Swimmin' at CG Brown

After Mason was finished dinner, I was thinking of what we should do for the evening and I figured that swimming was a good idea!  Nice warm pool on such a cold day!  So I looked online for an indoor pool in Burnaby and came up with:

c.g. brown memorial pool at 3702 Kensington Avenue

They had a loonie swim from 6:30-8:00pm.  Perfect! So we got ready to go, I packed Mason up and put my swim suit under my clothes and then realized that we were out of Little Swimmers!  A quick trip to the store would solve that.  I brought my coupon stash along as I thought I had some discounts for them.  It turns out that Shopper Drug Mart didn't have any (unless I was looking in the wrong spot) but they did have a lot of diapers on sale (note to parents who want to stock up!).  We then went to Safeway and found their little swimmers ($10.99 for 11) and then saw that their diapers were also on sale and I wanted to get Mason pull ups to help him with potty training.  They were $19.99 for 44 on sale for $15.99 and then I had a coupon for $4.50 off!  Woohoo!

Off to the pool we went.  Google map stated that once we were at Kensington and Sprott (heading South) that we had to do a u-turn.  Yeah well there is no left turn at that intersection so we had to keep going and I found a side street (Thomas st)  to turn right, onto and then get back on Kensington going North and then into the parking lot.

The parking lot is shared with the Gill Copeland Sports center and almost every space was full.  We got the last space before it became the ice rink parking.  Quite a chilly walk to the pool entrance.  Upon entering the pool we stopped at reception.  I just realized that I had no change for the locker.  Crap.  I was hoping they sold tokens (they don't) or at minimum had an ATM so I could take cash out and then pay for swimming (they don't - that I could see).  The Clerk was nice enough to give me a quarter :)

The clerk asked if I wanted to pay $1.00 to swim til 8pm (it was 7:30) or $2.00 to swim til nine.  I figured since it was close to bedtime, we'd do a quick swim.  Guess that'll learn me to leave earlier.  So we rushed into the change room.  It was cramped, small and packed with women and children.  We had a quick shower and then into the pool area.  There is one huge pool (for adults) with a cool slide and then off to the side is the fairly large children's pool, sauna, hot tub and weight room.  The kids pool was busy but not packed and had ample toys.  Once we got in, I was pleasantly surprised by how warm the water was!  Almost like the ocean at Mexico!  Very nice!  Mason and I swam around and the height was just up to his chin so he was able to walk around unaided.   1/2 hr came up quick.  I forgot to put our wrist bands on, so technically how do they monitor who paid til 8 or 9.  I guess it's an honor system.  I would have liked to say longer but it was getting close to Mason's bed time.

Hit the showers.  There are only 5 and there was a line up!  Grr.  We rushed to our locker to pull out the shampoo and soap and the room was like an icicle!  They seriously had AC on or something.  Brrrrrr.   Back to the showers and finally got a shower head after a few minutes but it had the pressure of a power washer and Mason freaked if I put him under it.  I was more concerned about getting the chlorine off of his delicate Ezcema skin, rather than my own (although I think the smell of chlorine is disgusting).

I kinda didn't see the point of paying for a locker if when you return from swimming you still need to unlock to get stuff and have a shower.  There were teeny weeny dressing room stalls where Mason and I bunked out so we could get changed.  It wasn't easy transferring clothes back and forth.  Finally him dressed, me dressed and we were out of there.

By the time I got home and unpacked, I realized that I left his swimsuit in the change room.  D'oh.  Guess we'll be going back soon!

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