After Scott's graduation, we had this crazy idea to fly to Seattle and then drive from there to Vancouver, British Columbia in CANADA to stay for a few days. Yeah that's right, I said CANADA! Why Canada might you ask? Well my wonderful handsome husband was accepted to the University of British Columbia (UBC) for grad school back in Feb. We thought it would be a good idea to go and check things out to make sure Canada was to our liking.
Our flight to Seattle was short, around 2 hours and not too shabby. It was our first one with Shelby, and she actually did quite well. I was expecting her to cry a lot more but she only did for 5 minutes during takeoff because of the pressure on her ears. Once she had her "bottle" she was as happy as can be and slept the rest of the flight. After the flight we made our way to the car rental place and had to take a ferry to get to Hansville where we were staying. It was a 20 minute ride, but a fun new experience with a beautiful view.
We stayed with the most wonderful people in the whole world (next to our own parents of course:), Audrey and Bruce Grant. They treated us like their own kids and totally went out of their way to make sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed before we ventured out to Vancouver. Thank you so much Bruce and Audrey for everything! We had such a wonderful time and were so relaxed.
They will definitely be our home away from home once we're in Canada (if they will have us again of course).
The following morning got off to a great start with a yummy homemade breakfast. We left around 9:30 to catch the 10am ferry back to the mainland and then made our way up to Canada. We got to the border in less than 2 hours and had no trouble with border patrol. Shelby was sleeping like an angel up to this point, after which we only had 25 miles or so to go until we were at UBC....or so we thought. Once we were in Vancouver we took the exit the Mapquest directions said to take and took a right turn heading east on Marine Drive. We went a mile or so when the directions started to get confusing. I was navigating and wasn't seeing the road it was telling us to turn on, but Scott said he had been looking at the map before our trip and was pretty sure we were on the right road. At first I was hesitant and wanted to pull over or ask someone to be sure,but this time I decided to not put up a fight and just let him drive. We were having a good time thus far and I didn't want to ruin it by being a backseat driver. After all, we were in Canada and Mapquest directions are NEVER wrong, right? Rrrrrrrrrright.....
So we kept driving.... and driving....and driving.
Now keep in mind, when we told people we were moving to Vancouver anyone who had ever been there before would always say "Oh you're lucky, you'll love it there. Vancouver is soooo beautiful and green. Its breathtaking." After driving for what seemed like over an hour, and seeing nothing but dirty concrete, and industrial scenery, we were really beginning to wonder if everyone was just full of you know what and trying to make us feel better about moving to Canada. Well Scott started having second thoughts about the road we were on and was finally convinced he needed to pull over at a gas station to get directions to UBC. Of course he wanted me to do it for obvious reasons. Heaven forbid a man should be caught not knowing where he was going. By this time our little Shelby was on the verge of a crying spell after not eating for 3 hours or so. I needed to take care of her. Besides,being the woman that I am, I'm terrible with remembering directions and he was the reason we were in Vancouver in the first place,right? Right. So he went in and asked for directions. (Love you babe :) He came out satisfied and off we went again. Somehow we had gone a little too far and were off of Marine Drive but the attendant said we just needed to turn around an look for Marine Drive again and it would take us straight to UBC. It turns out we should've gone WEST on Marine Drive not East. We had gone over 45 minutes in the opposite direction of UBC.
A few U-turns,another stop to ask for directions, a million times of singing Itsy Bitsy Spider and I am a Child of God to keep Shelby from freaking out, and an hour or so later we FINALLY arrive at UBC--all three of us on edge, ravenous, and definitely more grumpy than when we left earlier that morning. By this time it was around 3:30 or 4pm and the UBC financial aid offices were already closed. There goes our plan for the first day at UBC. Next on the agenda-- get some food and get the heck out of there to find out hotel and get our baby to sleep for the evening.
So there we were walking on campus, which is HUGE and spread out, totally opposite of BYU. We were exhausted and famished so we settled for the first place we could find on the campus map. We go down some stairs and find out it is a Pub. A Pub, serves alcohol, no biggie right? We obviously don't drink but we still go to restaurants that serve alcohol. Besides the place was a ghost-town being the end of the semester. I had no problem with it. I just wanted some grub. Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm not very fun to be around when I'm hungry and tired. Okay so that's an understatement, but who isn't grumpy when they've been lost for hours on an empty stomach with a fussy baby. Back to the Pub...
We sit down to order our food and to kill some time I start nursing Shelby while we wait. Finally our waiter brings our food and we start chowing down. I hadn't even taken two bites into my chicken fingers, when the waiter comes back out to us and says, "I'm so sorry. I totally forgot, but you can't have your baby in here because we serve alcohol. It's against Canadian law, you'll need to leave. So sorry". Oh of course! Duh, stupid me for not knowing that you can't take a baby into a Pub. I should've known better because I frequent pubs all the time back in the States. And with that Scott and I were quickly reminded we weren't in Provo anymore. ARGHHHHHHHH!! I wanted to scream,but by this point all I could do was laugh it off. So we went upstairs to eat our meal on a bench outside the grad office. I felt like everyone on their way to the pub just starred at us wondering what the heck we were doing there eating our food from the pub.
After a long day, we got back into our rental car and drove downtown to find our hotel. Fortunately it was easy to find and not too far away from UBC.. Our room was teeny, but I can't complain, it was a place to rest my head which was much needed. Scott set up Shelby's porta crib and we all passed out for the night at 6:30pm. Thank goodness Shelby slept so well through the night with only a quick early morning snack, and then back to sleep until 8am. That morning Scott decided to go back to UBC on his own so Shelby and I could get some R&R until lunchtime.
The rest of the day was wonderful. I stayed at the hotel and read the rest of New Moon by Stephenie Meyer while Shelby slept the morning away until Scott came back to pick us up. We met Dr. Ross King ,a super smart and very nice professor that Scott will be working with at UBC, at a authentic Chinese restaurant. The food was delicious and the rest of the day was fabulous. Everywhere we went people would comment on Shelby and say "Congratulations," or "NICE JOB!" with a thumbs up. Its not Provo where babies are a dime a dozen, although we did see some young couples walking with strollers on the streets. It was fun to see people go gaga over our daughter. After all she is a cutee, wouldn't you agree? Just look at those baby blue eyes and chubby cheekies!
Even though we had a few kinks here and there on our first day in Vancouver, we didn't let it ruin our trip. We actually came away from the trip with a great first impression. It really is beautiful and really green like people said. You just have to know where you are going and be on the west side of town-lol :) The neighborhoods are quite pretty with lots of trees and parks. The homes are also very quaint and cottage like. I liked that they weren't your typical cookie cutter homes. Overall, we had a great time and are really excited to be living in Vancouver for the next few years. We still don't know exactly when we're moving because we don't have a place yet but, in time, we will have more details. Until then, we'll enjoy the time we have left with our family and friends here in good ole Provo!
I wish I had more pics of Vancouver but with the craziness and all, we only managed to snap these few. This beach is just a few steps off campus from UBC . The pictures don'tt quite do it justice and the weather was actually quite sunny most of our trip. You'll just have to take my word for it. 
