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.
Did you know that most malls have themed strollers available, often for free? If you head to guest services at most malls, you can inquire after stroller availability. At some malls, you will need to rent them at a fee. At others, they are available by securing the stroller with a piece of photo ID.
For children like mine who don’t like strollers, the car-themed strollers are a fun alternative. Kids can use the steering wheels while adults have some bag-space in the rear. Mind you, your child may end up coming and going from the stroller still, as mine does, but it’s nice to know your options!
Here’s a list of the malls in the Lower Mainland and my knowledge on their policies:
If you have more specific information on the above malls, or have other malls to add to the list, drop a comment!
