Anzac Day

Ok, Anzac Day was really Sunday but Cyp and Ellis got Monday off (darn Monday holidays - there are a lot of Monday/Friday holidays, which are Ellis's day to go to "school" - he gets a holiday, we still have to pay).

Anyway - dad had taken back their rental car that morning - did I mention he was planning to wash it the day before until I told him he was crazy. I told him that if he really wanted to wash a car, he could wash ours. He didn't take me up on my offer.

So we had to go somewhere close by - mom mentioned that we could have a picnic at the Botanical Gardens - good idea. G & G spent a lot of times at the Bot gardens in Australia - I think they went to the Sydney Bot gardens three times including the morning of their departure so it seemed right that they should go to the Bot gardens on their last day in Brizzy.

We all ended up walking over so Rowan would nap on the way and he did - only problem was that his mom parked the stroller the wrong way on the hill so he tipped over and woke up as we were having our picnic lunch. Oops.

Cyp spent the rest of our lunch guarding the boys as they ran back and forth on the outdoor stage. Every time Rowan got near the edge, grandma (who was sitting next to me on the picnic blanket) would tense up - she was ready to jump up and run the 5o metres to catch him if he went barreling over the edge. Fortunately she didn't have to - Rowan may have more of a daredevil in him, but he's still not stupid. Phew - we had been watching Aussie 60 min the night before about some guy that jumps out of planes without wearing a parachute - his friends with parachutes catch him. He has broken every bone in his body at least once. I don't think Ellis or Rowan got that extreme thing in them.

After lunch we ran around the kids area of the gardens - they have things for the kids to find - it's really quite good. There were tons of other people there that day - seems like people like to go fo picnics here. It was nice - they just plunk a blanket down in the middle of the garden. You don't really see that so much in Vancouver.

We headed home and had another swim. Ellis was a little reluctant - it has gotten a lot more chilly. Rowan still loves it but that may be because of the warm bath afterwards. While in the bath, Ellis was his usual how come self and I got tired of thinking up answers and said "can we have a moratorium on the how comes." Ellis paused. "ok, I won't say how come anymore." I felt bad for a couple of minutes, but I don't think I squashed his spirit as the how comes resurfaced shortly.

We finally made it to the Regatta Hotel for dinner - dad was confused about the hotel part - he thought it actually was, but they use hotel to refer to pubs here. It's was made more confusing by the fact that it is a 4 level building- yup, 4 levels of bars. We had dinner in the Boatshed - it technically should be nice and it mostly was, but it is right on Coronation Drive (which is right on the river - kinda like those other backward cities that built highways along the water - Toronto, Chicago etc) so you had to shout over the traffic noise and mom could smell fumes. They had great loot bags to keep the kids entertained, but Ellis decided to use their toothpicks instead - he made food art.

After dinner, Ellis wanted to walk home with grandma and grandpa and we kept saying "get in the car Ellis" he just looked at us and ran to the sidewalk and started walking home without anyone. Sigh. I told G & G that they'd better catch up. I drove Cyp home and then came back and found them along the route - they had made it pretty far. Ellis is a determined one.