The San Diego Zoo

After two days of driving we made it to San Diego and it was time for our first outing. The weather was going to be a bit on the cool side so we selected the San Diego Zoo as our first destination. This was their 100 year anniversary and they've developed into one of the largest conservation organizations in the world with an operating budget of over 280 million a year.  The zoo itself grew out exotic animal exhibitions abandoned after the 1915 Panama-California Expo.

We arrived shortly after the zoo opened and one of the first animals on Callie's list was the Koala exhibit. Koala's don't exactly move very much but they sure are cute. They keep the boys and girls in different areas and each one of them has their own artificial tree. The next big destination was the giraffe's. There were at least a half dozen of them and even a couple of babies. The San Diego zoo has an excellent breeding program and the smallest giraffe was just three years old. (Yet still 6 or 7 feet tall.)

I was just taking my regular random pictures but Carter sent me on a very specific mission. He wanted me to take pictures of animal bums. Not really sure why but when you're 7, animal bums are apparently very funny. Here was one of my better shots. A pair of camels. The animals look very different when you are only looking at their bums. Good thing I had my zoom lens on.

When we were in the arctic exhibit we had some unusual guests. There was a mama duck and her ducklings wandering through the visitor area. I'm pretty sure the ducklings have figured out that kids with popcorn are a good score. Mama duck was not very successful at getting them out from under everyone's feet. Callie tried to give her a hand and did manage to get the family to a safe place in the trees. She even found another nest with mama and some unhatched eggs. It's at this point that Kerry tried to convince Callie that she should do her homework as she's destined to work with animals and needs to study.

Carter also had me on another photo essay mission. The zoo has all sorts of animal sculptures and I had to take a picture of him with each of them. The fun part was that he tried to assume the same pose as the statue he was pictured with. Here he's a tortoise bench. He was also a gorilla beating his chest, a lizard sticking his tongue out and my favourite, some sort of stick insect in a tree. He also did very well with a lion with his paws crossed.

One of the other animals on our must see list was the panda exhibit. The San Diego Zoo is the site of the first Panda ever born in captivity in the US and they continue to have great success. Unfortunately for us, the Panda's were pretty much sleeping and we didn't get much more than a bum picture, which I suppose fit nicely with the theme of the day. Our other favourite exhibits included elephants, polar bears, tigers, penguins and of course penny machines. We didn't even get to see everything it's so big and they are expanding again in 2017. Great place to visit.

We ended our day with a visit to downtown Coronado, which is an island/peninsula near downtown San Diego. We wanted to stop for dinner and check out the sunset. I had a conference here a few years ago and the hotel was built in 1887 so there is lot of history in the area. Many hotels of this era got too expensive to maintain and they were torn down. This one was saved partly because of the amazing location and the amazing beach it sits on. We had dinner at a local pizzeria and came back to the hotel for a swim. Tomorrow we're off to Sea World!

Churros for Dinner

I've been to San Diego a few times for conferences and each time I've spent time at the local tourist spots. This includes the Zoo, Sea World and the naval ships in the harbor. Each of these trips was without the kids and I've always wanted to bring them with me. (I also need them if I want to go to Lego Land without looking creepy.) This spring break seemed like the perfect time and to save some money we decided to drive down. With gas at $1.99 a gallon I don't think the trip was ever going to be as cheap as it is now.

Our plan was to take two days driving down and three days driving back. This would give us a chance to get their quickly and do a bit of touring on the way back. Day one had us driving from Surrey to Redding California. We had hoped to leave before five but it's not easy getting up that early in the wintertime and we didn't leave the house until 5:30a which left us stuck at the border for 45 minutes. A series of small delays through out the day got us there after 15 hours, just in time to hit the pool before it closed. The highlights of our trip were the bridge before Portland being raised for a sailboat and lunch at the Wilsonville Road exit.

