🍿 The Princess Bride Tonight + 2 Free Block Parties This Weekend

Here’s what’s inside this issue:

We tell kids to calm down, focus, stop worrying and be brave. Useful advice. Slight issue: none of it offers how.

SKY Kids is a four-afternoon program from the Art of Living Foundation for children ages 8–12, led by Nayna Trehan, a certified SKY Kids instructor coming in from Montreal. It combines age-appropriate breathing practices with movement, games, teamwork and group activities. The goal is to give kids a simple practice they can keep using after the program ends—not merely occupy four late-summer afternoons, although that part is also doing some work here.

Exclusive to The Cambie Memo community: The first five children registered through the link below by tonight, Tuesday, August 25 at 11:59 p.m., will receive a $20 Indigo eGift card from Girish Limaye, the Vancouver dad organizing it.

After registering, email CAMBIE to [email protected].

The Move
This is for families looking for something more practical than simply telling a child not to worry as September approaches.

Read through the program page, make sure the approach fits your family, and email Girish with questions before registering.

🔗 Details and registration: SkyKidsVancouver.ca

The Princess Bride is taking over Douglas Park tonight.

Bring a blanket, claim a patch of grass and settle in for sword fights, true love and at least a few lines you'll remember you know by heart.

The Move
Bring chairs or a blanket, snacks, and an extra layer once the sun goes down. Outdoor screenings get called off for rain, so check before you load the car.

An outdoor movie right in Cambie Village, on a Tuesday night, with no elaborate family logistics required?

As you wish. 👑

The PNE Fair is officially open, which means SuperDogs, rides, questionable-but-irresistible fair food and the annual realization that we will apparently pay money to be spun in circles.

It runs through Labour Day, Monday, Sept. 7, from 11 a.m.–11 p.m. The Fair is closed Monday, Aug. 31.

Going midweek is cheaper — but only for the adults. These are the advance/online prices, before fees:

So if you were shifting the whole family to a Tuesday to save money: the savings are real, but they're mostly yours.

And here's the part worth knowing before everyone is standing at the gate:

Fair admission does NOT include rides. Ride passes are separate, quantities are limited, and the PNE says they can sell out.

Going to a Summer Night Concert? Don't accidentally buy admission twice. Concert tickets purchased online already include your Fair admission.

The Move
Buy the ride pass ahead of time if rides are the whole point of the trip. And download your actual mobile tickets before leaving home — there's no public Wi-Fi at the Fair, and the PNE asks for the original ticket file rather than a screenshot.

Basically: tickets downloaded, ride situation sorted, then go eat something that has absolutely no business being deep-fried.

PNE Fair schedules, tickets + map

If your family considers dumplings a perfectly reasonable reason to drive 35 minutes, here's your weekend assignment.

The Kimchi & K-Food Festival takes over Coquitlam's Town Centre Park for two days of Korean food, K-pop, culture and a frankly dangerous number of things you'll want to eat.

There'll be K-street food and food trucks, hanbok photo opportunities, K-beauty, a Squid Game challenge, performances and dance competitions running throughout the weekend. Friday is the dance day: the K-pop random dance kicks off at 4:30 p.m., with the cover dance championship finals at 7:10 p.m. Saturday brings a live kimchi-making demonstration at noon and the breaking battle, with finals at 7:10 p.m.

The Move
If the hands-on kimchi-making class was your main attraction, don't promise it to the family just yet — the festival's ticket page currently shows it as sold out. The rest of the festival still has plenty you can simply show up for.

Why It Matters
Free to get in, genuinely fun for multiple ages, and enough food involved that nobody needs to ask, "But what are we doing for dinner?"

Festival details + schedule

A little calendar nudge for anyone who loves cheap books and the dangerous confidence that there's definitely room for one more bookshelf.

The Friends of the VPL Used Book Sale is back this weekend, with gently used books, DVDs, CDs and more for all ages.

Proceeds go back into special Vancouver Public Library projects and programs.

The Move
If you're hunting for kids' books, go earlier in the sale rather than treating the final afternoon like a treasure-hunting strategy.

And seriously: bring a bag. Preferably one with ambitious structural integrity.

Book sale details

Four things happening this Saturday, Aug. 29. Pick one. Pick two if you're feeling ambitious and everyone slept.

