Canada: Going, going, arrived!

Wow, did we ever hit the ground running! We left Finland all excited for the plane trips ahead. We had a short 2.5 hr flight to Frankfurt and then the big 9 hour one to Vancouver...only for Bella to say near the end of the first flight, this sure was a long plane ride...are we almost there? Little did she know!



One thing that I noticed was that the headphones don't fit kids...what to do? Well, her towel did just the trick. That this can come in so handy!
We did lots of colouring, lots of cartoon watching but not much eating- the food they gave her was all pureed! Weird. It looked like it was for a tiny baby. The flight attendant said that she had never seen that before.




















One of our first trips with Andrea when we arrived was to Krause Berry Farm. What a nice place. It has all kinds of berries and you can either just buy some or you can puck them yourself. Since the blueberries weren't ready yet, we decided to pick the raspberries... and they were huge! They also have a little petting zoo there. So Bella got to go in and pet the small goats, a small sheep and to hold a bunny.










We also went to the Greater Vancouver Zoo. Where we saw a LOT of butts. Camel butts, rhino butts, tiger butts, lion butts, elk butts, even ostrich butts. Unfortunately, Andrea is the one with all the butt photos.










Bella sent much of the time in Andrea's house dancing...not a real surprise. She started as she meant to go on...and on...and on!




One of the best things that Andrea had on offer for a 3 year old was a practical menagerie...4 tortoises, 3 snakes, 3 cats, a lizard and a gecko! I hope that I got that all right...but possibly not. Bella was entranced by the snakes. They were big ones who shed their skin while we were there. Fascinating. Also she got to help feed the tortoises...I never knew they had such large tongues! Luna the cat was as interested in Bella as Bella was in her...especially when Bella was alseep...and not moving!



















Another day we had a trip to the Vancouver Aquarium. While we had a fantastic time seeing all the animals, you can see what happened while watching the beluga whales...here is the before and after:











We saw the sharks being fed and then we headed home...












to pick up some guys...

Canada: Meeting the family

There were many highlights on our trip and one of the first ones was meeting family members that we hadn't met before. I had never met my cousin Shawn's wife Nicole or their two kids. I also hadn't seen my cousin for a very long time. I was excited about this part of the trip. The other good part of this was that this was, most likely going to be the only time in a whole month that Bella was going to have kids to play with. So as you can see Bella settled in pretty quick. These first two photos were taken within about 30 mins of our arrival! I am really not sure what caused her to climb on Conner like that, never done it before and never done it since...but something about Conner made her feel comfortable enough to be so silly. And when my cousin came home, she quickly took to him also and joined in the freezee fun!









Because they have kids it was really easy to convince them to do kids stuff...like head to parks and to the splash park! We had never been to a splash park before and to be honest, I had never heard of them before this trip! And while the weather certainly called for it (it was so hot!) Bella was not convinced. I am not really sure because it sure looked like fun. As you can see from the close up photo of Bella, she stayed dry. Hard to do at a splash park!









Kaitlyn and Bella did some dancing and some clothes changing and Bella and Conner played angry birds...Bella really had so much fun with them. I am so happy that we got to spend the time to get to know them!

Canada: Go north young women!

Flying up to Whitehorse allows you to see over what seems to be the top of the world. The mountains coming out of Vancouver are always beautiful and this trip was no exception. As you fly into Whitehorse itself you follow the river to the town...a different, yet equally beautiful, scene.




We had our priorities right since Bella had already been in Canada for a week and hadn't been to Tim Hortons so that was one of our first stop! She chose the one with yellow sprinkles on top!





We had lots of fun seeing the sights of Whitehorse and making our own fun- like making Kyle wearing a homemade crown! He was so pretty!











Bella made her own fun by climbing into bed with Steph every morning with her ice block feet. She sure enjoyed doing that! Bella did lots of dancing and she also had a weed/flower fight with Kyle...fun, fun everywhere- that was the trip to Whitehorse...oh, and blueberries and dancing...lots and lots of dancing!

Canada: How to become a Mammoth hunter

Bella became an official Mammoth Hunter when we went to Berengia the Mammoth Museum in Whitehorse. See if you can find Bella in the last photo...she is hiding from us.