Day two had us up at a bit of an odd time. When they moved Day Light savings it's ended up right around spring break. This meant we lost an hour of sleep and we had to get up for 6:00a for the hotel breakfast so we could leave by 7:00a. Breakfast was great with home made waffles, scrambled eggs and sausages and we managed to leave right on time. This part of the I5 is long, straight and boring. The one good thing about it is that we were able to got about 120 km/hr most of the way and we made great time. We had lunch at Carl's Junior and were heading through Anaheim right around dinner.

Anaheim of course if home to one of our favorite holiday destinations. I knew we would be pretty close to Disneyland on our way down and when we realized we would be passing within about two minutes and just a single exit of downtown Disney we knew we couldn't resist a quick stop. We found parking quickly and the first two hours were free which was just perfect. We stopped off for Churros and pretzels and a few quick purchases at the Downtown Disney store and then we were back on the road. Tomorrow we are off to the San Diego Zoo to check out the naked mole rats.

Hot Chocolate Run

On Saturday the family participated in the 5k Hot Chocolate Run at Stanley Park. We signed up with  Melissa and Ethan as well as Kathy, Daven and Anja. This was the third run of the season for Callie and Kerry,  second for Carter and first for me. This is one of 7 runs put on by Try events. They range from 5k to half marathon and they are a fun way to get the kids interested in running. This was a 5k run along the seawall and there were about 700 runners. The fun part of this run was that they served Hot Chocolate and brownies at the end. I was okay with the two bite brownie but after a race,  hot chocolate was not very appealing. A nice glass of water hit the spot much better. We also got a participation medal and a nice running shirt.

Carter took part in the Chilly Chase with Kerry and Callie earlier in the year but it was early, cold and raining and he did not have an enjoyable time. His run time showed it clocking in at over 57 minutes. This race however was on a warm sunny day, later in the morning and he did much better. I ran with him the full time and actually had trouble keeping up with him for the first 1k. He was on a mission to get a better time then Callie and the two of us  kept up a good pace the entire time, taking breaks between running and a brisk walk. This time he came in at 43:26 which was over 14 minutes faster. The best part was when we passed the 4k mark and he state "Well. 4k and no complaining." We passed someone along the way who said "I wish I had started running as a kid." Me too which is why I'm glad there are so many fun races for the kids to enter.

First Day of the Season at Stewart Farm

On Saturday I headed down to Historic Stewart Farm to do a bit of gardening. I started volunteering there in late Spring last year so I didn't get to see the whole season. This year I'll get to see the plants from the very beginning of the season to the end. I went down early on Saturday because our lead gardener had noted that the season was started pretty early this year and it was time to get the leaves off of the plants or they wouldn't have as good a chance to get started. I think I'm the youngest person on the team by about 20 years so I don't mind doing some of the heavier lifting tasks.

I started at around 7:30a and by 10a I had about 80% of the beds cleared. It was quiet fun to slowly rake the leaves back and see all the new perennials showing through. I can recognize many of the plants when they are in full bloom but it's harder to recognize them when they are just coming up. This will give me a chance to see the whole life cycle. The leaves kept the weeds down nicely so with a few exceptions, it was mostly just perennials popping their heads up. Last year they had planted several of them from seed and placed the base for annual trays over them to keep the bunnies out. I will have to try that since my last seeds got eaten.

I kept the leaves on the vegetable garden beds. It's warm out but I think we need to wait a few weeks before doing any major planting there.
The farm was home to the Stewarts in the late 1800's and has been a historic site for a few decades. There are only a few gardeners left from the original group of volunteers so hopefully we can get some younger volunteers to pass on the knowledge. It's a lot more than just planting seeds and watching things grow. Each of the perennials is an heirloom variety and we try to save the seeds each year to sell them in April. Lots of knowledge to gain and lot's of fun.

Family Day at Pitt Lake

The weather for Family day this year turned out to be absolutely amazing. It was predicted to be sunny and warm so we made plans to do a bit of Geocaching. I wasn't sure where we wanted to go but we have the most fun when we can find a bunch of cache's in a row and when I looked on the map an ideal place for that looked like it would be Pitt Lake on the North Shore. 5 years ago this would have been a very long trip for us but when the Golden Ears bridge was put in it shortened the trip to less then 30 minutes so we packed a lunch and headed out.

