Vancouver with my girls!!

Yes! A plane ride for the first time for my girls! They were so excited! And I was excited to be doing this together with them. We were goin to Vancouver to visit friends/family for a few days and we were sooooo looking forward to this. I was looking forward to spending some quality time, building relationships with those around me.....and taking pictures of course....as you'll tell fairly quickly when you see all the photos that I've posted in this section of my blog. :-) It was gonna be a good trip.....I just knew it would be. We were all excited. We wanted to shop too....and I might even buy myself something, but I knew I wouldn't be taking any pics while shopping...so, no, no shopping pics, sorry. :-) This trip, with all the beautiful photos that I took, reminded me of the cover photo from the 2009 Inspirational Calendar that I had put together. The verse on the cover says "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim his handiwork." That is so true in God's creation....all of it shouts of His glory and His marvelous handiwork in all that He's created for us to enjoy. Thank you God for this fabulous opportunity to fly through Your heavens with my girls.




The colors of the flowers are so gorgeous here in Vancouver - spring is much prettier I'm sure, with everything in bloom but it was still beautiful with all the different flowers and trees here now. A few years ago, we were here in April, at Easter time, and the blooming flowers were gorgeous! I love the different trees they have here too cause it's much more humid and rainy here than in SK. I also love the old houses in this neighborhood. I really enjoyed going for walks and taking pics.





The neighborhood I often took walks in was just filled with old houses that were remodeled. The trees were huge and often shaped a canopy over the streets. On one walk, I passed this beautiful church that I couldn't resist taking photos of. I just love these churches with such unique stonework and architecture. The cloud in the background was so cool and I loved playing with the lighting and the darkening of the sky on a coule of the pics.





I loved this sign for the cat and just had to take a photo of it with the kitty in it. A cat with attitude...too funny! The sign says "My cat is lazier than your cat!" I think Copper would've had a lot of fun with this cat....but I don't think this kitty would've been too impressed if Copper came to visit. Yikes! What a scene that would cause. :-)



Now this car was the coolest that I saw in Vancouver. Don't you just love it? Too sweet! Looks like it came right out of a movie.



We spent some time out on the beach at English Bay. It was such a lovely afternoon in the sun and the girls had tons of fun playing in the pool. It was neat being at the pool and by the beach/bay at the same time. I liked watching the sailboats and other boats coming and going and taking photos of the birds that were around. Definitely a different life here from the flat SK area where we were from. The girls were being so goofy coming off the slide....it was funny to watch...so were some of their jumps and dives into the water. Yep, they're just like fish who love the water and can't get enough of it. :-)






The girls had a lot of fun dressing up in some of their cousins' dance costumes. They've always enjoyed playing dress up and this was even funner than that. :-)




A warm afternoon hike was a great addition to our time in Vancouver. I forget the name of this place but there was a bridge and waterfalls and a place where people jumped into the water in a cavern. Unfortunately, there are too many accidents every year with folks jumping into the water here, but it don't stop them from doing it. It was kinda wild watching them jump but scary too. The water was cold, but oh, so clear and blue/green and clean. The girls had fun walking on the rocks in the water - hopping from rock to rock. One fellow had slipped and fallen in - he wasn't too impressed cause he had his phone and ipod in his pants pocket. I felt bad for the guy but it did look kinda funny. I was just waiting for one of the girls to slip and fall in too, but they didn't. :-) And you know what? I didn't either when I climbed out to some of the rocks.




We came across this bench on our hike that had this carved into the back of it. I just had to take a picture of it. Such simple words with soooo much meaning, but the remainder of this verse says "as yourself." Are we able to do that? love our neighbor as ourselves? That's a pretty high calling. But with the help of the Good Lord, we can do this. I like things, or sayings, that make you stop, pause, and go hmmmmm as you think through what you just took in. This made me stop and contemplate.



There was this beautiful place called Deep Cove where we went one day and walked around and had lunch. It was so nice. I liked the neat shops there. Food was good too. I went into one of the shops and bought an orange scraper and whisk! It was so cool - I brought it up to the lake. :-) After we got home, an old friend of mine who's on facebook told me she lived really close to there....it's too bad I hadn't know that earlier and then I coulda hooked up with her for a bit.




Going to Victoria for the day was HUGE on my agenda. Roger & I had gone there for our honeymoon and I wanted to experience that with my girls while we were out here. So, on our 2nd last day here, we got up early in the morning, hopped on a ferry and went for a day trip. What an adventure we were going to have! I was so looking forward to this day. I found a great Christian radio station in the car on the drive to the ferry and me n my girls sang along to every song....it was great!! I was in a good mood and the songs were lifting my spirit even more with every mile we drove.




The Craigdorough Castle was one place that I really wanted to take the girls. Roger & I had been there on our honeymoon and I knew the girls would love touring the place. It's so cool. I could just picture it in the 'olden' days, as Alysha put it. She likes to ask questions of the olden days. When I was here years ago, they wouldn't let us take any photos of it from the inside...but now with digital cameras, they let people take photos all over, so that was neat. I snapped away to my hearts content.







