Frogs on Granville

Life: We spent this weekend up in Vancouver visiting Ameen's family. Was a nice, relaxing trip. Saturday was intermittently blustery - we ran through some storms while passing through Bellingham, then it just sort of rained. Sunday, however, was sunny and bright -- a picture perfect spring day in the northwest.

Ameen spent about 15 years of her life studying, then printing/art making, on Granville Island in Vancouver. Whenever we're in Vancouver, Ameen gets an amazing itch to head to Granville. It's a lovely place, so of course I also now get this itch. For anyone visiting Vancouver, you can find out more at www.granvilleisland.com.

We got a chance to catch up with our good friend Peter who owns and runs New Leaf Editions, a fine printmaking studio on the island. Peter's a tad eccentric, and amongst other interesting Peter-isms, he has an exhaustive collection of frogs. Nayan was fascinated by the 40+ odd years of frog collecting Peter's been doing. His studio is full of frogs - coat hanger frogs, clock frogs that sing Irish drinking tunes, dancing frogs with red rubber tongues, and dead Japanese ones with a zipper instead of legs to hold coins, to name a few.

One of the joys of parenthood is seeing the fascination and enjoyment of the simple every day things we long since learned to tune out. Ananya, at the site of some rather standard ducks, was shreaking like a very happy banshee.