Amazing Vacation Day 4

This was our big day in Vancouver.  Originally we had some pretty big plans, but we pared it down a little and I'm okay with that.  But first...

 I love it when the boys all crowd around to look at something.  Here they are on Grandma and Grandpa's couch where Nathaniel slept.

 After a tasty breakfast of pancakes and scrambled eggs, we drove to the train station.

 My dad just got a new lens for his camera and so many of these pictures are his.

 It was a long train ride and even went underground for much of it.

 When we got downtown, we walked over to our first destination.

The Harbor Center.  I saw this building in a skyline picture of Vancouver and knew the boys would love to go to the top.

 Brigham was not shy at all about getting right up next to the window to look out.

 It was a very neat view.  I think it liked it more than the Space Needle.  Mostly because it was much less crowded.  There might have been one or two other families/groups.

 The boys liked it too and we stayed quite a while just looking out.

At one point we lost Brigham.  There were guides by the elevators so I didn't think he had gone down on his own but he seriously wasn't anywhere.  Eventually I found him in a dark entryway to a maintenance closet.  He was curled up on the floor.  I have no idea what happened.  When I picked him up he gave me a big hug and held on tight with his arms and legs.  Maybe he lost us and thought we were gone.  Poor kid.

Here are some of the amazing views.

 The boat on the far right is the Sea Bus.  We'll be riding in that later.

 A gas station in the middle of the water?

The elevator ride was better than the Space Needle too.  Fewer screaming teenagers.

We stopped in Gas Town before we headed for North Vancouver.

 The Steam Clock.  As you can see, we just missed the cool thing it does on the hour.  Darn.

 We stopped in this gift shop so Jaaromy could buy a hat.  There were a lot of fun things to see.

 That's the hat.

 Brigham was fascinated by the magnet balls.

I was tempted, but we still just got the hat.

 Then we took the Sea Bus to North Vancouver, or North Van as the locals call it.

 It was a fun ride, I think I enjoyed it as much as the boys.

 When we got there we looked for a place to eat for lunch.  We saw a cute girl with a sign that said "Free Hugs" and so I told Jonathan to go a give her a hug.  It was cute.

 Then we had a tasty lunch at Mario's and Grandma ordered a local favorite called poutine and let everyone try it.  It's basically fries with some sort of sauce or gravy on it.  In this case, it was an Italian sauce with sausage and cheese and was really tasty.

After lunch we went up to this observation tower.  It was really high and not very big but Brigham and Jonathan had no problem coming up.

 Grandma and Nathaniel stayed down on the ground.

 The view was pretty awesome.

 Brigham really liked it and I got several cute pictures of him smiling.  It was hard to choose which ones to post.

After the tower we walked through this mall a bit.  They had everything.

Seriously, I've never seen a mall like this.

 We walked around a bit, there was plenty to see.

 Then we rode the Sea Bus back.

This big ship was in our way and I wondered what would happen if it didn't move in time.  Of course it worked out and we were fine.  I guess these sailors know what they're doing.

We rode the train back to my parents' apartment for dinner and relaxation.  It was a fun filled day.  We even had time for Grandpa and Nathaniel to go and see most of the Priesthood session of conference at the stake center.  Later we had ice cream again, of course!  Perfect Day!

Amazing Vacation Day 3

After our super busy day in Seattle we took our time the next morning getting ready to head up to Vancouver.  We enjoyed another tasty breakfast in the hotel lobby.  We were always one of the last ones so the waffle batter ran out before we were sufficiently full of waffles, but there was plenty more to eat.

 All our electronics were charged.  Thankfully they had a nifty little charging station, otherwise we would have had to use the plugs behind the nightstand.  I've done it before, not pretty.

 We had a little fun with the closet mirror.  Something my brothers and I loved to do with the closet mirrors in my parents' room growing up.

I took another picture of Safeco Field...for Kelcey.

It's roughly two and a half hours to my parents, but we decided to stop at the Vancouver Temple on the way which added to the drive time.  It didn't feel terribly long though because the scenery was beautiful and it kept getting broken up by things.

Things like crossing the border.

 It took us about 40 minutes.

The International Boundary Line!

We were paranoid about crossing, but everything was okay.  We answered all the questions right and everything.

Then we drove for about 25 more minutes to the temple.

 Check!  Another stamp in our temple passport.

After that it was on to Richmond.  Unfortunately there isn't really a direct freeway to Richmond.  We had to take highways and stuff so it took about an hour to get to the mission office.

 We passed a lot of cool bridges.

 And Scott's Road!  I didn't know he had a road in Canada.

So many cool bridges.

Finally, we got to Richmond.  My parents were still working so we drove to the mission office first.  I was so excited to see them.  I could see my mom inside moving around and heading for the door.

 Aren't they beautiful!  Seriously, it's making me cry just thinking about it.  It was so good to see them again.  They showed us around the mission office and introduced us to another couple that works with them and even the AP's.  I could tell that they really love what they're doing.

They finished up their work and we left for their apartment, we only got lost a little bit on these crazy Canadian roads.  We dropped off our luggage and we went over to Steveston for dinner and to see the docks.

 It was rainy and the fishermen were all done for the day but I was just still so happy that I was with my parents again.

We ate at their favorite restaurant which is of course, seafood.  It was really tasty, although I couldn't get Brigham to eat much.  Luckily, my mom thought to bring a little cup of applesauce for him.

It was so fun to just hang out.  We went back to their apartment and watched Monsters Inc. and had some ice cream with my mom's amazing chocolate sauce on it.  Heaven!

We didn't have time to do much which made me wish we had hurried along more that morning, but I really didn't mind just being there doing whatever, as long as we were together.