day seven - last day :(

This has been such a great vacation. It's the very first one that I didn't wait to go home! I wanted to stay longer! And I have definitely learned to appreciate James a lot more during this trip - I love him even more now! Our first stop today was at the local Safeway (surprise, surprise!). Again they didn't have already cut up mangoes so we picked up mango salsa instead among other goodies. Our plan was to visit Kids Space Museum in Pascedena today. When researching this place, we read that it will be much warmer than the city and it definitely was! This museum was unreal. There was a climbing structure looking like a small jungle with large leaves as the climbing platforms. There was also a giant ant hole that you can crawl from the basement all the way up to the second floor which I tried! It was pretty cool. I tried first to see how it worked and when I brought Matthew down, he didn't want to go in the hole. There was also a huge easel that was nature themed with running water coming from the top so when you paint on it, the paint only stayed on there for a few seconds. There was also a small sink with an air dryer which Matthew got freaked out with. We then went through the court yard with 6 long water fountain type things (hahahah I can't describe it any better!) It would sprout water up in a rhythmic pattern. Novel idea. We walked through to get to the indoor space that's like a gymboree type room where only children under 3 can play and they also offered story time and then an hour later a music time. We stayed for both as we met a little buddy (almost one year old) between the activities. He often visits this place with his grandfather, Gary as Gary got to babysit him on Tuesdays. Gary just recently retired and was familiar with Vancouver as he visits often because of family. Scottie, the little buddy, was very cute and Matthew got along with him well. We even had lunch together after music time. After lunch, we stayed to play with the water while Scottie went home for a nap. Oh yeah, before going over to the toddler side, a camera crew and reporter from CNN asked if we'd mind being interviewed on why we came for a visit today. We reluctantly agreed. It wasn't too bad though, I think I didn't look as scared and stage fright as I thought. But we'll see if the footage ever gets aired. Since Matthew napped on the way to Kids Space and on the way back, we decided that it was good enough for the day (an hour each way) unless we saw signs of him needing another nap. After we went back to the hotel to drop off/pick up a few things, we walked down to Third Street again. We walked (even Matthew!) all the way through Bloomingdales, the courtyard and up one block and back of Third Street (this walk would probably haven taken only 10 minutes to do, but at Matthew's pace, it took us about an hour). We bumped into some really nice locals who was feeding their newborn. They really enjoyed Matthew's company as he entertained them with his charm. They told us of a great Mexican place upstairs on the roof so of course we had to try it! Before we took the elevator up, Matthew and I went into Kitson while James went to the Nike store. Matthew was rolling the little Hop Skip suitcase around the store when all of a sudden he spotted an Elmo doll! He excitedly screamed out his name, dropped the suitcase and ran over to grab him. Then he wouldn't let go. He even left the store with it at one point! James finally broke down and agreed to buy it for him. So now ever since we bought him, he's gone with Matthew everywhere. The recommended Mexican restaurant had happy hour while we went. This meant bottomless chips and your choice of bottomless guacamole. It was only okay but James loved it. After dinner, we went inside to the food court to get mommy a hot tea. While I ordered, James and Matthew played in the play area that was a newly design play structure of a boat. A reporter from New York Times interviewed us about it and said that the article will soon be published... We went back to our hotel to put Matthew down early as we had a flight to catch the next day. So sad to leave. We returned to Vancouver mid afternoon the next day. Matthew was very good on the plane. He played for a bit, had lunch and then took a nap. Yay for me as I really wanted a nap too! Hopefully soon we'll get to go on another fun family holiday!