Vancouver Part 3!

So this was the first time that we have ever left our kids for more than 2 nights. I was a little nervous at first but it turned out just fine. By Thursday, I was missing them all a bit. Plus I was beat!! Ha ha! Wednesday was a fun day but we did a LOT of walking and it exhausted me! So we decided to take it a little easy on Thursday.

We took off in the morning and went downtown to go check out the Convention Center and we walked around there and went to a cool 3D show of "Flying over Canada". It was super cool! We saw the Olympic Torch there too.

We had lunch there and then headed back to the hotel. We stopped at a Dollar Store and got a few things we needed and some treats. Then we went back and watched TV and had a nap. I was so tired!! We decided that we were going to go to a movie that night. So we just relaxed the rest of the afternoon and then headed out to the movie theatre. We had supper at the Spaghetti Factory which was across the street from the Theatre. Then we went over and watched our movie. It was a perfect, relaxing day!

Our plan for Friday was to get up early....hence why we had a relaxing day on Thursday too! We were up by 7am and walking out by 7:30am. We headed toward the ferries. Good thing we left early because traffic was crazy. Our ferry was leaving at 9am and we got there just before 8:30am. We got our ticket and pulled into line. Then we walked over to the market place and got some breakfast and headed back to the car and ate there.

We started loading the Ferry at about 8:45am. It was super cool. We were on the upper deck with our car. It was cool to look out the side and see the ocean and other boats. We decided to lock up the car and head upstairs. I've never been on a Ferry before so it was cool to walk around and explore.

Our car in the Ferry.

Then the Ferry pulled out and we were headed toward Vancouver Island. We stayed outside for a bit then headed inside. We checked out the gift shops and then sat down by a window. That didn't last very long though. The motion was making both of us a little sick. So we went up to the observation deck, which is outside. The cool air helped us not be so naucious. We stayed up there for the rest of the time. It took 1 1/2 hrs to get to the Island.

The ramps going up.

The oberservation deck on the Ferry.

We passed another Ferry boat.

\My handsome husband!!

Going by little islands.

\The other Ferry boat!!!!

We drove off the ferry and headed straight to the Butchart Gardens. We really wanted to check them out. It was overcast and lightly raining when we got there. We grabbed some umbrellas and started to walk around. The gardens are amazing. Everything was so green. It was so cool to walk through it all. I'm sure it looks even better in the spring time. But we really enjoyed walking around. We were probably there for over 2hrs.

Richard posing with his umbrella!! Ha ha!

Look how stunning the gardens look.

Me by a tree that was starting to blossom.

Cool fountain in the pond.

Me on a carrosel horse!!

This was the rose gardens. This would be cool in the spring and summer. These arch ways would be covered in roses.

The Butchart Cove lookout.

Love how green everything is.

Then we took off for Victoria. We didn't have any concrete plans so we were just driving around, checking things out. We found the Fisherman's Whorf. It was so cool. People live in there houses right there on the water. Anyways, we noticed people were getting ready to go whale watching so we decided to join them. We paid for our tickets and got into our gear. Then we waited for the boat to show up! Then away we went. It was pretty cool. On the way out, he drove us along the coast and we saw bald eagles (a bunch) and some seals sunning on rocks. We got pretty close to those. It was neat. Then we headed out to the open ocean. It was a bit rougher. We cruised around and all of the sudden he gunned it and whipped the boat around. He found 2 porpoises. It was super cool. They came and jumped right up beside us. Really neat. We didn't see any whales but it was still a fun experience. We headed back right as the sun was setting. I took a ton of pictures!

Walking down to the Wharf.

Richard and I in our very fashionable outfits! They were very warm!

Richard loved the water Taxi!! Ha ha!

The cool looking floating houses.

There goes the taxi!

Us in the boat ready for our adventure!

We sat in the back of the boat.

Our boat driver and guide name was Brett. He was super nice.

If you look closely you can see the seals between the two big rocks.

They are the white spots.

Cool picture of the sky....before the sun started setting.

OK here are a whole bunch of cool pictures of the sun setting. We were flying along in the boat, so some of the pictures show the spray from the boat. It was so pretty watching it set over the ocean. Loved it.

 

Cool dude, Richard!!

We went by the light house on the way back. You can see the owners standing on the rocks. They were waving at us. They live there year round.

It was an amazing experience and I'm so glad we went. By the time we got back we were both starving. We found a fancy seafood restaurant and decided to try our luck with that. There was a spot open. So we went in (even though I felt very under dressed)! Oh well! The food was absolutely amazing. We really enjoyed ourselves. Then we looked at the time and panicked. We told our waiter that we had to make the 9pm ferry. So he quickly got our check and we paid and ran out. We flew along the highway and I accidently told Richard to take the wrong exit. Oops. I realized it as soon as we went off. But Richard kept asking where we were on the GPS (I had turned it off at that point cause I thought we were almost there). It was a stressful moment, but we turned around and got there with 3 minutes to spare. They had to lower the gate of the ferry so we could drive on. We were the last car on. Talk about cutting it close! Sheesh!

We were both exhausted. We went to the upper deck and walked around and I bought a few souvenirs for the kids. Then we went back down to the car and lowered our seats and fell asleep. We woke up when the semi in front of us started moving! We were back! It was a late night.  But a really fun day!

The next day we got up and got ready to go. We took our time and packed everything up. We decided, we didn't want to take our chances with missing our plane. We lucked out twice and didn't want to try again! Ha ha! We got there early and had breakfast and then went through security and waited at our gate for quite a while. But we made it. Then we found out we were sitting in the front seats (can't remember what they call them). But they have more room and we got free food. Sweet! It made the flight even better! Ha ha! So there's our Vancouver trip. It was a blast. But we were both ready to come back home and see our kids! Glad we were able to go!