We had never been to Pitt lake so we didn't quite know what to expect. As it turns out the parking log is at the end of the lake where the Pitt River starts and there is a Native Reserve that covers this end of the lake. They have rights to the access road on the dike and charge fees for the boat launch as well as canoe rentals. You can see why their ancestors settled there. The area is very beautiful and remains pristine. There were just a few houses at the end of the dike and great walking trails everywhere.

We walked from the parking lot to the end of the main dike that separates Pitt Lake from Pitt-Addington Marsh. A total of 6k though we walked more since we had to stop to look for geocaches. We found a total of 7. We almost missed one but Kerry wanted to check again on our way back and finally found it. The area has a few hundred more spread across many kilometres of walking trails so we will definitely back to this location. No beach that we could see but it would still be a fun place to come do some canoeing as well.

The Chilly Chase

Last year the kids entered their first 5k run. It was the Donut Dash at the PNE. A lot of the local runs include a 5k option now which is the perfect distance for kids because even if they walk it they can still finish it in a reasonable amount of time. It starts at the same times the 10k, 15k and Half Marathon so even if you take your time it doesn't feel like you are last since the longer race racers will still be behind you. It's only January so there wasn't a lot of training to be had but Callie and Carter were still very excited about the race.

Leading up to the race Carter always seems a bit more excited that Callie. This is definitely one of the key personality differences between the two. Callie does a lot of worrying before new things while Carter goes with the flow. Come race time however the roles were definitely switched. The race started out great with both kids running but after about 200m, the rain and cold caught up with Carter and he was not impressed. Callie on the other hand wanted to run ahead but had to wait for Kerry and Carter. Near the end Kerry let her sprint ahead and she looked like a natural.

Despite the cold and wet conditions everyone finished and running memory appears to be short. Carter seemed to have a miserable time but he's already looking forward to the Hot Chocolate run in March. We'll try to do a bit better job training him with some runs around the park this time.

Christmas

With all of the time we spent on house renovations from September to early December Christmas came on very quickly and we really didn't feel prepared. I managed to get the guest bathroom done just in time for guests to start arriving. My goal was to get as much done as possible and everything cleaned up so that we could put decorations up without having to work around them as I finished bits and pieces up. We did get 99% done but we still have the backsplash and a bit of floor moulding that we decided to leave to the new year.

For a few weeks I was quite happy with the way the outdoor Christmas lights looked. I buy one or two strings each year at Rona when they go to 50% or 60% off and after 10 years we've amassed a nice little collection. We are now definitely the most decorated house on the block. Someone must have been jealous though because our beloved Snoopy was stolen. I had him screwed to the top of the Little Free Library and he lasted all last year and a few weeks this year but he was just too tempting. They sell him each year at Rona so I will watch for him next year and this time I'll put him on the roof so he doesn't go missing.

This year we were lucky enough to see the ultimate Christmas Light show at Stanley Park. Corey, Carmen and the kids had planned on going with some family members but several of them came down sick so they gave us four tickets. We arrived just in time for a train ride through Stanley park looking at some very amazing light displays. My favourite was the one across the pond where the reflection duplicated all the lights. The other great one was the tree lit with tens of thousands of lights. It must have taken a week just to decorate it.

We also headed down to the German Christmas Market. It's a closed market downtown with nice wooden huts and lot's of food. It alway seems very cramped with so many people in such a small space but I suppose that's part of the charm. We went down right when it opened to avoid the biggest crowds and we used our tickets to get a savings at 'Fly Over Canada'. It's a 4D movie experience where they fly you over the screen. During most of the year it's just regular views of Canada but at Christmas they add a few minutes of Santa's workshop. The kids really enjoy it.

Santa was very good to us and the kids got their annual present of Christmas pyjamas. This was the first year that Callie had to get big kid pyjamas and he couldn't get everyone the same kind.

We only had one Christmas this year. Ordinarily we have one with Barb and Reg and a second with my parents but this year my dad and brother were in Finland at the World Junior Hockey tournament and my mom decided she would visit later in the year.