Whistler, B.C.

Adam and I got to take the kids up to Whistler a couple of weekends ago. Adam's business partner pretty much paid for the hotel and told Adam that he had to take a vacation so we could really argue with that. Plus we hadn't really had a long vacation all year so we gladly took him up on the offer. Adam's business partner is super nice and we are really grateful for his generosity towards us. Whistler was lots of fun for us. We didn't really have a schedule and had a great time relaxing and just spending time together. Adam is gone enough during the week that he doesn't get to spend time with the kids a lot, and there are some days he doesn't get home until after they are asleep. I think it was good for them to get such wonderful quality time with their daddy for six days in a row!

We left on a Thursday after school, since it was a four day weekend. We picked up the kids and left straight for Canada. It was a long trip and Canadian drivers are crazy! It was weird to see signs in kilometers and not miles and we got there when it was dark so we couldn't really see anything except where the hotel was. We put the kids to bed (it was past 10pm at this point) and crashed ourselves. When we all got up, we decided the best thing to do was just explore the village and see what we could find. It rained almost every day while we were there, but we dealt with it okay and had fun anyway.

Whistler is beautiful and surrounded by huge mountains, so it is obvious why is it such a big skiing destination. There wasn't any snow yet, but there were tons of off-road bicyclists there to go down some switchbacks. It was pretty cool to watch and something I would never do because, let's face it, I would kill myself. The gondolas were closed because it was so foggy, but they also cost an arm and a leg so we skipped that part. The village is amazing, with lots of little shops and some bigger brand ones (Gap, Eddie Bauer, etc) and tons of ski shops. Apparently we were there during the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and the town was hosting a "Turkey Sale" where they sell ski and snowboard equipment and apparel for super cheap. A lot of people in town were walking around with skis and stuff and saying what a great deal they made. It's too bad we aren't a skiing family!

Madelynn stayed in the stroller a lot because she would run away if we didn't strap her in. She became super attached to her stroller by the end of the trip and cried when Adam put luggage into it to take down to the car.

Who let's their young children play on sharp, jagged rocks in the middle of Whistler? Me.

The Olympic rings. See the big crane in the background? The whole pavilion was gated off. Boo. They also had a memorial for the luge player from the nation of Georgia who died right before the Olympics started. I didn't take a picture. Some people were, but I thought it was disrespectful kind of. It was sweet though, with a book for condolences and some people left little mementos, like small toys or crosses.

This is the playground near the Olympic pavilion (it was actually built for the Olympics). I just love Jack's face here. And Madelynn going down on her back. She did that every time.

After we looked at the town, Madelynn and I took a nap and Adam took Jack and Olivia to the pool. Then we went on a family nature walk to a lake called Lost Lake. It was an easy hike with a paved path so we could take our stroller, and the lake was beautiful. The kids liked throwing rocks into it and Madelynn liked to fall down and then make me clean off her hands. Afterwards we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the hotel. Our hotel room had a small kitchen with an oven and two burners, plus a fridge and a dishwasher, so it was nice to be able to eat breakfast and lunch there, and we made dinner for two nights in the hotel to save some money.

Who doesn't love a nature trail that is paved? Mainly for runners, but also for our stroller :)

Jack loved throwing rocks. We also saw lots of fish jumping out of the water further out in the lake. It was funny to watch because there were so many of them that the kids could even see them.

Olivia took this picture. Cute, huh?

Tired little boy. He slept like a rock.

This is her "cheese" face, the one she makes when she sees a camera and then says "Eeeez" as long as she can until you take the picture.

Olivia lost her 4th tooth on Friday night. It's her lower one, the one that looks red in the picture.

