Three Kids and a Dog: Vancouver/Alaska Part I

I've been off the grid for more than two weeks now - it may be the longest I've gone without posting in more than 13 years but it was worth it.

Grouse Mountain

On June 14, we left for our Alaskan Disney Cruise and started our journey in Vancouver, Canada. What can I say about Vancouver? What a great city! The architecture. The water. The trees. All of it was so refreshing. We boarded an early flight on Friday morning and took the subway to our hotel down by the waterfront (it was easy to do since Air Canada sent 2 of our bigger pieces of luggage on the next flight instead of ours).

We had a quick lunch overlooking the water in a restaurant that had a grass roof and was built into a hill. Very eco-friendly. Then it was off to Grouse Mountain where we took a gondola to the top and enjoyed getting to know their two bears Koola and Grinder. We took in a lumberjack show which was great fun and a birds of flight program where the birds literally flew over your head. You had to really stay in your seats for fear of getting knocked down. The kids enjoyed it all before heading back to our hotel and the gas town area for dinner at Steam Works.

The next morning, we were up pretty early due to the time difference and took the sea bus to north Vancouver and back. Then we took the subway to the aquabus and on over to Granville Island with open markets and stores. It reminded me of Faneuil Hall in Boston. We had lunch there and perused many shops before taking the ferry back to our hotel and then renting bikes for the afternoon to explore Stanley Park.

I think our 5 mile bike ride around Stanley Park may have been our favorite thing we did in Vancouver. It was a beautiful day. The scenery was amazing as we rode right on the coastline and the kids were all able to easily navigate the bike path (well, Hailey was in a bike trailer but the other two did great).

Afterwards, we met up with my dad (thanks Papa for this amazing trip!) and my brothers and their families for dinner as they had just arrived. The next was Father's Day and we started off with breakfast at White Spot where we could enjoy the U.S. Women's National Team playing in the World Cup. From there we headed to the Capilano Suspension Bridge and then on to "Fly Over" a virtual reality ride through all of Canada's landmarks akin to Soarin' at Disney World/Land. We topped off the day with a nice dinner to celebrate all the dads in our family.

The next morning, we boarded the boat for our Alaskan adventure...which was just breathtakingly beautiful. Stay tuned.