Vancouver Visit

The same day my sister, Allison, flew into town Adam's company released a really big product. They had a huge party to celebrate and gave everyone two free vacation days! So, we took advantage of the serendipitous situation and made a long weekend visit to Vancouver. 

One major thing that made us feel a lot better moving across the country from our family in Houston and friends in Pittsburgh is that my aunt {my mom's sister} and two cousins live in Vancouver. 

We left not-very-early Thursday morning and stopped in Bellingham for lunch. Yes, we did visit the campus of Western Washington University and yes, the rumors are true. The Chick-fil-A closed about a year ago. Tragic, I know. Try not to pity us too much, though. We managed to forget our sorrows at a pretty awesome burger joint.  

This ice cream place helped us through the healing process too. 

We made it to Vancouver in time for dinner with our cousin, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Sheldon at a fun tapas place. Sarah is also twenty-three and is a pediatric nurse.

The next morning, we checked out Stanley Park.

Claire practiced her modeling face.

And we showed off our Bolt poses. Thanks to actually having cable and Claire's early bedtime, we watched a lot of the Olympics on this trip. It was so interesting to see the Olympics from a Canadian perspective!

At one point, the newscasters seriously said, "Let's go back to Canada's hockey win in the 2010 Olympics" and showed a clip of Sydney Crosby's winning goal.

And, when discussing Canada's impressive performance in women's soccer, a newscaster may have exclaimed "Bronze is like Canada's gold!" 

{Public Service Announcement: I am allowed to joke about Canada because I am Canadian. That's how it works, right?!}

Then we drove across town to another park. On the way, Claire had yet another blow out. Let's just say this whole supplementing with formula thing has been a bit rough on her digestive system. The plus side is all the fun we have substituting "poop" as the first syllable in various words. Pooptastrophe, poopsplosion, poopchevious...the possibilities are endless.

After pulling over in downtown Vancouver to get Claire cleaned up, we finally made it to Queen Elizabeth Park, which has an awesome view of the skyline.

Whoa, how did she get up there?

We had lunch at a swanky restaurant in the park and then caught the ferry to Vancouver Island. My aunt and uncle live in Nanaimo, one of the biggest towns on the island. 

I loved that Aunt Patty was so excited to meet Claire!

Saturday was our only full day in Nanaimo, so Aunt Patty packed in all the sights. We started the day off at a sand castle building competition. This sculpture was our favorite. How cool is that?

We had lunch at the market. The restaurant's roof was home to a family of goats!

Our favorite part of the day was seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Aunt Patty graciously watched Claire while we went for a swim.

Our other cousin, Jess, is the same age has Allie and goes to the University of British Columbia. She's home for the summer working at a candy store and totally spoiled us with chocolate while were in town. See, Nanaimo is famous for Nanaimo bars, which are pretty amazing on their own, but you just haven't lived until you've had one dipped in caramel and dark chocolate.

On Sunday morning, we took the ferry back to Vancouver and spotted a killer whale on the way! This was Claire's face when we found out there was an hour long wait to cross the border.

We totally loved how our border patrol officer took his sweet time scanning our passports and nonchalantly made conversation. We only had a baby screaming in the back seat for the last hour, no big deal. 

After another lunch break in Bellingham and lots more traffic, we made it back to Seattle just in time for Mass. 

We had an excellent visit but were all very, very glad to be home!