Sharing Our City

Winnipeg, Manitoba, has always been special to Jason and me. We spent our honeymoon there, but that wasn't our only visit. We both traveled there with our families when we were young, visited twice with family and friends while dating and returned many more times. As we wandered around the Forks this morning with the children - who were enjoying their first trip to Winnipeg - I counted 10 visits together to this Canadian get-away. It made me smile - our 10th trip while celebrating our 10th anniversary. Unexpectedly romantic.

It was heart warming sharing one of our favorite cities with Gavin and Natalie - though naturally, a much different trip than all of the relaxing, slow-paced ones we'd enjoyed in the past. But we stayed downtown, showing them the beautiful architecture. We walked the gardens and the zoo, bet on horses at the race track, shopped downtown, played in a children's museum and rode up a glass elevator at the Forks. Sadly two of our favorite restaurants - Grapes and Medicine Rock Cafe - had closed since our last visit, but the kids warmed up to The Pancake House and even made it through a fancy meal at Earl's.

Driving back to the hotel from the grocery store Friday night - we made most of our meals in our hotel room kitchen - we stumbled across a water park at Central Park. The kids went wild in the car and we finally returned Sunday morning to let them run through the spray and splash in the wading pool. It was the most fun they had all weekend.

I love that in just a short car drive we can enjoy a city rich in culture, diversity and history. We can expose ourselves and our children to another language - French is all over everything, from road signs to our box of Honeynut Cheerios. We can experience what it's like to be the cultural minority - the kids were the only Caucasian children at the park and we were part of a very small Caucasian group shopping at the downtown mall. We can also pick up on all the similarities of Canada to the United States, including that our Midwest friendliness is much like the friendliness up North.

I can't wait until we can return.

Gavin making crafts at the Manitoba Children's Museum

Natalie and Daddy pretending to be beavers in the Children's Museum

Natalie and Gavin at the Leo Mol Sculpture Gardens

I'm getting better at the long-arm shots.

Gavin eating a Kinder Eier, only the most amazing chocolate in the world

Natalie and Gavin at Assiniboia Downs track

Ending our trip with a splash at Central Park's water park