Hats off to fun in the sun!

Mason and I had a blast today!  We left the house around 9am and headed down the street in the Zooper to attend the Hats Off Day in Burnaby.

Hats Off Day is when the Heights merchants "take their hats off" to their community and their customers and the entire Heights community celebrates together. It's a huge, one-day extravaganza featuring a colourful main-street style parade with real local flavour, and a big street party afterwards.\

I noticed when we left the house that the tires were low and couldn't find the air pump (yep the Zooper has some big ass tires!)  so my plan B was to head to the Shell gas siation.  I panicked a bit because by the time I got there, one of the tires was completely deflated and I was riding on the rim.  A couple of tries and I finally got it pumped up and we were ready to go!

I followed the Glaceau Vitamin Water dude down the block (my favorite drink) and snapped up a small sample.  I actually picked up a few samples.  Dog food, a pen, a sucker (who gives a Toddler a sucker?, a helium filled balloon, which was in the sky about a minute later,  an awesome headband from Heart Centre yoga and a few coupons for discounted pet food.  I double backed to the bank because I forgot to take cash and wanted to take advantage of the cheap food specials.  I settled on Sushi from Akira (?) Sushi.  I got 6 california rolls, a small package of edamame and a bottle water for $5.50! It wasn't spectacular but it filled me up.  I was planning on getting Mason a slice of pizza but he fell asleep amidst the crowd.

By that time we were downtown for 3 hours and I had seen everything I wanted to, even ran into my old boss Joseph and his family and Jody and his gf Rachel who I met for the first time.  Yay for redheads :)  by the time I got home I was winded, pushing at least 50lbs (buggy and Mason) up the hill I was pretty beat.  Upon entering the house Clayton says, "What happened to your face?" to which I figured I was red from being sweaty but once I was all cleaned up it was clear that I got a wee bit too much sun and have a slightly burned face, neck and patch on both arms.  Whoops.  I guess us Vancouverites are so used to the rain that it didn't occur to me that the sun might make an appearance later in the day.  I was careful to keep Mason in the shade all morning and he didn't get any sun.

Lesson learned.

So after our fun in downtown Burnaby, Mommy and Mason had a nice cat nap in the late afternoon.  He's battling a bit of a cold (and back molars coming in) and was in need of some shut eye.  So I took that opportunity to crawl into bed and have a snooze myself!

We woke up about 2 hours later, happy as clams and out the door we went.  First stop - the dollar store! Mason doesn't have much in the way of outdoor toys and what better place than to spend a few dollars (haha) on some plastic beach toys.  I then headed over to Shoppers DM to get some sunglasses cause 'someone' broke my last two pairs.  I spotted a set of great beach toys on a shelf for half off and bought those as well.  My kid now had TONS of things to play with.

Next stop, Safeway, to pick up some veggie deli items and head to the park.  Got our toys, food, camera, SUNSCREEN, blanket and other necessities and off we went to Confed park.  What a gorgeous day!  We had a great time munching on food while a zillion kids played in the background at the water/playground.  After dinner we headed to the sandbox, with new toys and I plopped Mason right in the sand (where he didn't move from for a half hour) and had a blast.  I was pretty shocked, not only did he not move but he didn't eat any sand either!  He was awesome, just played in the sand and watched the 'bigger' kids try to convince me to give them all his toys.  It's pretty funny how they behave.

So Mason is sitting in the sand with his bright colored toys around him.  Little girl says, 'oh I need this' and tries to take a shovel out of his hand.  Um no, you can take the toys he's not playing with but not the ones he is.  Then she tried to convince me that this giant shovel of Mason's was for 'big kids' and finally the best was when she took all his toys out of the sandbox (put them on the side) and said that's where she wanted them.  I quickly reminded her nicely that they were his toys and he was sharing and if she didn't play with them, he'd want them back.  For the most part, the kids all played well together. 

Eventually Mason started to shiver as his top was getting drenched with drool and the sun was going down so after an hour and a half of park fun, we were packed up and ready to go home.

What an awesome day!

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