Sunset

The night before we dropped Tara's parents off at the airport in Seattle we got to eat at Anthony's in Bellingham. They had the best Wild Salmon I've ever tasted. Cooked on a cedar plank and amazing.

Here is a picture of the sun that showed itself at the end of a rainy day. This was our view from Anthony's. It was our last meal in the North West with Tom and Julie. We stayed with our friend Deborah and she introduced us to the restaurant.

Our friend Deborah is the marketing director at The Firs camp and conference center in Bellingham.

Here is a picture of all of us at dinner. She is one funny gal!

moving day

Today is the first day of moving our stuff over to the cottage. I decided to do what is truly important and write on my blog. :) On Monday we saw a great movie that has been out most of the summer. Batman begins:

Our Canadian Grandma

We just got back from having dinner with our Canadian Grandma Margaret. She has helped make Vancouver a great place to be. Who knows, without her, we may have left Canada by now. Here are a couple pictures of her. The first one is in front of her house and the second is where we ate dinner tonight named Sun Sui Wah, an amazing place to eat Chinese food.

Sista's 30th B-day

Today is my sister Shannon's 30th b-day! Wow! She is officailly a thirty something.

Here is a picture of a water fall that is named after her.

Canada place

The Canada Place is a great place to look out on the city of Vancouver. Here is a traditional Canadian place view.

Tom and Julie are taking us out to a lot of fun places to eat and we are seeing a lot of Vancouver that we haven't seen before. It's good to have them around for another few days.












Here is a picture of Tom and Julie by the famous Gas town clock.

Galiano

We made it over to the beautiful Galiano island in the Georgia Strait. It was so fun to relax in a beautiful place. The Gay's let us stay in their cabin for a couple days and help us get ready to hang out with their kids for the upcoming school year.

We will be moving NEXT WEEK. It is hard to believe we will be leaving the East side of Vancouver.

We will be moving into a place where we will get to spend time with a cute puppy and some great kids.










RAIN - Our new best friend?

Swimming in the Ocean

Yesterday Tom and I got to take a dip in the ocean off of the rocks at the Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.

Today we got to go on a long bike ride around Stanley Park and enjoy some cheap wings at Sammy Peppers.

Looks like the four of us will go to Galiano Island this weekend and get to hang out and relax.

Tara's parents

Tara's folks made it up here on Tuesday. When we picked them up in Seattle we got to hang out at the fish market.

We have been able to show Tom and Julie the beautiful city we live in and celebrate Tara's b-day together. Here is a picture of here parents under a big Douglas fir.

Finally here is a picture of Julie (Tara's mom) and Tara by our famous Kansas flower

Tara's b-day

It was my beautiful wife's birthday yesterday. We had a great time and got to go to the fish house in Stanley park for an amazing birthday lunch.














Left to right: Tom and Julie (Tara's folks) Tara (birthday girl) and me

Later I took her to Jericho beach and surprised her with a bunch of our friends ready to celebrate her birthday.














A few of the party peeps: Allie, Lisa, Tara, Aimee, and Krista

This is Shangri La

We went on a little trip to Sloquet hot springs this weekend to celebrate Tara's upcoming birthday. We traveled on the sea to sky highway past Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton to get there. Ended up that we had to drive 3 hours on the world's bumpiest gravel road once we got to Pemberton to get to the hot springs.

However, it was well worth the trip. We got to have the hot springs to ourselves once the campers left. A sign read, "This is Shangri la."

We were planning on camping a few more nights but Tara started feeling sick. Therefore, we ended up camping in our car and taking off in the morning.

Tara's folks come up Tuesday and we will get to take them around to see the beautiful city we live in.

EGG-celent week

We just dropped off Dusty at the aeroporte. It is hard to believe that he was here for a week, as the time flew by. We really enjoyed having him here.

Here is a picture of all of us at the Northern Cascades. It was absolutely beautiful. We camped 8 miles in at Egg lake. Over 16 miles round trip in 2 days. A lot of hiking with a backpack. I still feel like I got beat up. Galen Stark says this about North Cascades park, "It's a rugged wilderness and only hearty backcountry users enter the national park."

Hearty back country users from Left to Right: Dusty, Andrew, me, Tara, and Amy. (Chris is taking the picture)

We had a great time and will never forget our dip in egg lake.

We got to take Dusty to Lighthouse park, Lynn Valley and a number of other places.

Festival of surprises

Dusty made it to Vancouver. He woke up at 4 am and got to travel through 4 air ports to get here.

Tara and I made our first pies today (blueberry and blackberry). Very yummy.

Tara also got to see Patty Griffin at the Seattle zoo. However, the concert only lasted 45 minutes.

It was a good Vancouver day and fun to share with our great friend Dusty.

Blackberries

I am sitting here with a blackberry stain on my shirt. We had a relaxing blackberry day. After seeing march of the penguins for the "low" Tuesday price and getting a new tube for my bike we went to pick blackberries. Our Canadian grandma says "Picking blackberries is a labor of love." This is true because the thorns leave the marks to prove you picked them.

We got to celebrate our friend Jason's b-day with him. His wife and another family that came to the party made blackberry cobbler. Definitely a blackberry day.

My mom would often take me and my brother and sister to pick blackberries a few times in the summer behind our church. She would make an amazing blackberry pie...which I hope to replicate.

Totem poles, Bag pipes and a flat tire

Today was BC day. A random Canadian holiday just to give people a day off.

We went on a bike ride with Julio and Lisa hoping to go all the way around Stanley park on the sea wall. However, my Panaracer Pascal TX tire went flat. Therefore, we stopped at the totem pole section of Stanley park and listened to bag pipers for awhile. We were also looking for someone who had a bike pump and were unable to find anyone. Finally once we tried to air it up it would not hold any air.

Julio and I rode downtown to see if we could find an inner tube. But all the rental places didn't carry tubes. So we went to the bike shop at Pacific and Burrard. Which just closed and the guy inside was not kind enough to sell us an inner tube.

So I got the car and picked everyone up. We got some food and laughed about all the adventures we had.