Canada Day celebrations at Ron McLean Park

This year we considered going to Stevenston for their annual salmon festival. I heard their barbecue salmon was delicious but what we really wanted to do was to have Tristan take part in the children's bike parade. We just couldn't decide so we ended up not going. It would have been nice to dress Tristan up and decorate his bike but we couldn't do it at the last minute. Plus, we had to be there at 8:30AM, which is super early for us! Maybe we'll be more prepared next year.

We also considered Granville Island and Burnaby Village Museum. There were so many things happening everywhere for Canada Day. In the end, we just wanted to stay close to home and the closest festival to us was actually at Ron McLean Park. It was a 8-10 minute walk from our home and it was probably as good as anywhere else. The other nice thing about this park was that the celebration didn't start until 11AM. I got to sleep in until almost 9AM! Woohoo!

It's pretty crazy. We have been living in this neighborhood for years and we have never been to the Ron McLean Park Canada Day celebration. We ended up spending a couple hours at the park. There were lots of games for kids. I tried to get Tristan to swing the hockey stick at the goalie but he wasn't interested. He wasn't interested in any throwing game either. We sat and watched some entertainment on the stage. They had folk dancers, music, and people came out doing tai chi. There lots of food stands as well. All the food was a bargain and everything was for fundraising. I bought a smokie and pop for $3 and Tristan and I shared the smokie for lunch. Jean-Louis drank the pop. I also noticed watermelon slices were $0.25 each but Tristan didn't want any.

There was a playground and Tristan was more interested in that than the other activities. He saw one of his daycare friends there and was sort of following her around. He was too shy to say hello since she was playing with a group of other kids. We noticed so many kids were dressed in red and white for Canada Day!

There was a fire truck and Tristan got to look inside. There was a police car and all the kids were taking turns sitting inside. Some pretended to be criminals and sat in the back seat. Every now and then the police siren would go on. Lol. What can you expect when you let little curious kids sit inside a police car?

We lined up for the bouncy castle but Tristan was scared when he was inside. He tried to climb up but had trouble and we told him he didn't have to leave yet. Anyway, he cried a bit so we just removed him. We ended up lining up for the pirate ship bouncy castle. It was an open ship so he wasn't as scared. He could also see us too. After bouncing around, he wanted to go again but we ran out of time. It's funny because last year we went in a bouncy castle just like the enclosed one at this park and he wasn't scared at all.

We got home nice and early and started our little barbecue. Just the three of us. Hot dogs, veggie dogs, grilled bananas/mangoes, tomato salad, chips, and lemon/fruit tarts for dessert. By 6:30PM we were done eating and done cleaning up. That's an entire hour earlier than what we are used to! Hooray for celebrating Canada Day near home! :)

Hope all my Canadian readers had a fabulous Canada Day too!