Janie turned 8 today and it was a very different birthday this year. We are in the heart of Shelter-in-Place here in California but still wanted to celebrate this special day.
Mama picked up party favors and gifts from Target on her way home, picked up cake from Baskin Robbins, and then had a virtual birthday party with the family over Zoom. Auntie Jia had sent a bunch of gifts this past week too.
Once everyone got online, we all sang Happy Birthday, she blew out candles, and then the presents were opened.
Toni and Thomas also drew a special birthday picture for her.
We are headed to Vancouver, BC for ski week and the journey from Alameda to Surrey took a lot longer than it should have. It started with 8:30am bus ride to the airport. Peanut drew a map for us.
Once we arrived at the airport, we received a text update that our flight was an hour delayed. That one hour quickly turned into 3 hours so we had a lot of time to kill. The kids were really good about the wait and figured out ways to entertain themselves.
This is Peanut asking when we could get on the plane.
They especially enjoyed the airport store that had a bunch of Paw Patrol pups, including a brand-new Rubble.
When we finally boarded our plane and took off at 2pm, the flight was short enough for a few cartoons and a snack (2.5 hours).
We finally landed in Seattle around 4-something and were so relieved to be closer to our destination.
The next part of our journey was a bus ride to the rental car area. Getting the car was not problem but when we got in, the car wouldn’t start. Turned out it was a brand new car that had come off the truck and was not drivable yet. It even had the clear stickers covering the A-frame and dash. The rental car guys had to look up on YouTube how to install the fuses and change it from shipping mode to driving mode.
Our drive to Surrey took about 2.5 more hours and we got to the US-Canada border around 8pm. The drive to Surrey from there was quick and we arrived at Auntie Amy’s house around 8:30pm. That made our journey a total of 12 hours long!! Crazy.
The whole family was there waiting for us and we arrived in time to have birthday cake for Uncle Jay’s birthday.
The kids were up late and had a blast playing together. I love how they can pick up from where they left off last summer.
In the afternoon, we met up with Auntie Amy, Uncle Jay, Auntie Elaine, Uncle Mitchell, and Auntie Laurie for some raw oysters, crab, clams, and a bunch of other seafood goodies.
Janie ate at least a dozen oysters on her own and loved it.
Peanut slept through most of our meal, woke up to eat some crab, and then watched some Paw Patrol.
This morning, the kids were so happy to see all the snow in front of Amelia and Ellie’s house. They had a little bit of time to play before we piled into the minivan for a ride up to Squamish to ride the Seat to Sky Gondola.
The gondola took us up the mountain and Peanut was so excited.
At the top, there was a suspension bridge and other places to explore.
Janie drew initials in the snow and asked Mama to take a picture.
They also went down the tubing hill together and Janie kept her eyes closed the whole time.
Peanut was not tall enough to ride so he went to the store for a Canadian maple syrup treat.
He also finished off the timbits before the kids came back. He’s become a BIG FAN of timbits on this trip.
On the drive back down the mountain, the girls fell asleep in the back. Poor Janie became a pillow for Ellie and Amelia.
Janie has the next week off for “Ski Week” so we decided to book a trip up to Vancouver to do some snowboarding and to hang out with family. We all got up early and caught a bus to the airport for our flight to Seattle. The kids were good sports and we had enough time to eat breakfast at the airport before boarding.
The kids enjoyed time of their iPads and we had a smooth flight.
The next leg of the trip was to pick up our rental car in Seattle and drive 2.5 hours to Surrey, which is only 15 minutes from the USA/Canada border.
When we arrived, Auntie Amy had a spread of food prepared for us, including fresh oysters and uni!
Once Amelia and Ellie came home from school, the fun really started!
