Chris has an Aunt and Uncle that live in Vancouver, so we devised this plan last year (and were planning to go last year!) but it just didn't come together until this summer. See, each year Chris' mom's side of the family gathers for the September long weekend in Fairmont Hot Springs. It is the most lovely tradition- Chris's grandparents started it over 30 years ago! So our plan was this: Fly to Vancouver using our Airmiles, stay there for a week, then drive with Chris's Uncle Geoff and Aunt Christine to Fairmont (which as a side note, is way further than the Edmonton-Fairmont drive!) then, after the long weekend in fairmont we would drive home with Chris' Mom and Step-Dad. Oh, and I forgot- an overnight trip to Seattle!
It all worked out perfectly! We arrived on a Wednesday evening at the airport, then grabbed our rental car (Also, Airmiles! Woo hoo!) and made our way to Geoff and Christine's condo in Olympic Village. Olympic Village was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics as a place for the athletes to live. It's located right on the water on False Creek, and the view is stunning. We took full advantage of their large balcony each day- we ate our breakfast and sipped our coffee there before heading out for the day, and headed straight back to it after our adventures were over to read a book or take a nap.
One of the highlights was, without a doubt tandem bike riding on the sea wall. I have always wanted to try out a tandem bike, and what better opportunity than along the sea wall with such beautiful scenery??
For the rest of the week we spent a lot of time exploring cool streets with cool shops, and then heading a little further out from Downtown Vancouver... such as to Delta for Krispy Kreme. Um YUM. Chris also took me to North van to show me where he lived for a short while, and all his favorite spots there.
We headed to Seattle on Saturday evening, and did a little shopping, then stayed the night and went to church at Mars Hill Church- a place we were both very excited to go because the Lead Pastor Mark Driscoll is one of our favorites to listen to and he has written one of my favorite books on marriage. Unfortunately he was on holidays, but we experienced a great worship service and really enjoyed their guest speaker, Larry Osborne. Chris actually picked up his book while we were there and enjoyed reading it during the rest of our trip! While in Seattle we also went to Pike Place Market, went to the first Starbucks, watched the guys throw fish at the fish market, went for fish and chips at Ivar's (Thanks Jonathan!) and did the Underground Tour. It was a lot to pack into a day and a half, but we had a blast!
Fairmont was as lovely as ever- it was my fourth year there, and I love it just as much as the first year. It will always be a special place to me because the first year I went, 4 years ago was only days after we got engaged and we announced it to everyone when we arrived. I look forward to many more treasured memories there in the future.
This week was back to work for me, and back to school for Chris. We're heading off for the weekend for Chris' school's annual retreat for his program (School of Pastoral Leadership or SPL) If I have a little bit of time in between all the awesome worship, teaching and relaxation time, maybe I'll try typing up that blog I lost ;)
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Thanks for stopping by :)
~M
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