Vancouver, eh?

Got an early start and packed the car. Including Dan's American flag that flew over the Capitol so we could (as Dan put it) represent our country. Before we left Dan demanded that everyone take out their passports and wave them around so he could see them.

We had a little bit of a drama about the passports. Back in August when I visited Jason in VA and we booked our flights for this trip I told him that he needed to get a passport since it's mandatory for travel into Canada now.

I didn't really think anything of it until a month ago when Dan randomly reminded me that we need passports for our trip. So I called Jason and asked him if he had ever applied for one and of course since he's a Koala he hadn't. Basically he had to pay the extra money to get it in 2-4 weeks instead of 4-6 weeks and he had to run around and miss part of a day of work to do it. He's special, but I love him.

Anyway, I asked Dan to wave around his passport too, since he was demanding we did. Is nice, no?

It took us a little over an hour to get up to the border and we went straight through, making sure to switch the car's computer to kilometers so we weren't speeding through Canada.

The Peace Arch

We drove straight up to Vancouver and decided to park and wander around after we picked up the tickets. There were people everywhere. We wandered over to the mall because the Olympic Superstore was there and we wanted to do some shopping. After searching around a bit we finally found it but you had to go out of the mall to enter the area. They literally had the store blocked off with traffic barriers.

Dan: You know, this isn't the Berlin wall. We can just jump over it, it's not like they have machine guns or anything.
Canadian guy behind us: *laughs at Dan's choice words*
Me: Shut up Dan, we're representing our country. No international incidents, remember?

Our father's one rule for our trip was not to cause any international incidents that might bring shame to our family or our country.

After giving up on the line that was two blocks long just to get into the Superstore, we wandered up to Stanley Park. Dan missed the first turn into the parking lot for the totem poles and I'm kind of glad he did because we pulled off into another parking lot near the Olympic Rings.

It was pretty. And we made it over to the totem park a few minutes later. I knew from the last trip I'd taken to Vancouver with my parents that there was a little gift shop next to the totem poles and I was hoping they'd have some of the Olympic merchandise we were looking for without the lines we saw downtown.

There was absolutely no line, and spent a good hour picking out Olympic paraphernalia and gifts to bring home to people. The ladies there are super nice and incredibly helpful. I recommend doing any Vancouver-related shopping there. They have a beautiful collection of aboriginal art, I brought a print home for my parents to add to their collection.

Those red mittens were everywhere!

After our shopping spree we drove a little further north up to Capilano. I really wanted Jason to see the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Julibean hadn't been there yet either. We had a lot of fun wandering through the trees. And I think we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Enjoying the view from the bridge.

Classic.

The closest we got to a Mountie.

We spent the night in a hotel in Chilliwack which was about an hour east of Vancouver. It was the cheapest thing we could find for the night that didn't seem really sketchy. It was pretty nice.

Tomorrow:

• Gold Medalist Women's Curling!!!