Vancouver, BC

Last Thursday Forrest decided that we needed to get out of town for a quick overnight trip to Vancouver, BC to see the sights before we lose all of our spare time to sports and driver's ed. On Saturday morning we made a pitstop in Arlington to pick up Noah's football gear. It was strange to see my boy get fitted with gear that makes him look like a giant. Then we were off for the border. Traffic in and out of Vancouver is a mess, there's construction everywhere prepping for the 2010 Olympic Games. There's a clock in downtown Vancouver that is counting down the minutes, hours, and days till the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. We spent most of the day at Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium. Alyssa took some beautiful photos of jellyfish. Forrest and the kids posed in front of the Lion's Gate Bridge and Forrest and I were caught under the giant mosquito in the tropical exhibit. On our way out of the park we stopped at Prospect Point to snap this gorgeous view. We thought we'd find a fun restaurant for dinner in Gas Town. This part of Vancouver is near the water and houses some beautiful old buildings. The only problem is it's surrounded by Skid Row. The kids were treated to the sight of some very unfortunate people obviously under the influence of drink and drugs. The problem with trying to eat dinner in Gas Town is that most of the parking available is on the unsavory streets surrounding the area. So we abandoned this plan and decided to try to find some place to eat downtown near Pacific Place. We were surprised to find that almost all of the stores were closed by 7:00 PM. There were tourists everywhere on the street, but no place for them to shop. Finding a restaurant that wasn't a hole in the wall, take-out place proved to be more difficult than expected. We finally settled on the Bellagio and sat outside across from the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was a pleasant spot to dine. Since we didn't eat dinner till after 8:00 PM Noah was near meltdown state. It had been about 7 hours since he'd last eaten, and when his blood sugar gets low Noah doesn't handle it well. He gets emotional and very cranky. Noah perked right up after dinner. We spent the night in nearby Burnaby and headed home Sunday morning. The wait at the border was surprisingly long for early Sunday morning. This week Noah starts football practice every day and Alyssa has driver's ed 3 days a week. I'll be spending a lot of time in the car transporting children. Lucky me!