2nd Annual means it's tradition

Time for the Cousin Trip To The Cultus Lake Adventure Park Before Summer Ends All Of A Sudden!

YOU TWO ARE WAY TALLER THAN LAST YEAR

Right away the attendant at the swings is like, You can't go on this because pregnant. I'm like...On the SWINGS. Or like on any of them. He's like...I assume on any of them?

So I watched that one from the cheap seats, and then I went to TALK TO AN ADORABLE BABY RIDE SUPERVISOR NAMED CLAYTON who was like, You are an adult, make your own choices, let them know I said it was fine, maybe don't go on the Bucking Broncos or the Windmill Drop but like if you want to, fine.

I went on that hecking Windmill Drop, that shit is awesome.

But look at these two! So old enough now that we are like, No thank you the spinning on that one will make us queasy before our time, you guys go it alone.

Walked over for sushi for dinner to help weigh down our stomachs, Eleanor is still working on chopsticks.

These two are either fighting or besties, they have no in-between settings.

When I was talking to Clayton, he was helpfully like, Oh the big roller coaster is actually way smoother than the smaller, jerky one. So I managed to talk Eleanor into it AND THEN WE RODE IT LIKE SIX MORE TIMES.

And then we went to Coneheads to sing How Far I'll Go into our rainbow sherbets.

We are becoming mountain people

Every time we get to the lake in the evening, I'm like, The rest of my day up until now has been a waste.

And we went to Dinotown this morning!

And it was amazing!

But, like...the lake.

Vancouver Days

Joel and I carved out a day for ourselves a few weekends ago, dropped the kids off with my parents, and then drove into the city and straight to Tacofino.

TACOOOOOOOOS.

Then we rented bikes and biked around the seawall, which never gets less beautiful.

And it's blackberry season!

Thence to Granville Island for a walkaround and some donuts

and another donut for the road.

And thence to the Richmond Night Market for a rotato

some Phnom Penh wings

some Super Good Cup Chicken

(which was, at best, regular good)

a Bao Bun (a fried bun with a slab of ice cream wedged inside)

some soft tofu with diced mango and ginger syrup

and a box of noodles from the Sauce Boss to go.

We stayed overnight in Surrey and had a quiet, child-free continental breakfast the next morning

before picking up our hooligan children. Summertiiiiiiiiiiime!

Garrison Festival

We LIVE in Garrison now! So the festival is, like, in our backyard. It feels so luxurious, after a year of driving to literally everything, to be able to walk like 500 feet to a festival.

We ran into the girls' gymnastics coach, who had set up a booth and was giving out ribbons.

We did a kicking-and-punching mini lesson.

WE MET MOANA AND ARIEL. (Moana remembered the girls from the Chilliwack festival, because we were there on a day when no one else was there so I let them just like chat with her for ENDLESS minutes.)

Geneva loves a princess so, so much.

We got pizza.

We got ice cream.

There was a bunny?

We got balloons.

And then we staggered the five minutes home, which it turns out are LONG MINUTES WHEN YOU ARE ALL SO HOT AND NOW IT IS 2PM AND YOU SHOULD BE RESTING, and Geneva put her balloon fish down for a minute so she could...I don't even know, but half of him popped, and Eleanor tried to convince her he was now a sea dragon but she wasn't having it.

Still worth it all.

Chilliwack Fair

The Chilliwack Fair is smaller, and closer, and parking is more straightforward, so AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT I was solo that day. Just me and these kids AND MOANA.

Also Belle.

Did a karate demo.

Petted a chicken.

GOT SOME FACE PAINT

Petted a more different chicken (there are many varieties of chicken!).

Talked to a llama.

Watched some dancing, spent way more than our fair share of time in a bounce house because there was nobody in line, waited forevvvvver for the pig races (which I hate, but the kids love), ate some terrible pizza, and then got ourselves this marvelous confection to go out on.

Agrifair

Joel has maybe half a day off a week these days, so we usually try to make A Thing of it.

Luckily, we got all these agricultural fairs to go to! The Agrifair is the bigger one, and it involves DRIVING there and finding PARKING and ugh I just can't, so I'm super glad Joel was around for this. Had to fake-milk this cow!

Pet this goat!

Putt this putt!

Eat this butter chicken poutine!

Eeeeeeat it.

Jump in this pit of foam blocks!

Hang from this bar!

Go on this teensy ride!

ZOOOOM.

Eat this funnel cake topped with ice cream!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat it.