Jon's family is Canadian. Which means that, by default, they are nicer than us.
August 7, 2019
We were blessed by some friends from college with a trip to their house for the night. They live a little north of where my family is located in Auburn, WA, so we went there before going up to see our Canadian family. We spent the day with them playing video games, baking and eating lots of gluten free cookies, and catching up. They have two dogs. A french bulldog named Fry and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Chelsea.
Greg and Calli love so deeply and we were so aware of Jesus in their household. Calli made us dinner (which was very complicated and looked very impressive), left us a WiFi card on the night stand, had an iPhone charger ready for us to use, and also had purchased gluten free flour so that I could eat cookies. Greg had prepared numerous video games for us to play, so Jon was equally as impressed as I was.
We were refreshed by the next day and ready to make the rest of our journey north.
August 8, 2019
Jon and I spent the next day driving up past the border to his family's house in Mission BC. We had a small hiccup at the border, as the man had asked us where our home was, and that is not an easy answer. When we explained that we had just moved to Washington and that our license plates were lying, he asked us when Washington require that we remove the Montana plates. We then explained that we were not staying in Washington long anyways. He was confused by our travel arrangements, but while suspicious it is nothing illegal, so he let us through.
After getting to Mission, our family took us to a candy store, because any family of mine knows that the way to my heart is through giving me sugar. We spent the whole night catching up and eating delicious food.
Jon's Aunt Dawn has gluten allergies and so she bought us some gluten free donuts and apple fritters. There was so much joy waking up in the morning knowing that I could eat a donut if I so wished.
August 9, 2019
We spent the day visiting with Jon's grandparents. His grandpa has an incredible story of escaping from a Russian occupied country during the Cold War. While we did not do much Friday we did get to hear about his life and catch up with both of them. They also took us to a Chinese restaurant that prepared gluten free sweet and sour pork for me and that is important.
August 10, 2019
This was our last full day in Canada with our family this time around, but they were going to make sure that we got the most out of it.
Something that is important to most Americans when they go to Canada is getting to go on a suspension bridge. The invention of Instagram created and perpetuates this trend. So, as a white, female American I felt the obligation to find a suspension bridge. We chose to go to Lynn Canyon Park, because it is less crowded (ideally) than the popular Capilano suspension bridge and it is free. We also enjoyed that there were hiking trails around this area that we could wander around.
Jon's cousin Kendra and I enjoyed the view long enough to get a nice picture, but no longer than we had to. It was not exactly the most sturdy bridge in the world.
Check out this neat slideshow. Click on the right to scroll through!
While I did look up the amount of distance we would be walking, I did not seem to think about amount of stairs we would be walking. We went down about 5 flights of stairs, walked about a mile, and then walked back up the 5 flights of stairs on the other side. There was a cute little store at the end of the line and we wandered around in that for a bit. A cute magnet was purchased as a gift for me, because, like I said before, our Canadian family is much nicer than us, and some cute photos were taken of this magnet.
After looking around the store we walked back down the 5 flights of stairs, another mile, and back up the 5 flights at the beginning of the hike. And that was just the beginning of the day.
We spent some time wandering around Vancouver - the art festival, Whole Foods, Stanley Park, and Queen Elizabeth Park - and trying to outrun the rain.
We met the cutest Pomeranian Husky mix, who's owner was probably so over people swooning over his dog, but hey that's what you get when you buy such a cute breed.
All in all, we were incredibly blessed by this trip and the time we got to spend with family. I know we will be back up in a month or so, but I honestly can say that I already miss them.
See you soon Canada!
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