On Saturday we got up and went to the Squamish-Lilwat Cultural Center. It was a lot smaller than I thought it was, but we stayed for a while and learned about the native tribes of the area. The Squamish language, when written out, has the number 7 in it. Isn't that weird? We saw lots of signs on the highway to Whistler with a name and then another name underneath that was written in Salish, the Squamish language. We saw how they stripped cedar bark so it wouldn't damage the integrity of the tree and how they used the bark to make things like bracelet, hats, headbands and baskets. It was all really interesting. We saw hand-carved canoes, a replica of the homes they would live in and got to hear recordings of how they say certain words. We took a quick walk around outside where they showed how the people would use nature in their lives, like the mushrooms they would use and the plants that were dangerous. When we were done we got some salmon chowder and traditional bannock (an Indian fry bread) to sample at the cafeteria and went home.

This is one of the houses (I'm not sure what they called them, the sign says "pithouse") but you can see on the top it is covered with land so it was hard for the enemy to see their dwellings from a distance.

This is their "staircase" that is missing rungs in the bottom on purpose. Apparently someone sneaking in at night would miss the steps and fall, alerting all those who were sleeping. There was supposed to be a side entrance as well for children and elderly people.

Learning things on our hike at the cultural center. Such as lichen, that stringy green stuff that hangs on some trees, was used as an ingredient in their bread and other things. Ew.

This canoe was carved by hand. It was amazing!

This guy was carved into one of the seats. That would not be very comfortable to sit on!

I liked the look of this boat. It was much more rustic, although it doesn't look as sturdy as the other one.

We let Madelynn skip her nap (and therefore my nap) to go in the pool. Madelynn is definitely a water baby and loved every minute of it. But she is also her mother's child and preferred the hot tub to the cooler pool water. Don't worry, we limited her time since technically she's too young for the hot tub, but she loves to take hot showers and baths so I figured she was just in familiar territory. For dinner that night we cooked up some spaghetti in the hotel room (which sounds like a nice, cheap family dinner, but wasn't so great seeing that our room had a kitchen but no table at which to eat our meals) and then took the kids to Cows for some ice cream. It's apparently ranked the best ice cream in Whistler so we had to try it. It was really yummy. Adam and I got some too. Mine was called Fudge N' Udder (like Fluffernutter) and had chocolate ice cream, huge ribbons of marshmallow and chocolate covered peanut butter pieces. So good!

In front of Cows, but behind the cow. Some people passing by thought it was funny we were taking the picture by the cow's behind. I didn't even notice until afterwards. Oh, and who loves that I'm not in any pictures yet?

On Sunday we slept in and went to the farmer's market in the upper village. It was raining and most places didn't take our Visa card (we couldn't find an ATM that would accept our American debit card to get cash out) so we let the kids wander around, go inside a gondola that was for play, and then circled back and decided on buying some pumpkin fudge and maple walnut fudge and Adam bought me a basil pesto salad dressing that I had tried and loved, I was super excited. Madelynn and I went down for a nap again while the kids and Adam swam (seriously, those three swam for four days in a row and the kids still felt they didn't get to swim long enough). Afterwards we ate some dinner in the hotel room and then explored the village againd and let the kids go play at the playground near the Olympic Medal Pavilion that was under construction (they are making it into something more tourist friendly). Adam even bought me a hot chocolate from Starbucks (they have a new salted caramel hot chocolate that is sooo yummy) and then we went back to the hotel for the night.

Olivia and Jack are in the back of the gondola. I liked it because it got me out of the rain for a moment.

On the left is the cultural center. Whistler really is a beautiful area!

These are two pictures of our hotel. It was huge and seriously not busy. It is in between seasons right now so most people were there on Friday and Saturday night for the ski sale and then left.

Jack and Olivia admiring the waterfall in front of our hotel.

The ski lift area. The smaller hill in the front is where some of the younger bikers were practicing riding down switchbacks and they were dirty when they were done.

Just a building, but I liked it. It shows how pretty the village is.

My "I was here" picture. I only had my sweatjacket and was so cold! I definitely was not prepared. I found Madelynn and Jack's winter coats the morning we left and we ended up buying Olivia's winter jacket about an hour before we left and I'm glad we did. She would have been so cold!

The swing at the playground. It was more like a disk and I was so afraid someone was going to fall off of it.

