The End of Super Fun Vaca

I hate turbulence.


I love to fly, except for the pesky turbulence. I find myself white-knuckling the armrests and looking around nervously to see if the flight attendants look ancy.


I’m on a long haul flight as I type this. Straight from Vancouver to Memphis. And I already feel like I’ve been on this plane for hours. Make that days. Flights home are always so much longer than flights to your vacation spot. I guess it is because when home calls, there just ain’t nothing like it. My babies are meeting us at the airport tonight, and I can’t wait to see them. To trace Sawyer’s sweet freckles with my fingers and run my fingers through Keaton’s hair. To scoop up the TaterTot and smother him in kisses. Oh those boys. My heart just aches to see them.


Yesterday was our last day in Vancouver, and we discussed heavily the possibility of whale watching. My Tweeps and Blogeeps had been crossing their fingers (when they weren’t using them to attack their keyboards) for me to go visit the wonderful world of whales, but it just didn’t happen. It is still high up on my bucket list, but it just seemed like every avenue we checked into to go observe Free Willy kept coming in hitched up. Too expensive. Or too far away. Or the next day guaranteed (with us not having a next day to guarantee).


We also thought about heading up to Whistler (the home of the 2010 Winter Olympics), but decided against that, too.


So we settled on heading up Grouse Mountain….Vancouver’s highest peak. There looked like all kinds of touristy things to do up there, and it was relatively inexpensive and close.


With Grouse Mtn. being located in North Vancouver, it required us to take a SeaBus to get across the ocean.
Oh my gosh. The whole time I just kept thinking how much fun the boys would have crossing the water on the hugacious water taxi. And I may or may not have resembled a giddy 5 year old on the ride over, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

After we came off the water, we hopped a bus that took us straight up to the base of the mountain. And then we hopped on one of these that took us up to the top.


This is me, in the slightly freaky SkyTrain.


When you realize that all that is keeping you from plummeting down the edge of the mountain is just a couple of cables and a freakishly small hunk of metal…well, it is just a might unnerving.

I made it to the top of the mountain with my sanity still intact, and our first stop was in to the gift shop to buy me a jacket. I had brought a hoodie, but nothing prepared me for the FREEZING temps on the tippy top of the hill. Geez.
Here I am in my way-cool new jacket. Thanks, Husband!

On top of the mountain, we watched a Birds of Prey Demonstration. Very cool.

I think this guy’s name was Gizmo.

And this was Rocco.
And we also took in a burly lumberjack show. They were SO much fun to watch! They did all kinds of manly competitions, and they weren’t too shabby on the eyes either!
We also took a chair lift up to the Peak of Grouse Mountain. It was so breathtaking. We could see all of Vancouver from where we were. Nevermind that I wanted to throw up while on it.

And I played in the snow….in June.

Oh. And maybe the best part! We ate BeaverTails!! Goodness Sakes, I’m not sure anything more divinely scrumptious has ever passed past my lips.

We also met Grinder and Coola, the mountain’s resident grizzlies. They were very “friendly” with each other. More than plutonic, should I say?! The husband made me take a picture, but this is a family show, so I’ll refrain from posting it. Here are the bears with some distance between them.

(Did I mention that Grinder and Coola are both male bears? Uh. Yeah. Needless to say, we were all double-checking to make sure that we had, in fact, entered Grouse Mountain, and not taken a detour to Brokeback. *wink*)

After taking in all the sights of the mountain (and a few more than we had bargained for) we ate an extremely high-priced cafeteria style meal.

That’s a $10 bowl of tortellini you’re staring at, folks.

Mountain robbery, I tell ya. Mountain robbery.

After bussing and SeaBussing our way back to our hotel, we packed suitcases and then headed out for a late dinner. Remember the Shepherd’s Pie that I had a few days ago? Yeah…will neither Kirk or I had been able to get that restaurant off of our food-centered minds, so we went back. And though the food was delicious, it didn’t quite compare to the other day.

After dinner, I batted my eyelashes at the husband, and he so generously walked me down the street to a little store that I had been ogling my entire stay in Vancouver.

Yes. It is a store….entirely devoted to Cupcakes. Does it really get any better than that?

I think not.

And because the husband loves me so much, he bought me a chocolate cupcake with mint buttercream icing.

Oh.My.Stars.

And so the husband wouldn’t feel left out (because I sure wasn’t sharing my cupcake!), we stopped in at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company and picked him up a couple of treats.

That would be Cheesecake Bomb and a Peanut Butter Brittle Bomb.

Apparently they were “the bomb.”

And that brings us to the plane. With the most horrendous turbulence.
And I’m trying to refrain from digging my fingernails into the husband’s arm too severely. Because apparently blood is frowned upon on aircrafts. Who knew?!

My trip to Canada has been amazing.

Like I said before, time away from real life is refreshing for my soul.

I’m more in love with my husband now than I was a week ago.

I’m glad that I’m able to scratch off another country visited on my list.

And I’m grateful for opportunities to explore pieces of God’s creation that are new to me.

Thanks for hanging out with me on my Super Fun Vaca! I wanted to document everything from the food we ate to the places we went as a keepsake travel journal for my family, but I’m so glad that some of you have been able to travel vicariously through me and the husband this week.

It’s been real.

And it’s been fun.

But it, for sure, has been REAL FUN!

Super Fun Vaca…..Over and Out.

Eh?