September 2014
And the days are getting shorter
Last Day at the Granville Island Water Park
The Granville Island Water Park runs from
the May Long Weekend until Labour Day. Today is Labour Day - last
day. It has certainly been warmer this summer but it wasn't
exactly cool today. We arrived at 10am when the park opens
and shortly after the water did start running but not the water
slide. This has been Nara's first summer on the
waterslide. At the start of the summer she was too short for
the 3 foot six inch height restriction to ride alone but we were
hoping that she had grown tall enough to now ride by her
self. Of course shouldn't be riding unless the water slide
got started. While we waited for the water slide, our kids
had the whole water park to themselves.
Waterpark, playground and sand box are all
good, but by 10:30 we were wondering - why isn't the water slide
running? Turns out there was a big rain storm yesterday (the
first in weeks) and all the sand got swept into the water slide
water recovery system. They had to pump out the slide, clean
the tank and then fill it again with fresh (very cold)
water. Nara got to help clean out the slider after the sand
was dumped out of the plumbing. Once the slider was running
we had the moment of fate - was Nara now tall enough to ride on
her own? Sadly no - just under the bar.
Oh well - Nara was still happy to ride
with me. We went down a dozen times - no other kids.
When we went for a snack, they actually shut the slide down until
there was a kid that wanted to go. By lunch time, the slide
was busy with kids.
Richmond Nature Park
Claira naps in the afternoon. That
works better if Nara isn't in the house so we get to go out for
little adventures. Today we went to the Richmond Nature
Park.
UBC Farm
I really like the UBC farmers market on
Saturday mornings. Parking is easy, it's a small market but
it's not at all crazy and there is lots of "farm" stuff to do with
the kids. This week they were setting up for one of their
feast in the fields events so they had lots of non-market related
activity going on.
When we hit the flower gardens I couldn't
resist stopping for photos. It's been a great warm summer
and the first week of September kept up the trend with bright blue
skies - harsh shadows but nice contrast with sunflowers.
The Pier @ White Rock
We were lucky to get two nice days in a
weekend. On Sunday we went out to White Rock to visit with
my sister and her family. I didn't know the tide was going
to be out, but it was way out so there was lots of sand to play
on. Nara just wanted to dig holes but Claira was more
interested in exploring the beach. Both Helen and I took her
out to the edge of the ocean and back across the pools of water in
the sand.
Soon enough the boys joined us and they wanted to dig holes as
well. Marcus wanted to find some crabs for his hole so we
turned over stones (a very long way from the waters edge) and
found a few crabs hiding in the rocks.
Of course you can't stay in bright sunlight all day. Soon
enough it was lunch time and we headed back to our respective
homes. Thanks for the meet up!
Apparently there was a coronal mass ejection (or two) that was due
to hit the earth on Friday evening. We weren't in the
"ideal" band and the light pollution is Vancouver heavy, but I
thought maybe, just maybe I could see the Northern Lights from my
deck. I got outside and could barely see a star - my eyes
weren't set up for this task. I set up my camera to take a
30 second exposure every 34 seconds and left it taking photos for
a few hours. Below is the video. Short answer - no
northern lights.
Playground at Terra Nova, Richmond
Richmond apparently spend more than a
million dollars to build a first class playground at Terra Nova
Park in Richmond. It is impressive. There are
traditional elements (swing and slides), but they are big - the
swings are two stories high, have very little rise and a long
swing time. The slides are also two stories tall and one is
completely enclosed and has a corkscrew. There are two
zip lines (which in my opinion are too flat) and an amazing
obstacle course. Most importantly to me, it targets kids
older than 4. We went the weekend before the real launch
(some equipment was still behind construction fences) but this
park is going to be busy. We had a great time.
VanDusen Gardens
Claira naps and I need to do something with
Nara. VanDusen is close by so we often go for a walk.
I never really noticed how many Orb Weaver webs there are, but it
seems that now (the fall) there is an explosion of them. I
didn't know that the orb weaver is an introduced species here
(it's from Europe). Nara was really looking for trees to
climb - her first choice was a huge rhododendron plant, but I was
worried that she would snap off a limb. We found an Alder
tree that had be felled - no worries about breaking that.
Bike Riding
Nara is really keen to ride her bike. Her bike has training
wheels and small (12 inch wheels) so we are somewhat limited in
where we can ride. We have ridden on the sea wall a few times,
but Nara gets frustrated with all the slow people (her bike speed is
a fast walk for me - she is held up behind people walking at a
reasonable speed). At four years old, she is just too young to
ride on the streets designated bike routes. I found a park
that has a long winding gravel trail and few people so Nara can go
fast! It also has a small playground so Nara can take a break
from her leg workout to exercise her arms.
Most Saturday nights we
go out for dinner with Helen's family. Sometimes we visit
restaurants in Burnaby and it's always a good idea for the kids to
be a little worn out before the long sit at dinner. For those
dinners in Burnaby, a stop by Central park gives us a place to
stretch our legs.
Today I noticed a small family of ring billed gulls - and adult or
two and a number of juveniles. They were behaving as a pack -
when someone started throwing bird feed, they flew to that side of
the lake and muscled out mallards who got there first. I'm not
sure what this bird would eat normally.
Tags: Terra Nova Adventure Play Environment(4), Richmond Nature Park(3), backlit(2), zipline(2), VanDusen(2), bird feeder(2)
People: Nara(15), Claira(13), Marcus(3), James(2), John(2), Helen(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > September 2014
Last Modified Sunday, January 29th, 2023 at 21:03:15 Edit
Copyright and Contact Information.
