SeaWheeze 2017 Weekend Recap

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?!

Florida Family Vacation 2017

Ever since Jim's parents bought a retirement place down in Florida several years ago, we've maintained a pretty good track record of getting down there almost every year. With young kids, it's so nice to have a tropical place to go visit where your accommodations are taken care of and you're family is at. We had so much fun when we took Sully to Florida for the first time back in December of 2015, so I was really excited to get back there with him. As luck would have it, both Sully and I ended up getting really sick while we were there, which put a bit of a damper on doing all the things we had hoped to do. But with a baby in tow, our expectations were low to begin with, and we were just happy to be somewhere warm and with family.

It's hard to believe it's already been a month since we got back home! There was a lot of downtime while we were there, but I'm sharing my favourite photos from the trip which capture the fun we did have. Some of the highlights include: sunny days at the pool, playing shuffleboard, hitting up my favourite stores: Target and Trader Joe's, riding in the golf cart, watching the dolphins swim in the ocean and eating the most delicious ice cream at the Orange Grove. My camera roll has a lot of photos of Emmy sleeping and I joked earlier on Instagram that she slept through the entire trip! Such a good sleeper, that little girl of mine.

And that's a wrap! I'm already dreaming about the day we can go back and do it all over again! :)

Florida Family Vacation 2015

With the timing of our Florida trip, as soon as we got back to Canada, Christmas season was in full force, I took a bit of a blogging break to enjoy the holidays, and I never got a chance to write a post on our vacation! I like to have these posts to look back on and it's a fun way for family to see our vacation via photos, rather than a Facebook dump (which I don't ever do anymore).

This was mine and Jim's third time visiting his folks in Florida, but our first time taking Sully. The last time we went, I was six months pregnant with him. Obviously, traveling with a toddler changes the rules of a relaxing vacation, but since Jim's parents live in a fun and quaint retirement club, I can honestly say a great time was had by all. Sully went to bed and slept like a champ at night, despite sharing a room with us, so this allowed Jim and I to sneak off to play pool, swim, or just relax with his parents in the evening. Retirement living is a bit contagious, so as soon as we arrive, we are pretty good with just going with the flow and not rushing around. And with the exchange rate being so poor for us Canadians, we didn't travel too far from home once we got there. Honestly, there's so much to do in their community that other than some shopping and grocery trips, we're pretty content to just stay put!

We were in Florida for two weeks and had fantastic weather the whole time. Of course, what Floridians find chilly, is not chilly at all by our standards, which means we often had the pool all to ourselves! His parents are close to the ocean, so we spent many evenings on the beach, where Sully loved to run into and out of the waves. That kid has no fear, I tell ya! Throwing rocks into the water will also entertain a toddler for an amazing amount of time!

But rather than bore you with our daily activities (which really are all just a blur now and often involved doing the same things), I'm just going to share all of my favourite photos from our trip! Enjoy!