Busy Day in May!

On Friday night Allison proclaimed "We need to get out of the house!!", so we planned a pretty full day on May 14th.  It started with a return trip to the Vancouver Aquarium.  Part of the perk of being a member is that they have early admission on weekends, and access to a hand-on science room for the kids.  Here's Owen getting close up to a very hairy looking hermit crab...  They also had sea anemone's that you could touch.  They would latch onto your finger and try to poison you, but they aren't able to break through your skin, so they let go after a few seconds.

Molly had loads of fun watching the big starfish move around.  This is in a section where they have small aquariums and terrariums low to the ground for the little ones.

Owen and Molly both love watching the fish.

They have a special theme right now call Birds Up Close.   Owen and I met Mr. Peregrine here and learned about the fastest bird on the planet....  He has cataracts in his eyes, which is why he lives at the zoo now.

One of my favorite exhibits is the little sand eels.  They look like a bunch of plants growing out of the sand, but as you look closer, they are alive... and slowly moving in and out of their holes.

The aquarium is in Stanley park, which is just outside the city center.  They have a lot of great green space, trails, playgrounds, and gardens.  After leaving the aquarium, we walked around the park for a while.  Allison likes the "twisty tree".

The flowers were blooming in the garden and I captured a few nice pictures

The First Nation Natives have a large display in the park, which includes a train ride. This of course became Owen's thing that he wanted to do for his whole life... so we went on a ride so he could cross it off his bucket list. :)  Seems that Molly is a big train fan now too.  You can just see the excitement in her face.

When we got of the train, it had started to rain, so we ran back to the car, only to find we had over-stayed our 3 hour parking pass by 15 minutes and had received a ticket...  We still had our Pennsylvania plates on the car, so Allison aka "the persuader", called the parking authority and complained about how it was pretty un-welcoming to out of town tourists to have a parking ticket after only 15 minutes, and they waived the fee!

After the park, we decided to take the gondola ride up to the top of on of our local ski hills, Grouse mountain. A co-worker had given me a free pass that he wasn't able to use, and this was the last day of the season that we could use it.  Keep in mind this is the middle of May...  and on top of the mountain, they still had +250cm of snow base!  It was pretty wet, but they still had one trail open.  They have two grizzly bears that live at the Ski-Resort and they had come out of hibernation earlier in the week.  I didn't get pictures :( , but they were impressive creatures.  Funny too.... rolling around in the snow and wrestling with each other.

Here's Molly and Owen along one of the paths they had cleared down to the pavement.  As we were walking along, Molly was copying everything that Owen was doing. 

And our little fashion queen...

After walking around some and catching the spectacular views of the mountains and city, it was dinner time, and we were fortunate to get a fantastic corner seat in the restaurant at the ski lodge.  Here's Owen taking it all in.   In the picture, you can see the container ships waiting in the bay, and the city center in the upper left.  The land mass in the middle of the water is Stanley park... and you can see Lion's Gate bridge right in the middle of the picture, connecting the city with North Vancouver.

Here is a gondola heading down the mountain.

At the bottom of the Gondola, they have a habitat with timber wolves...  we walked up the trail and were able to see the white one catching a nap in the sun.

Molly and I were howling at the wolves... much to Allison's amusement.