This is our Happy: Vancouver, B.C.

We were very excited to drive into Canada to visit with our old family friend, Maria. I didn't have time to get the kids passports, but thanks to Maria's son Michael, I was able to get around it with the proper paperwork I found on the Border Authority website. All I needed was my passport, the kids' birth certificates, and a letter of consent signed by their father saying it was ok that I take the kids out of the country.

The checkpoint at the border went smoothly and before we knew it, we were in a different country! This was a very exciting topic for the kids. After we finished with the "interview", Kyra said, "Well, that was nerve-racking". Cracked me up!

We met Maria and her daughter, Nancy, at her apartment in Vancouver, which is about 2 blocks from English Bay and Stanley Park. Such a beautiful urban area. We took Maria and Nancy out to lunch at Maria's favorite place, The Sylvia Hotel. After lunch Maria was feeling tired, so I walked her back to her apartment while Nancy took the kids to the bay to play. It was nice to have some quiet time with her and catch up on how she's doing. She's so young at heart and she's really pissed about getting older and more frail.

After we left Maria's apartment we went to Stanley Park where the kids had seen an awesome park when we drove in to Vancouver. They had a blast at the park that was "way cooler than any park in America". Then we walked down to the shore for some ocean time.

We decided to head back to Bellingham in order to drive back down to Seattle a day early to have dinner with my little brother who we'll be hanging with the next few days in Seattle. As we set off, we realized that the GPS on my phone quit working. So we took out our original written instructions to get there and decided to follow it in reverse. Not sure what went wrong, but we ended up in some industrial area that was obviously not the way we were supposed to be going. We turned around and came across a Starbucks. Perfect. We had a laptop and could use the WiFi and coffee was just what I needed. We figured out where we were and set back on the road again. We felt confident that we had it right and followed Main St. for what seemed like longer than it should have. Yep, it was too long. Ended up in some random industrial area again! So we turned around and retraced our steps and found what looked to be obviously where we had gone wrong. Again, we were cheering and "on the road again". Nope. We ended up at a port of some sort that could only be accessed by restricted personnel. We turned around to retrace our steps one more time and came up to a gas station. No more guessing. We went old school and bought a paper map of Vancouver and finally figured out where we were and could see the circles we had been going in. Three hours later, we were on our way! What an adventure. (click on one to see all pictures)