Oh Canada!

We took the long drive up to the Canadian border and with a few cursory questions; we crossed the border into Canada. When we arrived at Tim’s parents house Papa and Mimi had parked their cars next to the park by their house to give us a place to station War Eagle. When Georgia saw Mimi, she nearly exploded, screaming Mimi, Mimi, Mimi! I guess she missed her grandmother. Within a few minutes of arrival, Nigel (Tim’s Brother) his wife Alex and their two boys Nicholas and Kyle arrived to welcome us to the Great White North. Deirdre (Tim’s sister), her husband Andrew and her three boys Max, Mason and Owen also arrived. All her cousins fawned over Georgia and she was in heaven.

We spent the next day making repairs and doing laundry then spent the evening at Leanne’s (Tim’s other sister) house with her husband Gary and her daughters Olivia and Sarah. We’ve been trying for ages to get G to wear something in her hair to keep it out of her eyes with no success but Sarah and Olivia managed in just 2 minutes!

The next day Tim went out for Sushi with his old friend Cam (a Vancouver tradition) and spent the wee hours hanging out with Cam and a mutual friend Adam. Karen spent a lovely evening at Trish and Eric’s house and had a fun reunion with their son Aspen, who is just a few months younger.

Mimi and Papa are just great with all their grandchildren and Mimi and Georgia are especially close.

So we took advantage of that and had our first date out without Georgia since… I don’t know when. We went to a lovely high-end Belgian place called Chambar and then walked off that wonderful food down by English Bay. Vancouver IS a beautiful city. Makes you want to live here.

Being very close to Canada Day, Mimi had all the Beckmann’s over to her house for a BBQ. It went past 90 degrees, which is very hot for Vancouver and we sat outside, drank beer and chatted as Georgia’s cousins chased her around the house. It was a special treat to see Tim’s cousin, Joel who Tim and Karen haven’t seen since their wedding and who Georgia’s never met.

The next morning, having realized that we had spent 5 nights in Vancouver and ticked most things off our list, we reluctantly decided it was time to take our next adventure around British Columbia. So we started packing up, doing some grocery shopping and loading up on firewood in preparation. We took time out of our very hot day to go to the Vancouver Lawn Tennis Club for a swim with Mimi, Papa and Nigel’s family.

We had dinner at Nigel and Alex’s that evening and Georgia cuddled up to her cousins to watch Madagascar 3 for the 20^th time.

Vancouver was great. We saw lots of Tim’s family, had lots of babysitters, accomplished a lot and enjoyed our time thoroughly. We can’t wait to see the all of the family again in a few weeks in Saltspring or Vancouver.