The Third Annual Wyers Family Adventure Day is officially under wraps!

There are so many things that I wanted to do this year for our adventure day that I just have to put on the back burner until Maverick is a bit older. And hopefully much, much less crazy.

My initial idea was to go whale-watching, but for anyone that has looked into it or done it before it is not cheap. It was going to cost the four of us over $400 for an excursion. Tourist-trap inflation much?

I thought that both of the kids would love to go out on a boat, and given that Archer has a recent fascination with fishing, I thought it would be perfect to charter our own little boat.

I ended up letting Brad in on the surprise before I booked a small boat through Granville Island Boat Rentals. I had to make sure he was okay driving the boat himself, because I certainly don’t know the first thing about operating a boat. Nor do I have any desire to learn. This option wasn’t exactly inexpensive, but it was much more reasonable.

We had an early morning, managing to leave the house before 7:30 am, which is quite the shocking feat for us! We stopped at Timmy’s for breakfast and coffee on the go and made it to the docks at Granville Island before the recommended arrival time of 8:30 am. (This never happens. We are not early people.)

The kids both willingly put on life jackets and got into the boat with us. Which is winning at life when a 1.5-year-old is concerned. Archer took his usual indifferent stance at first and it didn’t take long before Maverick was putting up a fuss about his life jacket. As we meandered out of the marina, they were both pretty interested in looking around at the other boats and the water.

Once we opened it up and really got going, they were both amazed by our surroundings. And once we stopped and Brad held Maverick over the edge of the boat so he could touch the water, we were golden! They were loving it.

Brad set up a fishing rod for Archer and after months of begging to go fishing, he was finally in a boat with a rod and reel in his hands. He was fishing.

Brad thinks he lasted 15 minutes. I think he’s being very generous with his time estimate. As soon as Maverick was setting up for a snack, Archer had enough of fishing and wanted a snack, too. He hadn’t caught any fish in that very short amount of time anyways, so what was the point, really?

The weather could’ve been better, it could’ve been worse. But we saw several dolphins, visited Lighthouse Park, saw the Lion’s Gate Bridge and Stanley Park. On our way back, we were even visited by a seal, who looked like he/she came right up to the boat to say hello.

Since it was a special day, we stopped in at Lee’s Donuts for a treat. The sun was starting to come out so we sat outside and enjoyed some live music while trying to avoid the greedy birds.

Granville Island and the boat rental ended my solid plans for our adventure day, but Maverick had already missed his nap at home so we took advantage of the sunshine and went to the PNE. Both kids loved the Superdogs show and the CN Rail mini-train that we were able to ride on.

I thought that the real adventure part of the day would have been eclipsed by the cotton candy and busy crowds at the PNE, but I am happy to report that when we asked Archer what his “best of the day” was, he reported that the boat trip and being visited by the seal were the highlight of his day.

My mama-heart swelled.

Brad said that was his favourite, too, but he’s a smart husband. I expected no less.

This weekend came with such great timing for us as a family. We needed that free day, away from responsibilities and cares for anything other than having fun together.

I’ve now declared it mandatory. The Port Moody Wyers Clan will leave our cares behind to spend a fun family adventure day together … not on a schedule or anything, but definitely more often than we have been.

And with that, we prepare to go camping this weekend!

Riding the happy wave,

Anya