Lily & Leo

Lily had her first  big trip to Canada!  I must warn you, this entree will have a lot of food pictures, so do not read when hungry! =P I was really nervous about how Lily would be on the plane, so we figured we’d try to pull a modern family and try to keep lily awake as long as naturally possible before the flight so that she’ll be sleepy and sleep on the plane.  She did get drowsy when we arrived at the airport, and eventually slept for maybe 10 minutes when we were going through check-in and security.  Then when we got on the plane, we gave her a bottle while we were taxi-ing, hoping she can drink as we take off to deal with the elevation change, but she finished it before we even took off.  But luckily she fell asleep in no time and slept through most of the plane ride!  She did so great and was a champ!  She didn’t seem to be affected by the elevation change at all!  When she woke up near the end of the plane ride, she was very curious and liked to look outside the window, and look at the people behind her.  Everywhere she went she attracted all these attention from everyone, just by smiling at them, people had to stop and say hello to her!  She sure is her father’s daughter =P.  We also had this AMAZING egg salad sandwich at the airport in Denver during out layover, it’s at this deli called Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli, and the sandwich is called the Hell’s Kitchen Sandwich.  It’s egg salad, with lettuce, tomatoes, swiss cheese, and a spicy chipotle sauce!!! Mhmmm, so good I had to give it a special shout out! haha.  So next time you’re there, GET IT!  It’s by the gates B80’s.

When we arrived at Jennifer and Andrew’s house, first thing I noticed when I got inside was a big pretty banner that said “Happy Birthday Lily!”  There were macarons and mini cupcakes on the table and when little Lily water bottles too!  They had dumplings and popcorn chicken as appetizers too which were really tasty with the dipping sauce.  They got take out from the Spicy Hut Thai Restaurant, and we got to try some really good food, my favorite was the duck curry!  The restaurant gave us free chicken fried rice and crunchy chicken as well since we ordered a lot of food!  What great service in Canada hey? Haha!  After our delicious meal, we all sat around while we all sang Happy Birthday to our Lily pad and ate a nice fruit cake that Andrew’s parents bought for Lily!  We then went to the living room and opened Lily’s birthday presents, she was actually interested in some of the clothes, maybe cause of the bright colors on some of them haha.  I think she still liked the tissue paper the most!  Thank you Chan family for throwing our Lily pad a wonderful party, she truly is so loved and you made us feel special for allowing us to share this with Canada (yes the whole country…haha)!  Our room was pretty much set up like a fancy hotel.
There were chocolates on our pillows, a little pack n play all set up for Lily, a little space heater to keep us warm at night, and even our cirque du soliel tickets were all printed out and ready for us at the desk, with a printed itinerary for the week as well!  We had complimentary bottles of eye drops too, talk about fancy!  Our bathroom was nicely decorated with 3 types of scented body wash, it had a brand new bottle of shampoo and conditioner, and one of the drawers under the sink was stocked with contact cases and solution for us, and the other drawer was stocked with diapers for Lily!  Wow!!!  We had our own set of towels hung up and even Lily had her own special froggie towel too!  Talk about a warm welcome!

Jennifer and Andrew took us to the First Alliance Church (a Christian church) so that we can experience our first Christian church experience.  It was quite interesting that they had free coffee and you can bring it inside.  It was a good experience, not the usual formal ritual that we’re used to, but I’m glad we got to see it!  The minister had a great message and it was all very practical and educational too.  I liked it!  After church we went to Thompson’s Resaurant at the Hyatt Hotel and got the all you can eat brunch buffet!  They had so much food, and they even had an omelette station and all sorts of desserts (my favorite part)!  They originally had plans for us to go to the Calgary Zoo but since it was snowing, we skipped that.  Instead we just hung out at the house and prepared some dip for game night that was held at Bobby and Ivy’s house!  Their house was SUPER nice and very modern.  We got to meet their cute little doggie Joey too, who even got his own seat at the table because he likes to be part of the party!!  They grilled some really tender yummy Alberta steaks and we improvised on the salad dressing but it came out pretty good (mixed some oil, balsamic vinaigrette, honey mustard, salt, pepper, and maple syrup!!).  Bobby had some pretty nice (and expensive) wine, and all the guys polished off 3 bottles of wine and took a shot of PB&J vodka…Lets just say Khoa was not in great condition that night, and I had to “clean up” after him…haha.

River Cafe

On Monday morning, Jennifer had a groupon deal for a Skin Science Make-Up Lessons.  The lady examined our skin and told us what we can do to keep our skin looking young and to present rapid aging and damage that can happen due to time and environment pollution/UV rays.  Then she taught us how to best put on make-up on ourselves, and then did our make-up so that we can look fabulous for the rest of the day haha!  Of course this groupon deal was super cheap, but the catch is you want to buy all their clinic products afterwards…but I’d say you must put some tender love and care to look good, so it was worth it! (I hope…haha).  We all went to lunch at the River Cafe by Prince’s Island Park, where Amanda’s friend Matthias happens to be a chef there.  He gave us complimentary oysters for visiting him, and boy were they good, I got to eat Khoa’s oyster since he hates seafood, woohoo!!  We then stopped by Yaunn Hautte Bakery, this really cute yellow house that has a whole bunch of macarons and other really good smelling pastries!  We went back to the house and played this new board game called Carcasonne, it is quite an addicting game that we went home (to the US) and bought one for ourselves to play!!! hehe.  We then had dinner at Cravings with their friends Diana and Sean, who would be babysitting Lily the next day! That place a Monday special where all pastas were only $5, so we ALL got pasta, woohoo!  They also had pizza, steaks, burgers, etc too.  I then got a really moist tre leches cake for dessert too, see the trend of this vacation so far…food food and more fooooood!

