Seattle & Canada Trip

Summer break is over and my big girls are back at school. I can't believe how quickly the Summer flew by. Part of me feels like we didn't really do much or hardly go anywhere this Summer, but then I remember, hey, we just came back from Canada! Ha!

If you're following Little Hiccups on Instagram then you will have been seeing photos from our recent trip to Seattle and Canada over the past few weeks. I have so much to share with you from our trip as we went to so many amazing places - and as always, I took a gazillion photos! For now I thought I'd share an overview of our trip with a few highlights from each place we visited.

So here's a look at our trip to Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria...

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

One last post from our recent trip to Canada...

On our last full day in Canada we visited Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, a short drive north of Vancouver's Downtown. 

Family in the forest

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park has many attractions to keep visitors busy, but the highlight is, you guessed it, the suspension bridge! 

Out and about in Vancouver

Our move into our new apartment is all done and dusted so it's time to get back to writing a few more posts about our recent trip to Canada.

This time let's have a look at a day we spent out and about exploring the beautiful city of Vancouver...

We spent out third day in Vancouver wandering around various places. We did a little shopping, visited Canada Place, took in the views from high above the city at Vancouver Lookout, walked across the bridge to Granville Island where the kids played in the water park, tasted a few local brews at Granville Island Brewing Company, caught a water taxi and walked along the beach watching the sun set over the harbour.

Vancouver Lookout

Vancouver Aquarium

One of the girls' favourite places that we visited in Canada was Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. Both Ava and Lola are pretty obsessed with sea creatures so I knew that the aquarium would be a big hit with them.

There were plenty of familiar sea creatures to see and a few that we hadn't seen before, including our new favourite, the beluga whale. Beluga. I love that word!

First up for the day was the beluga whale show. The keepers demonstrated how they interact with these majestic creatures on a regular basis, explained how these whales came to be at the aquarium and taught us a little about their environment, the perils they face in the wild and the research that is being done to learn more about them. 

The beluga whale show

A day in Vancouver's Stanley Park

Stanley Park in Vancouver is gigantic.

This wooded piece of land at the end of Downtown Vancouver is roughly 400 hectares. That's pretty much equal to the size of our very own Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco and approximately 10% larger than New York's Central Park.

Our hotel in Vancouver was located close to the entrance of Stanley Park so it was the logical place to visit on our first day in this beautiful city. We had planned to just spend the morning going for a short walk in Stanley Park before heading on to another location. Quite a few hours and 10kms later we found ourselves walking the entire length of the seawall around Stanley Park. Ava was pretty proud of the fact that she walked the entire way. No mean feat for a six year old.

Vancouver Rowing Club at the start of our walk 

Along our walk around Stanley Park we took in the beautiful views over the city and stopped at various landmarks and attractions.

Enjoying the sun

Vancouver Celebration of Light

Ok, so I'm skipping a little further ahead here but I couldn't wait to share these pictures from tonight.

We're currently in Vancouver, and have been for a few days, however I'm a little behind with my posts about our trip. I was trying to keep them in order but I'll skip ahead just this once...

We've been really lucky that our stay in Vancouver has coincided with the first night of the annual Celebration of Light festival. Celebration of Light is Vancouver biggest event and the largest offshore fireworks competition in the the world. Each year three countries compete for the title over three different nights. Tonight's spectacular display was courtesy of the United Kingdom. Canada and Thailand will also be competing however we won't be here to see their displays.

I've seen some pretty amazing fireworks displays in my time (New Year's Eve 2003 over Sydney Harbour springs to mind) but this was definitely the biggest display I've ever seen and we were lucky to be able to see it so close up. 

Pictures speak louder than words so here's a look at the amazing fireworks from this evening...