All American Fourth of July.... in Canada

Yes we again left the US and ran for the border for the Fourth of July long weekend. And we had a terrific time.
The ride over was a bit rough ( 2 of 3 sea monsters were a bit seasick) but we made it safely and made it through customs and immigration. We stayed in the Empress hotel this time.
Very pretty. Super location since it is right in the harbor where all the action is and it makes it easy for us to make quick stops at the room as needed during the day.

We hit the highlight of the trip right off with whale watching Friday afternoon after we arrived. The boys loved it! OK, G (the vegetarian veterinarian) loved it right away and E had to warm up to it. Once we saw the first whales everybody was into it.

At this point before I show you some beautiful pictures of the orca whales we saw I have a confession to make: I am not good at taking pictures of animals. I am too slow or the camera is too slow or something, but all I have is a bunch of fins half in the water. I am borrowing some pictures from our guides web site of the actual whales we saw. If you want to see some of the terrific pictures she took you can check out her web site at http://www.maiacetus.blogspot.com/ Kyla was a wonderful guide; good at explaining things to both the adults and getting on the kids level as well. And her photos are fabulous (see below)



The last picture is a baby only about 6 months old. Even D had a wonderful time watching the whales.

Kyla even gave us a great dinner recommendation in Chinatown.
Dinner was great and the kids were wiped out when we finally hit our room for the night.


Saturday we went to miniature world where it looks like its real only really, really small. The kids had been looking forward to this for weeks, but it went really really fast as they practically ran through. I was more impressed than I thought I would be.


We wandered shops for a while and then took a harbor ferry boat over to Fisherman's Wharf for seal feeding and lunch.



Our last afternoon of the trip was spent knitting and napping (me and M; him napping and me knitting) or swimming and shopping (D, E and G). We had some dinner, watched street performers,

and then played on the lawn of the Parliament building

until the lights came on (the boys said this was one thing they definitely wanted to see again this year.



Yes, our new Independence Day tradition is a bit strange, but it has also made the past 2 holidays really fun!
love and hugs, B