We took the scenic route from the Castle to downtown Victoria - what a great drive. I had fun stopping along the way taking pics and watching the wildlife and looking at the homes along the way. I hadn't ever taken this route before so it was neat driving a different way to Victoria. I sound like I knew where I was going or what I was doing, but I didn't. :-) I just followed the map. Maybe I was brave too, although some thought I was crazy to drive out here by myself with the girls and explore Victoria without a man around. :-)




It was fun climbing along all the logs along the shore but we had to be careful not to twist our ankles. We came across this sweet tree root that had been uprooted and the girls had fun posing on it for me so I could snap some pics. It was fun! There was this grandma with her 2 grandkids building a boat on the roads from the driftwood that was washed up on shore. It was so cute watching them.






Along this scenic route, I also got a great photo of some interesting looking ducks and of a Great Blue Heron eating an eel. It was freaky. But what a cool picture!



The harbor was so cool - I loved looking at all the boats and watching the people. There was this one gal who was a professional statue....stood still without moving for a long time. That's quite a gift....I know I can't stand still for long periods of time with talking. :-) Truly is a gift to be able to do that. It would have been cool to go on a boat to do some whale watching...but it was terribly expensive and would have taken up a lot of our time, which we didn't have too much of left in this great day together.



We took a tour through the Wax Museum - it was so cool how everything looked so life like. Roger & I hadn't been in here on our honeymoon so this was one of the things that I definitely wanted to check out with the girls. One of my favorites was the Lord's Supper table with Jesus sitting at the table with his disciples having bread and wine just before he died on the cross. It brought a tear to my eye to see that. When you first walked up, it was all dark and then one by one, their faces would be in the spotlight one at a time with total darkness around them, so you didn't realize at first what it was going to be...then the whole thing lit up - very nice effect, very nicely done. The kids loved the dogs, the bunnies, and the cartoon characters that were so life like. From the old pilgrims, to the queen, to cartoon characters, to white house characters....there were so many of them. I thought I looked quite perdy with my crown on, don't you think? Well, someday I'm gonna wear a crown and it's gonna be much more beautiful than that. :-)




It was good to walk around the Parliament buildings again. Roger and I had been here during our honeymoon too. Lots of good memories of that day long ago. We had taken a carriage ride years ago as a couple, but we didn't go on one now....much to the girls disappointment. But, you know it just wasn't the same romantic feeling riding one of those carriages with young teenage girls - it was much more romantic when Roger & I rode on there alone when we were newly married. :-)




I wanted to go into this chocolate store and buy Roger some chocolates. I'm sure they were very tasty. It was neat to see my hubby's name on the store name. :-)



We had stopped at this park...it was beautiful! The pond with the many ducks, the gardens with the many trees and flowers - it was so nice. The girls enjoyed being so close to the ducks by the pond. Of course the flowers were gorgeous.




Then we saw a couple of peacocks....wow, were they gorgeous! I had never seen a white peacock before either - it was so beautiful! It reminded me of when we had gone through the Truth Project study - how an evolutionist had been quoted "he hates the eye of the peacock." Why? Because it is one of those things that you can't explain....it is only something that can be created by a Great God who created the whole world. There is no way that a peacock can evolve from something else....it is to intricate, too unique and complex to have evolved over millions of years. God created all the animals, every human being and all of creation. It takes a lot more faith to believe in us all evolving over millions of years from a rock! I love the peacock! How beautifully and intricately God created this magnificent bird.




I loved the churches in Victoria - each one was so different and the structure of each on of them was so unique. I would've loved to have gone inside them but that wasn't possible - we needed to get back to the ferry dock to catch the ride back.




To end the wonderful day, we left Victoria at 9 pm and we rode the ferry back to Vancouver by moonlight. It was so peaceful watching the water and the moon's reflection on it. The girls were quite tired but hyper at the same time. It was around 1 am that we got back but it was so worth it....it was a great day in Victoria.




More flowers and old homes to photograph. :-) Never tired of it.




On one of my walks, I saw this cool car - I love these old cars. It'd make a great car pic for a car
calendar. It's my dream to make a car calendars someday....local cars - just like the local SK calendars that I make - do a local SK car calendar. That'd be cool!



As I mentioned before, the girls love water, love swimming...they're like fish - they can't get enough of water. It was fun taking photos of them in the water. On the last day that we were there, they went swimming again to a local pool nearby. It was such a gorgeous day - actually all the days we were there, the weather was just so perfect. Couldn't have asked for better weather.



I really enjoyed this time with the girls - all the girls - it was great to be together. I thank God for giving us this time together, to bond and to work on our relationships - it was a great holiday. The girls had a great plane ride and were looking forward to getting back home to the boys and our dogs. Those silly dogs were a big handful for Roger and Brandon....each of them gave them a bit of a headache....Copper got out of his kennel while the guys were out golfing and Coke ran away for 4 hours. But God is good and all things were well when we got back home. :-)