Carolina Street is closing down for an afternoon of food, music, shopping and kid stuff this Saturday.

The first Off Broadway Block Party is bringing together a bunch of Mount Pleasant favourites — with enough going on that you can actually make an afternoon of it.

For the children: free cotton candy from the BIA, face painting by La Luna, and DIY acrylic bookmarks at Perfect Match Bookshop.

For the grown-ups: vintage shopping, Anna's Cake House treats, Blumen Florals, DJs from The Lido and plenty of local businesses to poke around.

There's even a doggie area from Baby D's, because apparently everyone gets a Saturday plan.

The Move
Come hungry, let the kids make a bookmark and get their faces painted, then wander the block. No tickets. No elaborate planning.

See everything happening

Here's a nice little Saturday two-for-one:

Start with Stanley Park Ecology's Learn Your Ferns! walk — a beginner-friendly wander through the forest learning to recognize common ferns, trees and other local plants. You'll also get into the surprisingly dramatic question of why some plants get labelled "invasive."

Learn Your Ferns

Then grab some lunch and wander over to the Nature House at Lost Lagoon for Family Eco-Hour from 1:30–2:30 p.m. Kids 5–12 can drop in for hands-on activities exploring Stanley Park's plants, animals and ecosystems. It's $5 per child, and no advance registration is needed.

The Move
Book the fern walk ahead — it doesn't allow drop-ins — then treat Eco-Hour as the optional second half if everyone still has some nature left in them.

Basically: learn the ferns in the morning, investigate the rest of the forest after lunch. Not a bad Saturday.

Learn Your Ferns details + registration

If Saturday needs a low-effort kid plan, Kingsgate Mall has one.

Their Back-to-School Carnival is back with games, crafts, prizes, refreshments and sweet treats.

There's also free ice cream with any purchase at VT's Café, while quantities last.

The Move
Go earlier if the ice cream matters. "While quantities last" is parent code for don't show up at 2:47 expecting miracles.

See the carnival post

VanDusen is celebrating its 51st birthday this weekend, and members get a few extra perks.

The details:

Each active member can bring one free guest per day, so family memberships can make this a particularly good deal.

The Move
Go for the 8 a.m. member hour if you can. You get the Garden before regular opening, then take your free guest up to Bloedel later in the day.

Basically: one membership, two gardens, one free friend.

See the Member Appreciation details

Three things that don't happen this week but will be gone if you wait until they do.

Consider this your one-week warning.

The annual Aritzia Warehouse Sale opens next Tuesday, Sept. 1, with discounts of 50–90% off jackets, coats, denim, dresses, pants, accessories and more.

And yes, this is that sale. The one with the enormous lineups and people who have historically decided sleep is optional when discounted Wilfred is involved.

There's also a Friends & Family preview on Monday, Aug. 31, but that one isn't the public opening day.

The Move
Decide now whether this is worth entering your calendar. This is not a casual "maybe we'll pop by" kind of sale.

If you're just going to browse?
I support you emotionally. Your wallet may have other opinions.

Sale dates, hours + venue info

We went looking at the blacksmithing classes and found a few things parents should probably know about instead.

Fall registration is open, and Burnaby Village Museum has some genuinely good one-off programs tucked into the guide:

The Move
The free archaeology workshop and the $38 Night at the Museum would be our first clicks. Forging filling up before September is your evidence that this is one of those "future you will be pleased you dealt with this now" things.

See all the fall programs + register

Kids Market is already planning its Christmas Craft Fair, and this one comes with a pretty great twist: the vendors are kids.

They're looking for young makers ages 6–14 to set up shop and sell their own handmade creations at Granville Island this November.

The Move
If your kid is the one making bracelets, crocheting tiny animals, painting cards or quietly running a small manufacturing operation from the dining-room table, email Kids Market now. Fourteen spots is not a lot.

📧 [email protected]

Why It Matters
It's not another class where kids learn about entrepreneurship. They make something, price it, put it on a table and see whether an actual human wants to buy it.

Tiny business school. With Christmas crafts.

P.S. Somewhere in the Corridor there is a kid with a bin of handmade bracelets and a very clear opinion about pricing. Fourteen tables. First come, by email. If you know that kid's parent, forward them this issue — they will either laugh or immediately start drafting an email, and both outcomes are good.