Van + Scary Animals + "The Freak" = Vacation!

We just got back from our huge summer vacation of a weekend trip to Winnipeg - how exciting! Actually, we had a great time and Liam really surprised us with how well he behaved away from home. He did not sleep well, but generally Liam was in very good spirits the whole trip. He even did really well on the car trip, thanks to a kid's music CD we made before we left.

We spent 3 days in the city, so we didn't have to rush around to get both the fun and essential things done. Since we may not be in the city again before the new baby comes, we did a ton of shopping. Mostly it was things for the fall for Liam - we've finally run out of his baby gifts and had to start building him a fall/winter wardrobe.

One of the trip's highlights was taking Liam to the Manitoba Children's Museum. He absolutely loved it! He had a blast in the forest area (although he was afraid of the animal statues! LOL!) and loved the tree slide. A good half-hour was spent playing with blocks in the infant room, and he kept on returning to the sweet world display (although I think that had more to do with wanting to eat the jelly beans they were using to make a craft than actually playing...)

We also took Liam to visit his Great-Grandma Chris. We haven't seen her since last summer, so it was a real treat. Liam was a bit crabby because he didn't nap too well (and he was afraid of Grandma's dog statue), but he did manage to entertain us all for over 3 hours. By that time it was a little hard to get him to pose for a picture with Grandma - but for that matter, it was a little hard to get Grandma to post too! She said she didn't want to have pictures because she looked "like a freak!" LOL! For those of you who remember, last year she said she looked like a "wild witch woman!" (Click here and scroll down to see last year's pic!) When I reminded her of this, she launched into a tale of her worst "picture" ever - apparently 10+ minutes of video of her removing tape from a package! (I had to stick that in here for any of you Ikerts/McQuakers - Jason, I don't think she'll ever forgive you! LOL!)


Our last main stop was the zoo. Last year when we went, we said "wait until next year, Liam will love it!". This year we said "wait until next year, Liam will love it!" At first he seemed to like it - he was thrilled with bears (or "puppies" as he called them)and liked some of the birds. However, by the time we got to the Monkey house he became a little afraid of all the animals. He kept on saying "Kunkey's go!", "No kitties!", and "a-malls go!" The one thing he did like was the fish pond in the tropical house - although he wanted to go swimming!


Overall we had a great trip and it was so nice to spend the family time together. In fact, even though he was originally dreading this trip, Derek even brought up the subject of a return visit on our way home!