We took Aiden to Science World for the first time a few weeks ago. Or the Science I-See-Um (Museum), as Aiden referred to it. It was a lot for Aiden to take in, but he was determined to see it all. His attention span wasn’t that great for any one activity, but he loved interacting with several of the activities in the Eureka gallery as well as in the Kidspace.
Science World is currently showcasing the Extreme Dinosaurs exhibit – a great display of animatronic dinosaurs that’s sure to leave an impression. Indeed, it left quite an impression on Aiden. We had to quickly carry Aiden through the exhibit, as the dinosaurs were “very noisy” and a little scary for Aiden, but his sheer love of dinosaurs kept him from crying. Indeed, if you ask him about his trip to Science World, he’ll pretty much only talk about the dinosaurs.
See all our photos from the trip here.
North Shore Green Markets, a program to bring healthy and local food as well as arts and crafts to North Vancouver, is currently running summer markets all across North Vancouver. We visited our first Green market, the Friday Night Market, held at the Shipbuilders plaza down by Lonsdale Quay.
Local performers took stage while booths were set up with arts, clothing, local produce, baked goods and a number of food vendors. We came away from the night with some local strawberries (most of which were in the bin, some of which were on Aiden’s face), a fantastic homemade drink syrup, some bread and full tummies from the Chili Tank chili we had for dinner. It was a wonderful way to spend a summer night – next time, I’m getting some chocolates!
The Friday Night market is held each Friday until September 23rd from 5pm – 11pm. The most up-to-date info about the Markets can be found on Facebook.
I took Aiden to Derek Inman Park a couple of weeks ago. It’s located just off 2nd and St. Georges in the Lower Lonsdale area, which isn’t too far from us. It’s a small playground with a tennis court, a set of swings, some diggers, and one main play structure.
Unfortunately, the play structure was not designed with toddlers in mind: here’s no way to get a young toddler up to the slide without lifting them all the way up. I got a good upper body workout, but I wasn’t happy about it!
So, though this makes for a nice neighbourhood park, its lack of toddler accessibility takes it off my park list for the time being.
See more photos of this park here.
Last Sunday we took Aiden out for Lynn Valley Days. Despite some toddler difficulties in getting him from the car to the park (ugh, tantrums), it was worth the difficulty. He was mesmerized by the parade. Though the parade was not very tightly clustered (bad flow), he sat for all of it. I’m sure the popcorn and his first freezie helped. The close-up fire engine noise did scare him a bit, but he loved the bands and anyone who was dancing or riding on bikes.
We tried to take him into a bouncy castle, but that was a fail. He freaked out. He rode the mini train alone without freaking out too much. We browsed a few booths and called it a day. The parade was enough.
Really, parades must be made with toddlers in mind. I can’t think of any other age group more “into” the parade than the young toddlers.
Do your toddlers like parades too? At what age did your kids begin to find parades “boring”?
We pay a visit to Park & Tilford Gardens on most Sunday mornings when we get our coffee fix at JJ Bean. If it’s not raining, we let Aiden walk around to look at the fountains and check out the flowers. Now that Spring is here, we’re really enjoying these moments. We spent an hour in there last week, after having missed a few weeks thanks to rain & other morning activities… we saw flowers! Spring! Yay!
This has been a lovely and free activity for our family on the weekends. It’s not a huge garden, but it’s been a good introduction to admiring the outdoors for Aiden. In the winter, it was an easy way for us to get him outdoors without mud or puddles being an issue on trails or in parks. ;)
See all our photos from this outing here.