The kids had a blast playing here. We stayed here for almost an hour. They liked to chase each other. Jack is in the middle climbing the log poles and Olivia and Madelynn are near the swing behind the bars. I'm behind the camera drinking my cocoa.

The swing was big enough to fit all three kids! I made Jack hold on to Madelynn though.

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving. We celebrated by sleeping in again and then going up to Brandywine Falls. It was cold outside but wasn't raining, so we braved the elements and drove to the falls. We only had to walk ten or so minutes until we got to the lookout point and they were beautiful. I'm super glad they had lots of bars and gates up so no one could fall (one of my worst nightmares) and I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the kids. It was nice being in nature and letting the kids explore things. Jack kept trying to climb in the vegetation instead of staying on the path. It was funny to see his annoyance at himself for falling over and over.

Brandywine Falls

The view away from the falls.

This nice couple offered to take our picture by the falls.

My toothless wonder. She is growing up too fast. It makes me sad.

This one was running around and I had to bribe him to smile for me without running away from me.

This one cannot be bribed. Almost all of her pictures we blurry or of the back of her head because she thought it was funny to run from the camera.

The falls from a further distance.

After the waterfalls we decided to go to the hotel and swim some more. I was ready to be done with swimming before we started but the kids stayed for almost two hours. Which means I marinated in the hot tub for about two hours (way beyong the recommendation of no more than 15 minutes on the hot tub rules). When we got back up to our room, it started to pour rain so Adam ran out to the village and picked up a pizza for dinner and then we bundled the kids up and braved the freezing rain for one last visit to Cows before we left the next morning. On our way back home the next morning, we even got to see a bear in the road. It was in the middle of the highway! It was either a baby or a smaller bear, but it was really cool to see one so close. I'm super glad he was not on any of the paths we took during our walks. There was always a sign warning us we were in "bear country" and to report any sightings. You know, if you survive seeing the bear. Adam and I weren't sure what to do if we saw one. I thought you were supposed to make yourself seem larger and louder to scare him off. Adam thought you were supposed to play dead ("Who came up with that? The bears?" Haha. Jim Gaffigan is funny. Speaking of Jim, we had to sell our Jim Gaffigan tickets because they were for the same weekend we were in Whistler. It was sad, but we are definitely not missing him next time).

Ahh... pool time. At the hotel, Madelynn would bring us her swimsuit first thing in the morning and would cry if she couldn't wear it. She could have lived there in the pool.

This is the inside pool. It was pretty small but it was shallow enough that Jack and Olivia could stand in it.

This is leaps and bounds from where Jack was the first day at the pool. He wouldn't leave the stairs (remember my summer post at our pool here at the apartments? He wouldn't leave the stairs either). Here is is standing in the middle of the pool and he even jumped in to Adam.

Adam would take the kids on "rides" and they loved it and would fight about whose turn it was.

Madelynn marinating in the hot tub. My kind of girl :)

This is the tunnel that you could use to go to the outside pool and hot tub. My kids just liked going in and out the flaps.

This is Jack's new "smile" that I don't like but is really funny. He squints his eyes, flares his nostrils, and does this goofy half-smile. When I take his picture I either have to get his smile naturally or make him actually laugh.

My three hooligans in the hot tub. Olivia loves life jackets because she can swim freely with them. My other two won't go near them so they're stuck with Adam and I.

One of my favorite times of the vacation (besides the naps... haha!) was after the kids were in bed. We would put Olivia and Jack on the sofa bed, separated by a pillow and put Madelynn in her portacrib and threaten them with no pool priveleges if they talked. Then we would sit outside the door, put in our earphones and watch Burn Notice Season 3. After one episode, we would sneak into the room, get into bed, and watch another episode. We kind of love Burn Notice. The other people in the rooms near us always joked that we were locked out or something, but we were practically the only people in the hotel for most of the nights we were there.

This is the mascot from the 2010 Olympic winter games. I don't remember his name, though.

We had so much fun on our trip. It was hard to get back into the swing of things once we were home! I loved spending so much time with my family and we are looking forward to our next trip, whatever (and whenever) that may be.