves but its already 15 degrees at 9:00 am so after some coaxing, he is OK with having no gloves.  We finally get up to the top and get our goggle tans on! Big Sis is a rock star.  Auntie Rainbee, Super Dad and Big Sis are crusin' down the Cut hitting up every jump they can find. Big smiles because skiing in a tank top is pretty wicked cool.

Little Bro struggles a bit with the slushy snow and asks for 'regular snow' and is a bit choked that the entire mountain only has snow of the slushy variety. Little Bro also falls a few times and touching the snow with his bare hands brings on loud wails and complaints that the snow is SO COLD. I want to yell, 'suck it up princess' but I take a deep breath and try to tap into the inner reserve of patience that always seems to running low and convince him to wear Big Sister's pink gloves. A bit more coaxing and we are cruising. A few more falls on the slushy snow but reinforcing good attitudes/bribing with Star Wars gummies proves to be effective and we cruise down Screaming Eagle twice.

so not impressed

Then we see that the "World Famous Lumberjack Show" is starting and we ski over and carve ourselves out a great seat from the ski run. The kids loved the lame banter while Simon and I wondered how the script has stayed exactly the same for so many years but we both admit that it is pretty cool to watch the show from the ski run.

 We try to find the Grizzly Bears after but they are hiding in the trees and now that we got off the ski run we have to hike it back to the chalet.  Its getting pretty hot now and the kids are walking slower than hibernating bears so Super Dad taps into his inner Beast-Mode reserve and hauls his snowboard, two pairs of skis, skis poles and Big Sister on his back and powers back to the Chalet. Little Brother decides he can walk after Auntie Rainbee gives him her poles. We reward our efforts with overpriced pizza and enjoy the bluebird view of the city.

So yes, things have changed in the last nine years. It is more chaotic and less care-free but two things that haven't changed is our love for the snow and our love for each other. Maybe no kisses in the sunset but there's a deep admiration and understanding that we wouldn't change this crazy for anything else.

when vacations are fun again.

They said it would happen. When I always carried the baby on my hip and needy toddler attached to my ankle, they said one day you will go and have a vacation and have it actually be fun. Don't get me wrong, there have been fun parts to vacationing with a baby and a toddler but between the 4:30am mornings, the toddler tantrums, or the baby projectile vomiting on the plane really sucks the fun out of a vacation.
Well it happened. After our last flight experience, my husband vowed he would never board an aircraft again with puking child but I convinced him that flying with a now 3 year old is very different than a 18 month old. I hoped I was right. The flight to and from Toronto was as blissful as it could be sitting beside your 3 and 5 year old could be for 5-6 hours.  Here is what made our recent trip to Toronto memorable and really fun!

1. The plane ride did not suck. A lollypop & Starburst candies for take-off and landings and Playdoh, Uno, 12 different varieties of coloring books,  100 craysons and 74 markers and the iPad with a few episodes of PJ Masks was all it took to make me actually enjoy being strapped next to my children for 6 hours.  No projectile vomitting from little brother also was win. When the plane landed, the passenger behind us remarked, "Wow, you kids were so good and so well behaved!" and Noah just beamed and said, "Yup! I didn't puke!"

2. Having a 'fun house' instead of a hotel room. This trip was part vacation but also a family reunion trip and my mom was able to find a 5 bedroom house so we could share the house with my parents and my aunt and uncle from Hong Kong. The kids refer to any place we rent a 'fun house' so it was so nice in not sleep in the same room as your kids, to have a kitchen to cook breakfast and a living room to sit and chat in the evenings. Natallie liked played Uno with Auntie Helen and Noah liked climbing on anyone who wanted to relax on the couch.

3. Famjam at LegoLand. We have never been to the 'real' Legoland in California (it's on the wish list!) and I think if we had been to Legoland than the Discovery Center would have felt a bit small but since we had nothing better to compare it to, it was a great glimpse of what Legoland would be like. The kids loved the ride where you got to shoot virtual bad guys with lasers, I don't know how the kids got more points than me. I swear my gun was not working....all 3 times we did this ride.

4. Famjam at the zoo. The kids walked for 6 hours with minimal whining!! They did need some breaks on our shoulders, we had no stroller and we were too cheap to rent one. We spent all the money we saved from not renting a stroller and more at the gift shop of Beanie Boos.

5. Getting in FREE to the Ontario Science Musuem. Another parent told me that our Science World membership gets your in free to Science Centers around the world and she was right! We showed our passes and saved $70 !! The kids area is amazing, the kids loved all the hands-on activities, we spent over 5 hours there and didn't get through each floor!

6. A surprise Easter egg hunt. We didn't know but the little Anglican church that my dad had found close to our Air B n B was hosting an Easter egg hunt after the service and the kids were stoked to be given large baskets and racing around to fill 'em up!

7. Spending Easter Sunday by the water. My Dad took us all to Bluffers Park in Scarborough. The kids loved jumping from rock to rock and Nallie even put her feet in the lake Ontario but decided it wasn't quite swimming weather yet. Noah even found $5 on the ground and bought us all ice cream. I asked the naiive question if we were going to walk around the whole lake and then realized just how HUGE Lake Ontario actually is. I guess it's been a few decades since my Canadian geography class.

8. A chauffeured ride to Niagara Falls! During our week in Toronto, my dad kindly offered to do all the driving. We rented a minivan and he would drop our family off at whatever attraction we wanted to go to and pick us up later in the day when it was time to have our family dinner with relatives. It was so nice (and a total marriage saver) that we did not have to drive or navigate the crazy 5 lane highways in Toronto. At the end of our trip, we booked 2 nights at Great Wolf Lodge and my Dad kindly drove an hour and half from Scarborough to drop us off at Niagara so we didn't have to take a taxi there. (Also, another positive note is that we found cheap $5 parking at Fallsview Casino Resort but on the down side, we promised the kids pizza for lunch not realizing that 2 slices of pizza there would cost over $16!)

9. Waterslides and the themed rooms at Great Wolf Lodge. It was our first exposure to the world of Great Wolf and wow - first thing when we walked in, the kids got their faces painted and were enamoured by the talking moose and animals in the lobby. We got the "Wolf Den" room and the kids howled happily in their bunk beds.  The water park is so big that even our littlest wolf pup who wasn't tall enough for any of the double tube rides still had fun in the lazy river, the wave pool and jumping the lily pads. The kids loved the family tube ride, except it always seemed that one of the parents would end up going down backwards and needing Gravol after. Simon also discovered an adult-only hot tub and was able to recover from the queasiness in solitude.

10. Making memories as a family with more family. The whole reason for going to Ontario was for this family reunion and the trip was such a good mix of exploring the attractions of Ontario and enjoying time with my aunts and cousins. The kids bonded with their cousins quickly and it was really special since they have no cousins back home. By the end of the evening, the kids were all cuddled in the same bed begging for a sleepover. The kids also got to make some special memories with great grandma (great "PoPo") who will soon be 96 years old. Such a blessing to have 4 generations of women altogether! I don't know if we will be able to see my PoPo again so it was really meaningful to hold her hand and watch her interact with the kids. At 96 years old, she could still beat my kids at a game of Spot it!

It was 10 years ago when we last visited Toronto when my cousin got married, now that we know the kids are capable of not puking and playing nicely for 6 hours on a plane, I sure hope that we can come back before another decade passes!