Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé visit Kayla

Here are all the pics from the visit. Don’t forget to keep checking out Cheryl’s blog for more Kayla updates.

It’s been almost a week since Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé left, to head back to Ontario, and I’m still sorting through all the pictures from the trip :)

Kayla was superbly behaved the entire time, and we all had a great time touring her around, and showing her off to anyone who came within squealing distance. Grandma and Grandpa arrived on Friday night, just after my last day’s work until mid September. What better way to start off a paternity leave than to have family come to visit and help out with the baby!

I think it is safe to say that Kayla took center stage the entire week:
 

Our Saturday was fairly laid back, mostly playing with Kayla with a trip to Fry’s on the side. I don’t know how many pictures I have of us just playing with Kayla, but here are a few…

I think dad was pretty excited to hear that we were going to be fishing salmon in the Puget Sound on Sunday. We had Cheryl’s planning and execution to thank for that one… Luckily enough the tour guide (Keith) called for us to start two hours later than normal, so instead of having to be up at Shilshole Bay Marina by 6am we were able to saunter over there by 8. Waking up at 4:45am would have been much more painful than our 6:45am wake up time.

Anyhow it was a cold day out on the sound, much colder than we had expected. We had a lot of action on the line, just not the action we wanted. I don’t even know how many sharks dad and I caught, but there were many. These were all small sand sharks, so primarily a pest for our tour guide – they ate our bait, and we lost a lot of tackle to them, so in addition to hitting our line they hit our tour guide’s bottom line. We also were plagued by a bunch of flounder.

Once I pulled up a flounder that felt heavy on the line, then much lighter… When I brought it up, all there was left on the line was a head – a sand shark had bitten the rest off!

Dad had a pretty sizeable salmon on the line for a short period of time, but it didn’t make it into the boat. He caught a small one that had to be released, and I caught a ridiculously small one that could have passed for a large minnow. Other than that we didn’t see a ton of salmon which was a bummer for our tour guide who has to wash his whole boat out with soap every time he gets skunked.

We were ‘mooching’ which is a form of drift fishing  neither of us had done in the past – essentially you’re at the rod 100% of the time, letting the bait drop in a controlled manner to a desired depth, then slowly reeling up and repeating.

Here are a few photos we took:

Well, at the end of the day we didn’t have any salmon, so we went to the local seafood store and bought ourselves the nicest cut of Yukon River Alaskan Salmon we could find. Dad prepared it on the grill, and I have no doubt it was the best salmon to come off my grill ever. So good.

The next day we were off to Whistler!

This was Kayla’s first trip to Whistler, and I am pretty sure she loved it. We stayed at The Aspens, which worked out pretty well. The main idea was to travel Monday, bike Tuesday/Wednesday, and head back on Thursday. Kayla slept from Seattle, all the way to Squamish, so that was our first stop! This was an outstanding achievement - I’m very rarely able to go that far without having to stop for a bathroom break for Cheryl.

We were lucky enough to be in Whistler at the same time as our friends Alana, Ryan, and their daughter Arwen. This meant that Kayla had a few play-dates during the week.

Here are some pictures of Arwen and Kayla playing:

Grandma and Grandpa were great help, taking full care of Kayla while Cheryl and I went biking:

The mountain was so nice without all the weekend traffic. Cheryl, Ryan and I biked on Tuesday, and we were able to get out late, and still get a full day in easily. There were very few clogged runs, and the lift lines were short to non-existent. This was Ryan’s first downhill day at Whistler, and I think he really enjoyed it. Barring one minor fall it was mostly an injury free day!

A pic of Cheryl and I up at the top of Garbanzo, then one of Kayla, Grandma, Grandpa, and myself at the base:

I was renting a bike since mine had an issue with the hub that needed solid attention. The bike I rented from Summit (Rocky Mountain Flatline Park) performed really well though, so I wasn’t too bummed out about it at all.

On the second day I picked up the biking intensity a notch, and other than one top-to-bottom I sessioned A-Line, and Dirt Merchant all day. The singles line was empty, so I was able to do 15 minute round trips which meant I got a lot of value for my 4 hour rental :)

Meanwhile, back at The Aspens, Grandma, Cheryl, and Kayla were playing in the pool. I was concerned Kayla would really not like the pool since I’m signed up for weekly baby swim lessons with her, but wow, she really took to the water this time! I’m no longer concerned about my upcoming swim lessons with Kayla :)

Grandma/Kayla, and Cheryl/Kayla at the pool:

 

One night Grandma/Grandpa offered to babysit Kayla while Cheryl and I went out to the Keg!

Champagne and steak after a day sessioning Dirt Merchant and A-Line… Does it get any better? I think not.

Well, I could go on and on about Whistler, but here are some other random photos we took:

While in Vancouver, Cheryl was able to meet up with Kelly, and Owen, so Kayla had yet another play-date!

On the way back to Vancouver we went to Steveston to eat seafood by the seashore:

Kayla did not eat seafood.

Back in Seattle, we spent a lot more time playing with Kayla.

We went to the locks which is where the salmon ladders are. Here we were able to see a ridiculous amount of salmon try to make the journey up to spawn. We were lucky enough to show up at high-tide which is when you see a lot more salmon than at other times of the day.

Here are a few pics from the locks:

After hanging out at the locks we went over to 11th and Denny for a Polish beer tasting with Shawn. Kayla especially liked anything that came in a cold bottle…

Back at home we invited Shawn, Henry, and Trang over to celebrate Kayla’s 1/2 year milestone. She has made it 6 months now, and is in perfect health – 50% in weight, and 90% in length.

Here are a few pics from the party:

 

Well, we had covered a lot of ground with Kayla over the time that Grandma and Grandpa were here. Grandpa Sauvé helped fix almost everything that was broken with our house, and Grandma helped a lot with Kayla, and even ridded her of the cradle cap she had been sporting since she was only a few weeks old.

All in all I think it was a great time! Cheryl spent some time posting about one of Kayla’s newest achievements “scooching” – also prompted by Grandpa and Grandma – I believe it was Grandpa’s watch that Kayla was so excited about – she had to pull herself over to it :) Check out the videos here.

Until next time!