Vancouver, BC

Good morning and happy Monday all! Unlike many of you, not only do I have to work today our schools are all in session, despite the holiday. Oh well, no sense in dwelling, I'll skip right to my somewhat overdue post on the initial leg of our long weekend in the Pacific Northwest. Be sure to catch up and read about the Seattle leg here.

We started the long weekend in Vancouver, BC. If you'll recall from this post, I met my sweet hubby up in the PNW area about 12 years ago and hadn't been back up there since. I was so excited for this trip but I will tell you now that we never made it into downtown Vancouver. That's where we spent most of our time together back then, but we decided to stay in the burbs and spend time with close friends and family instead of dealing with the city traffic and hustle and bustle.

We arrived late at night on Friday so we didn't get to see any scenery at all during the long drive in from Seattle. First thing Saturday morning I opened the blinds (we stayed at good friend Jeff''s home in New Westminster area) and this was the view.

Ah, white capped mountains in the distance and signs of a bright blue sky overhead.

Brr was it chilly in the morning! The ground was covered in a thin layer of ice so walking a few blocks into the main part of town for breakfast was a bit tricky. This is Jeff~ hi Jeff! ☺ He's tall, but hubby is a bit height challenged which makes Jeff look even taller. My husband and I are the same height and this bothered me for years, but I'm much more secure about it now and even wear my 4 inch heels out at night, whereas I used to only wear flats.

OK, I digress...sorry. Daddy and little one walking to and from breakfast on Saturday morning. We ate at the The Waffle House which is a local favorite and we all loved it.
The main drag of New Westminster, BC above and a cool tree spotted on our stroll below.
After breakfast we hopped in the car and drove to North Vancouver to visit hubby's family who live in a fabulous area just at the base of Grouse Mountain. We stopped for flowers along the way.

After our visit with his family we drove up to Cypress Mountain overlook to get a view of the city. It was gorgeous with low lying clouds right over the water and pinkish skies.
You can just make out the mountains in the distance.

A closer shot ~ anyone know what mountain this is?

The Vancouver skyline.




From there we caught up with Jeff and his sweet (and gorgeous!!) girlfriend and her adorable kiddo, along with some other friends for lunch at Szechuan Chongqing (hubby's favorite in the entire city). We took the kids to a park/playground after lunch and they really hit it off.
A gelato stop was in order before the long drive out to Steveston for dinner.
Jeff and the girls walking towards gelato shop.
We squeezed so much into this day as we also hit a local mall (H&M stop) and visited with Jeff's parents during the afternoon.

A quick stop at Tim Horton's and Superstore on Sunday morning before the drive back into Seattle. Lucky for me there's a Milestone's right at the border so I had to pick up my favorite cheeseburger for the road/45 minute wait at the border.

We really lucked out with the weather up there that weekend, it was phenomenal!

Happy new week everyone. ☺

Cheers~
T