Welcome to Vancouver

Well now that things are finally settling down and Denise and I are easing Liam into a routine, we finally have time to begin posting on a semi regular basis...so expect new posts every 3 to 4 months.

I arrived in Vancouver about 6 weeks ago, and Denise and Liam showed up 2 weeks after that with Denise's sister Camille along for the ride. I came up early so I could find us a place and settle our affairs to make the transition easier on Denise. As it turns out, I wasn't really able to settle anything and so Denise had to do most of that when she got here. It probably wouldn't have been too bad, but U-Haul wasn't able to get us our things until 2 weeks after Denise got here. So we all camped out on the floor of our cold basement apartment while we waited for furniture to arrive. Although it was pretty miserable sleeping on the floor for so long (a total of about 3 weeks for me), Denise put up such a stink with U-Haul, and they were so scarred of her by the end of the process that they gave us almost half our money back....turns out sleeping on the floor was worth it.

But because the house was no fun to be in; Denise, Camille and Liam spent most of their time exploring our new surroundings....I'm moving too quickly, let me back up and say that when Denise, Liam and Camille arrived, they flew into Seattle instead of Vancouver; and I want everyone to know that it is miserable driving down to Seattle to pick people up from the airport. The drive isn't that bad, but the border is a nightmare. Granted when I went to pick up Denise, Liam and Camille it wasn't really that bad, but when we dropped off Camille it was a Holiday. We got stuck at the border waiting in line to cross for an hour and a half....not fun with Liam screaming in the back (also probably not the best final impression of Canada to leave with Camille). After that trip Denise and I vowed we would never drive down to Seattle to fly ever again....then we looked at plane tickets to go to Utah for Andrea's wedding and promptly decided to fly out of Seattle.

Anyway, when I picked them up we decided to go check out Pikes Market and maybe get some mini-donuts from a vendor at one end. It was pretty fun but we were anxious to get up to Vancouver so we didn't stay long. We did, however, buy gyro's and try to eat them on the sidewalk which was a mistake. Denise will kill me for putting this photo up, but its pretty telling of how things went down. Whoever was not looking after Liam was oblivious to the fact that he was causing all sorts of trouble. In this photo in particular I had given him a bite of my wrap, but instead of biting all the way through he just go a large chunk of sauce covered meat and veggies that came out of the sandwich as he pulled away and then fell directly onto my pants. Liam didn't seem to care much though because then while I was cleaning my pants and Denise was talking to Camille, he ran over and played in what I can only assume was sewer water, the mud of which also ended up on my clothes. But in all fairness, when Denise and I switched Liam duties, he performed all the same tricks for her while I got to enjoy the rest of my food.

One of the first things we did with Camille was go to Stanley Park, a giant park on a peninsula directly adjacent to the downton core. The park is beautiful, and there are a ton of public beaches and hiking trails all contained within. They also have a splash park for the kiddies, some playgrounds and an outdoor pool. You also get some pretty stunning views of the city from the sea-wall trail, as you can see below.



Looking at the Lions Gate Bridge and North Vancouver.

A view of the west end of downtoun Vancouver. Denise was perhaps the only person wearing sunglasses that day (it was a little misty after all), but she had contracted the eye infection from Liam that you saw on the last post and wasn't willing to let people see her Quasimodo face.

This last picture is a pretty good representation of Denise and my differing parenting styles...while Liam runs wild, Denise try's to get up the motivation to go chase him while I stand around thinking he'll be fine. Ultimately he usually just ends up getting injured.

Also in Stanley Park is the Vancouver Aquarium....great, great aquarium. Beyond the normal fish tanks, they also have dolphins, harbor seals, African penguins and beluga whales! These last animals are all outside in larger areas and the dolphins and whales also do shows. The beluga whales don't do much more than just splash the crowd and show off their blubber, but the dolphins do all sorts of aerial tricks. Needless to say, Liam preferred the Dolphin show...so much so that he let us dress him up as a dolphin later on in the day. Sadly, they didn't have grown up sized dolphin costumes.

The rest of Camille's time here was spent almost exclusively with Denise and Liam because I had to work, so I don't know the stories behind some of these following photos, but I'll do my best to explain them.

There is this really well manicured park a short drive away called Queen Elisabeth Park that apparently has giant rhubarb plants. It also had tons of walking trails and just beautiful scenery in general. Although I'm sure we'll be cursing the rain come winter, it sure has some wonderful effects on the summer.

One of the more interesting things about Vancouver is all the beaches...sandy beaches. In Berkeley, it was really difficult to access the water, even when in San Francisco. But here it seems like they've got a sandy beach in every direction. But one of the best parts about the water is that there are always 3 or 4 ocean liners floating out in English Bay. You also get a good view of the mountains.

The water is generally too cold to swim in, but at the end of a warm day it isn't too bad. To mitigate this, the city has placed public swimming pools at a few of the major beaches...so even though you might not be getting in the ocean, you can still swim. I thought we had some pictures of Liam, Denise and Camille at one of them, but I can't find them so you'll have to stay tuned for those photos later.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention all of the shopping around our house. Camille and Denise spent a fair amount of time in and out of furniture stores looking for stuff to fill our empty house with. But one of the better areas is a place called Granville Island. It may be a bit of a tourist trap, but its an awesome one at that. I'll post photos of that also a little later as Denise and I just recently went yesterday so we've got a few additional pictures we need to get on the computer before posting about it.

Hopefully Camille enjoyed herself up here...the big reason for her trip was to help us organize our house and get moved in. But as I mentioned earlier, we didn't get our stuff until way late. In fact it was the day before she left that our boxes finally arrived. The pod was dropped off at 2:30 in the afternoon and so Denise and Camille worked at setting up the house until 4:30 in the morning...and I have a sneaking suspicion that it was Camille's favorite part of the trip. We'll do some before and after photos of our place tomorrow (or next month), but for now we'll leave you with one photo showing you how excited Liam was to finally get his stuff. He ran around the house screaming "MY TOYS! MY TOYS!" and then picking through boxes trying to find specific things and then getting excited when he finally found them..."SEMI! MR ROOTER!!" I think we are all glad to finally be off the floor and have our toys.

I know there are still more things Denise would like to add about our first few weeks in Vancouver, but its late and I know that if we don't post this now, it will be another year before we finally get around to finishing it. So until then this will have to suffice....make sure to check back every day though cause you just never know when we'll surprise post things that happened months ago.