On Tuesday, Jennifer had to work, so we got to spend the day with Andrew!  For lunch we got these HUGE chicken schwarmas at Jimmy’s.  They were the BEST schwarmas ever and boy was it an adventure in eating it.  You cannot eat it without making a mess all over the table, your hands and face; we all felt like savages, but it was totally worth the mess haha.  He then took us to the TD mall to visit the Devonian Gardens!  I was super impressed because all the plants looked SO fake because it was SO perfect!  Lily really loved the garden, she liked looking at the funny monkey head sculptures on the wall, touching the plants, and watching the koi fishes swim.  The koi ponds were her favorite!!  She loved it so much she was bouncing with excitement and I thought she was going to dive in with them! Haha!  We then visited Jennifer at her office so Lily can play with the machines haha.

That evening we had a really good home cooked meal by Andrew and Jennifer (mostly Andrew), and boy were we stuffed!  We then dropped Lily off with Diana and Sean and saw and amazing cirque du soliel show, Amaluna, at the Calgary Stampede at The Grand Chapiteau!

It was so amazing what those people can do, and it was almost an all women cast!  Even the musicians were integrated into the stage and had their spotlight highlighted as well.  It was a round stage and so it would rotate allowing everyone in the audience to get a nice view.  Fun fact, did you know that cirque du soliel originated in Canada?  So how appropriate that we saw a show there! =)  Good job Jennifer for the suggestion!  After the show, we picked Lily up from Diana and Sean’s house, and they had green tea and sesame seed gelato with fresh fruit salad all ready for us!!  Talk about the best babysitter ever!!  Thanks so much Diana and Sean for being such wonderful sitters for Lily, she had a great time, and we enjoyed your desserts a lot too!!!!!

On Wednesday, we had most of the day to ourselves since both the Chans were at work.  So I got a massage at Jennifer’s massage place she likes to go too, and got a nice relaxation massage!  Afterwards, Khoa and Lily picked me up and we got lunch at a really good thin crust pizza place called Without Papers!  They were playing Toy Story 3 at the restaurant, what an awesome place right??? Haha. We then we went at the Chinook Mall!  I hit up all the stores that we didn’t have in the states, and they have some nice clothes, but I only ended up getting a few things from one store, called Suzy Shier!  There’s a carousel there too and Lily was curious to see what that was all about haha.  We all got dinner at Notable and that was a recently new restaurant that opened up and it was really good!  Everything we ordered from the soup, the appetizers to the entrees were just really well done!  It was a very enjoyable meal.

Thursday we had lunch at Over Easy Breakfast Co.  They had really good Benedict eggs, breakfast bagels, waffles, french toasts and more!  The decor of the place was really cute too from the lights to the ceiling art!  The girls then got dropped off at home while the boys went go-karting, however the karting place was full to they went to shoot guns instead at an indoor shooting range!  Jennifer and I watched Glee while Lily napped and then we took Lily to the local Farmer’s Market!  The market was quite impressive.  It was a really big indoor market with tons of fresh produce and lots of food!  They even had samples at some of the food stations!  They had some other miscellaneous shopping stations as well, with a kid’s play area and live music performers too.  It was pretty fun place, I wish I knew of a market like that near home!

After that, we all met back at home so that we can go to dinner with Amanda, Diana and Sean again at an all you can eat Hot Pot place!!!  I NEVER experienced this type of hot pot eating style before, so it was quite and interesting experience.  The had all sorts of meats and veggies and tons of dipping sauces.  They even had a variety of special drinks, including sugar cane juice too!!  They had a lot of ice cream flavors and hot bean soups as well.  Jennifer likes to eat her red bean soup with vanilla ice cream, it sounds weird, but it’s a really yummy idea haha!

Friday Jennifer took us to a good sushi place called Globefish, it’s right outside the Chinook Mall.  We then went into the mall so that Jennifer and Khoa can get some really good coffee at Phil’s and Sebastian’s Coffee shop!  Then we headed home so I can rest a little bit to ease the flu symptoms.  They she took us to this cute little park behind their house to take some photos of Lily, then we went to Prince’s Island Park for some husband and wife photos!  We then met up Andrew at Shikiji Ramen for some super delicious ramen!  We had a reservation, but we had a wait a bit for this family to clear out, so they gave us complimentary appetizers of these mushrooms on a cracker…it was tasty! Haha.  After dinner we went back home and had our last game of Carcasonne!!

You can see more pictures from our vacation here!  I wanted to say and big THANK YOU to Jennifer and Andrew for working so hard to setting up our room and bathroom for our stay at their home.  We appreciate all the efforts and hard work you’ve gone into making our stay as comfortable as possible!!  Lily definitely had a great time and put that play mat to use as well!  We could not have had a better time without you guys!  Thanks for taking us around and showing us the sights and introducing us to all the yummy food places.  So now I’ve saved the best for last!  Check out this beautiful video Jennifer made that documented Lily’s 1st Visit to Canada!!  Thank you so much Jennifer for making this time capsule for us, so that we can show Lily one day her first vacation to the great white north!  We miss you both already, we hope to come back again soon! =)

Lily Visits Canada from J.N. on Vimeo.