Our poor deprived children have been whining that they have never left the country before, so we decided to get passports and head to Vancouver, BC Canada for a family trip. Rick's older sister Kristen and her daughter Danielle came with us too.
We were surprised to see that all the "beaches" were just on the bay since it is made of 100's of islands. It was BEAUTIFUL scenery, but wasn't the same as the open ocean.
We enjoyed spending a morning checking out Stanley Park, which is an island/rain forest in the middle of city.
There is a walking/biking trail all the way around the island that was full of joggers and the kids couldn't help jogging back to the car to try it out.
The park had all kinds of these trees that were HUGE and hollow in the middle, which were fun photo opportunities.
We couldn't have asked for better weather while we were there so the kids were able to swim each day in the hotel pool.
We kept our eye out, but unfortunately this was the only Mounty we saw while we were there.
The main reason we picked Vancouver to go to was to check out the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. Everybody was surprised that I would even contemplate it since I have major anxiety issues with things like this! This sign that put things in perspective at the beginning of the main bridge made me feel a lot better though.
The main bridge went all the way across a huge canyon and was LONG. It was hard to walk across with it swaying like crazy - it felt like you were in a wave pool.
But check me out, I even have a smile on my face!
I made it across, but not gonna lie - my heart was beating pretty fast when I got back on solid ground!
The rest of the group wasn't bothered by it at all...even though we all had a hard time walking steadily across.
There were lots of smaller suspension bridges, board walks through the forest and a string of bridges that went for awhile along the top of the canopy of the rain forest. This one was pretty crazy that it went out around the cliff like it did. Luckily it was solid and didn't move though!
One of the afternoons we drove around to look at the various Olympic venues, stadiums and the cauldron and then went out to see the temple. It is one of the small ones, but unique from the small designs we have here and of course beautiful.
The kids always love getting souvenirs...we couldn't help snap a picture when Blake and Danielle were twins trying on their new shirts at the hotel.
Ashlyn wanted to wait to find something else besides a t-shirt, but ended up getting sick the last 2 days of our trip and was pretty miserable, so she never picked anything out except for her new soccer gear we got earlier on the trip. She was pretty sad when we got home and she realized it.
The last day we were there we went out on a 5 hour whale watching tour.Don't you just love our outfits!
We had a blast! Talk about a BEAUTIFUL ride through the sound around all the islands out past Victoria.
There were tons of seals around sunbathing on lot of different rocks during our ride.
At one point I went up to the top with Blake a Danielle for a great 360 view of everything, but it was REALLY windy.
We are excited to report that we saw a mink whale and 7 different killer whales on our ride!
The camera was REALLY hard to hold still to takes pictures since the boat just drifted along in the waves while we watched the whales so I had a hard time taking pictures that were in focus...not to mention it was hard to time when to snap the shot...but we were able to get quite a few good shots.
We had a blast and would recommend a whale trip to anybody! Well worth the time and money!
Vancouver is an absolutely beautiful city with all the islands, bridges, bays, beaches and rain forest to visit. We had a great time. Thanks Kristen and Danielle for coming along...now we need to start planning the next trip to use our passports for!
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