Last Thursday, Emmy and I hopped on a plane and flew to Vancouver to see my sister and to run my very first half marathon, SeaWheeze 2017! When I first registered for this race 9 months ago, I was still pregnant, and I had no idea what this weekend would look like: would I go alone, would the whole family travel with me, would I bring Emmy along? When I booked my flight, I booked it as if I was bringing Emmy along just in case, but there was a time I was hoping I would be able to go out there solo. As the weekend drew nearer and nearer, I knew there was no way I could leave her at home. For one thing, I'd miss her too darn much! But she's also exclusively breastfed, and while she will take a bottle of expressed breastmilk, the idea of having to pump all of that milk beforehand, and then continue to pump while I was in Vancouver, just made no sense at all to me.
I'm glad she came with us though! We stayed with my sister in North Van and it was so great to catch up, hang out and have a mini girls weekend. Of course, some of that fun was interrupted by my race, but overall, I had such a fun weekend in one of my favourite cities to visit! My only real regret is that I barely took any photos during the whole weekend! I'm not even sure why, but I wish I had at least taken more of myself with my friends.
But let's back up...
On Thursday, my mom and Sully dropped Emmy and I off at the airport where we met up with
Becky. She was on the same flight as us, which was super helpful when you are trying to get through security and into your seat on the plane! Emmy was a fantastic little traveller and slept the entire flight. When we arrived in Vancouver,
Lindsey and Chad were waiting for us (they got in 30 minutes before us), and they helped me with my luggage as we navigated our way to the skytrain and into Yaletown where we stopped for beer and lunch.
Since my sister had to work that day and rush hour traffic is crazy, Emmy and I spent the day downtown with Becky. After lunch, we headed to Becky's hotel room where she had a nap. Then we met up with some other runners for dinner at Milestone's and once we got back to the hotel, my sister was there to pick us up.
On our way to her place, we stopped in at my aunt's for a quick visit and Emmy slept through the whole thing.
Friday we slept in a bit before making our way back downtown to pick up my race package. Since we arrived late, we met up with everyone for lunch outside. Of course, not one person thought to take a group photo! But it was so nice to catch up with
Kaella and Tawnya at lunch since I don't get to see them in person very often. After a delicious lunch, I went and got my race package and then we quickly checked out the exclusive Lululemon store since there was no longer a line. It was pretty picked over, but I was not impressed with anything that was left. Our race packages were nice though! A drawstring backpack, a Lulu water bottle, nuun tablets (not pictured) and a coupon for a free coffee. I was disappointed to find out that we aren't given race bibs as I like to save those.
We headed home to just relax for the rest of the day since I knew I needed to pump some bottles for Emmy to have while I ran my race. When I pulled my pump out, I realized I had somehow forgotten the tube that connects the pump to the bottle. Oh boy. We quickly walked over to the Shoppers and then the London Drugs, but neither had the part so I ended up having to buy a manual pump. Of course, once we got back home I was too stressed to pump any milk and I actually thought I might not be able to do the run if I couldn't get a bottle pumped! Thankfully, we put on a movie and I tried to relax and eventually I was able to pump enough milk. Phew!! Talk about a stressful evening before a race.
Saturday I was up at 5am to get ready for the race, but I will recap that in another post!
After the race was over, I headed back to my sister's apartment where we napped, hung out, showered and got ready to have dinner over at my aunt's place. My cousin Lauren also joined us, and we had a fun evening of eating dinner outside, catching up, and drinking far too much prosecco! We made it home around midnight and I literally fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Sadly, Sunday I had to be at the airport for 11:30am, so we didn't get much time to hang out with my sister. In hindsight, had I just decided to bring Emmy at the beginning, I could have booked a later flight in the day, or even stayed an extra day or two. The visit was far too short and I was so sad to say goodbye to my sister again. Emmy was a rock star on the flight home and again slept the whole flight. The good thing is, knowing what a good little traveller is, we will be back to visit as soon as we can!
Tell me: What's your favourite city to visit? Any night before race mishaps you'd like to share?!
