Beluga whale

Beautiful Beluga Whale saying hello.

I love the sea otter, he is so lazy, playful, and silly. He will fall asleep on his back just like that. This was the first place for me to see a sea otter and I fell in love. It was on our last Alaskan cruise that we found this aquarium, and we made a point to come back.

The other thing we fell in love with at the Vancouver Aquarium was the Beluga Whale. They are amazing. I've never been to another aquarium that has them. They are huge, 3 or 4 times the size of a dolphin, but just as graceful, if not acrobatic. With amazing soulful eyes. You can click on any picture and see it full size, 7 megapixels, thanks to sony.

bye-bye now~!

Smile, you're on camera.

I am going to have to start thinking backward if I want these pictures to go in in the right order!
This is taken outside the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. The bride is climbing out of the fountain after her picture is shot. She seemed very happy. It was kind of hard to get the shot quick enough, but I'm glad I got it.
I still remember feeling radiant on my wedding day...
Steven looking at the statue.
Smile, you're on camera....

gnarley, dude...

cool, gnarley old tree in Stanley Park, it was tall.
here you can see all the big trees, you get a neck ache when you're there.
Ali, with her huge leaf, snuggled into a huge tree, being cool...

The Tree

Here we are in Stanley Park, standing near one of the coolest trees ever, you could just look up into it and get lost. The leaves were so large that you can see they totally covered Ali's face, she was the one to notice this tree, and we all fell in love.

The View in Vancouver

The view from our wonderful Hotel in Vancouver. Ali took the bird photo, she is a budding photographer.

So, I keep forgetting that the blog site will load your pictures in backwards order from how you put them in. Here we have the wonderful waiter at the wonderful restaurant which we enjoyed twice in Vancouver, both with excellent results. We liked our waiter, and sat outside in the glorious weather both times. If only I could remember what it was called I'd tell ya.....
Ali, contemplating weather or not she needs to be able to see out of her right eye, or if she can go without it.
This is the squirrel who was totally unaware that he was in the middle of the city, 1 foot away from a person. He was a little nutty for the ice cream, which is, apparently, worth risking his life for. This picture of him doesn't actually show off his crazy eyes!

Ali's first car? and apartment???

Ali is right next to that car, it was so funny seeing it on the street that we had to snap a shot. If anyone knows what this type of car is called let me know. The apartment you see is crafted by the owner/architect (Ali) and you can view the inside of it below. Ali is getting to be so independent........first the car, then her place...what next?

Along the bay...

I had to include a couple more images of lovely Vancouver. As we continued sight seeing on Thursday we walked about a mile along the bay, the scenery was breathtaking, as you can see. This model of an old fishing shack is about 10 feet off the ground, with the roof reaching nearly 20 feet. It is crafted out of metal, so it will be there forever should you choose to go see it!

So, these pictures were taken like the morning we got to Vancouver. We got to the hotel too early to check in, so we let them hold on to our stuff (and lots of it!), while we got to be tourists. These shots are right outside of our hotel.

It is interesting what can happen when you ask someone to take a photo, if it is a person (in this case a representative of the male gender) who isn't interested in photography, he might take a picture, look at it to make sure all of the desired subjects actually ended up in the shot, and smile saying it turned out great. Huge blackening shadows are of no consequence in the quest to conquer this strangers camera. You can see this demonstrated in the family shot. Thank you, strange man, for taking a picture, when it was obviously not your God given talent, we shall cherish it.

This day is as wonderful as it looks, I can still breath in the 65ish degree air and sigh, lovely.

Now we're having fun!

Man, oh man, we had some fun in Vancouver. First off, Steven found us an amazing Hotel, saved us some moolah, and got us a view of the bay. We were at the Mariott Bayshore and I highly recommend it. Nice people, nice shops, beautiful weather.

Between Seattle and Vancouver

We arrived in Seattle on time late Tues. We stayed at a Motel that Steve found online, we don't recommend staying at the lesser known The Red Lion in Seattle, (but I am sure the better known, nicer one is wonderful). Thankfully we didn't stop to take pictures of that motel. On Wed we ended up taking a bus back to the airport to hop on our bus to Vancouver.

That bus ride was a bit of an adventure in itself. ( My wonderful sister ended up sharing her flight passes with us so we could go on Frontier. Frontier flies to Seattle, not Vancouver, hence the trip from Seattle to Vancouver, where our Cruise departs from.) The 3 hour bus trip ends up taking 6 hours when the bus stops at every airport between Seattle and Vancouver. Without bathroom breaks, or snacks.... from 10am to 4pm. With my O blood type, and high protein requirements (give me food every 3 hours!) it was a very long trip. A super high quality colostrum lozenge product is what kept me sane. It was a beautiful trip however, the country side we saw along the way was just lovely. No, I didn't get a picture of the scenery, but I did get some awesome snuggles from Ali, who at this point in the trip is still 6. Ali has been a total trooper, even without lunch! She is so excited, but is missing her bro and sis.

Alaska...........almost

ALASKA,

Isn't it beautiful?

Oh, wait.....

Well, after you take a look at the state of our living room on the day of departure you'll have earned a lovely picture of.......

Vancouver?


Yes, our adventure begins with a three day National Canadain Event in Vancouver.

But as for Departure Day, it was, of course, crazy! I've included a pic of Ali (upper right) and Maya (on the left) which I took the day we left.