High Tea

One of the highlights of our visit to Vancouver was the afternoon we left Chris with the kids and went off to enjoy high tea at a local tea shop.  (Why do I feel like I should write "shoppe?")
 

We spent two hours chatting, sipping tea from our own personal pots, and stuffing ourselves with fancy sandwiches and pastries.  We barely ate that morning in anticipation of the coming feast.
 

 

I tried to listen to the server as she was telling us all the details, but my mind had already raced ahead and was pre-tasting everything.  Besides, it's taken me so long to get to this post that it's all a little hazy.  Here's what I do remember:  we started with the savory bottom layer and ate our way to the top.  he bottom layer featured sundried tomato puff pastry and miniature BLTs on homemade poppyseed buns... and something else that didn't register.

 

This was the scones layer... there might have been lemon almond loaf perhaps, but it's definitely the scones, Devon(shire?) cream and raspberry jam that I remember the most.  In fact, I had been craving these after having them 2 years earlier when Jonathan was born.  
 

And the top layer was sweet treats... something was lemon, something was chocolate...it was all good.

 Guess I got as bit too close - it looks like the plates are floating in mid-air!

On your mark, get set, EAT!   No, really, we were all quite ladylike... although I guess "real ladies" might not have finished every last crumb. 

The only one missing from this picture is Evie, who spent the entire 2 hours sleeping (in her cars eat on the floor) like a champ!   It was great to spend some uninterrupted time with my mom and sisters and the elegant tea and pastries made it even sweeter. 

Vancouver Part 1: baby, hugs and parks

From Halifax we flew across the country to see my sister Julee and her family.  She couldn't wait, and had her baby the day before we arrived - and it was quite an exciting delivery!

We spent half of our days taking the kids to various parks around Vancouver; a necessity to let the kids run off energy, and to let Julee and Evie get some rest.  The rest of our time was spent playing with trains (kids) playing board games (adults) and eating. 

I have fallen seriously behind in my blogging so here are the highlights of the Vancouver visit.

park

baby

bath hugs

baby... just kidding, big girl

hugs

more hugs

Izzie not too happy because she just bonked her head on the bar!

a ball pit- in lieu of a park

baby

chair spinning on the way to a park

more chair spinning

the park we got to after the chair spinning - cool water play

same park

you guessed it... park

park (note: the tongue acts as a counterweight and helps with balancing!)

park

park

park

park

park

park with water

park

park with huge tree stumps

park

park

park (you could see the salmon jumping out in the water)

2 kids wedged into a single stroller on the way home from a park

Yes, our visit pretty much consisted of baby, parks, trains, games, hugs and food.  It doesn't get much better than that. 

Needs Work

I definitely need to work on getting more natural smiles.  What do you think?

What a bunch!