Madeline has seen the snow before but I really don’t think she remembers it from last year.  We had an unexpected snowfall overnight (we usually have one or two a year maximum!).  You need to act fast in Vancouver in order to get the kids the chance to play in the snow.  It is very rare for the snow to last more than a few hours. 

We woke up and immediately the plan was to get the kids out on the sled as soon as possible before school.   It was good that daddy didn’t have to go to work so he had some extra time for them to explore.  Here are the first few photos of Madeline exploring the snow.  In the last photo she looks annoyed at how cold it is!!

This is pretty cool!	Ryan has a lot more experience in the snow!

…just a little annoyed at the cold

Ryan can be such a good brother and loved taking her for a ride on the sled.

It was a great vacation.  It wasn’t as relaxing as we might have wanted as both Ryan and Madeline were very restless whenever we were in the room.  The hotel we stayed at had a wonderful pool with a great water slide.  The nice thing with this water slide was that they let you wear your floaty as you went down.  Ryan was a bit nervous about going down the slide without a floaty and in the end (the last few days) he finally had the confidence to go down without his floaty as long as daddy was there to catch him.

Madeline (as I mentioned in an early post) loves to go down slides, and if Ryan goes down a slide by himself she wants to go down by herself.  Now, we were very nervous to let her go down the slide by herself but after days of insisting we finally let her – she did great the first time down and insisted on going down again!  The second time she did a flip at the end and it scared her a bit (she didn’t cry) so that was it for her.  She actually said “with daddy” meaning if she went again it would be with daddy.

The resort where we stayed was quite windy and a bit cool (mid 70s) so that made for some chilling swimming.  We would go down the water slide for about a half hour then sit in the hot tub.  We discovered that if we drove 5 minutes to the baby beach it was much warmer with no wind. 

I love going to Maui because the rainbows are so amazing.  In this photo I was able to catch a rainbow at the last second with Ryan.  The other rainbow was taken from our hotel room window.

There is a really big playground close to Grace’s parents home in LA.  Ryan is asking to go there everyday and finally when we had the chance to go, both kids were very excited.  I get a real kick out of how Ryan teases Madeline about being careful not to fall in the water at the start of the video.

As I mentioned in an earlier post Ryan can be a good brother.  This is a rare occasion and when he’s being an angel I usual grab the camera.  As you probably already know Ryan is a very strong reader and wants to share his abilities with his little sister.  We have a book called Truck Duck where each the first word rhymes with the second word.  Madeline loves this book.

Here is a video of Ryan being a great big brother and helping to read a book to his sister (Ryan reads the first word and Madeline reads the second word).

We have a family tradition where daddy gets invited to teach the high school kids on their fall getaway to Whistler.  It usually ends up being a mini vacation for us because we get to hang out in Whistler and have a nice hotel room for the weekend.  We also have a great time with the parents and students (who love Ryan and Madeline).

This was the first year for Madeline to come up to Whistler with us!

Check out this very cute video of Madeline eating her spaghetti.  She didn’t really eat all day and by the time the food arrived she was loving it!  Check it out!!