Vacation to Vancouver

My dad's company is located in Vancouver, BC. He has traveled there every few weeks for the past eleven years. This trip he invited JB and I to come and stay with him and my mom because he had an extra room in his hotel-apartment (all the single room suites were taken). Vancouver is the most beautiful big city because it is very clean, and there is ocean, trees and mountains surrounding it.  I really think I could live there.

Here is a photo of my dad in his Office.  He is on the 10th floor.
My mom and dad outside his building on West Georgia.  The Hotel he always stays at is right across the street.
Here is a picture taken in the harbor.  It was about nine o'clock when this photo was taken.  It is crazy how light it is.
Here we are at sushi.  It was so yummy, and so fun to pick up the food as it floated by on little wooden boats.
Here we are just outside the IMAX theatre.  We went and saw U2 in 3-D.  It was AMAZING!  It really felt like we were at the concert in the front row.  I could see the beads of sweat on the Bono's neck.

The next day was my favorite.  We went and saw Stanley Park.  It is the most amazing place.  When you are in the middle of it you would NEVER know there was a bustling city less than a couple miles away.

Here are some lily pads we saw as we were entering the park.  I never see these.

Here is the city view from the front of the park.
Pretty bridge.
The gardens at the park.
There were millions of Trees surrounding the crisp, clean ocean.

Light house.

Here is a raccoon hanging out at the snack bar.
At the lookout point.
Here we are on one of our hikes.
JB at the beach.  The water was surprisingly warm.  It felt like it was about 70 degrees.
On one of the hikes through the park.  It was breath taking.

Leaving the park we saw some of the most beautiful hydrangeas. 
Out to dinner at one of the restaurants on Robson streets.  Our steaks were delicious.
Fireworks display for the Festival of Lights.  This show was put on by the Chinese.  There is a big competition between the USA, Canada, and China.  The whole city was at the beach.  It was really cool to see the fireworks in-sync with music.

Our last day we went to Grandville island, a little island with lots of shops and places to eat.  We had such a wonderful vacation in Vancouver.  We would recommend it to anyone.
The view from the sky.

Riding a Bike!

This morning my wonderful husband let me sleep in. When I woke up I went outside, and to my surprise I saw CJ riding his bike up and down my parent's cul de sac in his "I love Mom" PJ's. I cracked up! He is only 3 1/2 and had never tried a two-wheeler, even with training wheels. JB said he got it right away.  He only needs a little push to get going, and can stop all by himself.  Way to go C-monster!
I love the striped PJ bottoms and skateboard pads and shoes.

Fish

I finally got to ride my fish that JB made for me this week. It was so much fun, it was really loose, but still had good drive. I tried it out at Churches in San Clemente. There were tons of fun little rights coming in and I had such a blast.

Circus

We went to the Anaheim Honda Center with Grandma and Grandpa, the Smith family, Aunt Mar, Lang and Jett. We saw Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It really was the greatest show on earth. We loved every minute of it. The kids sat through the entire 2 1/2 hour show (thats amazing). Our favorite part was when 7 motorcycles went around in a ball together. It was incredible that no one died!The kids sat like this the entire show!
Ball of death, notice the guy upside-down and six others zooming around.
Walking elephants.
Scary tigers.

So You Think You Can Dance

On Thursday I went to SYTYCD with my friends Racheal, Brennen, Camille, and Meredith.  We had fun watching them film three group dance numbers, and a musical number by Lady Ga Ga. (She actually ended up getting cut from the show because they ran out of time).  It was cool being behind the scenes and learning how much work goes into a one hour show.
We went to the Cheese  Cake Factory and shopping at the Grove during our lunch break.
While shopping at the grove we had a celebrity sighting.  We saw Victoria Beckham (Posh from the Spice girls).  She was walking down the street wearing 5 inch heals, big sunglasses, and a orange, white, and black dress.  She was holding her son's hand, who was riding on his heelys shoes.
During the live taping at 6:00 Rachael and I actually got on TV because we were standing in the front row.  Meredith got on TV because she was standing in the balcony next to Cat Deeley. There was also saw a shot of Brennan and Camille standing in the audience.

Palm Springs

We went to Palm Springs for a few days with Johnny's parents.  We had so much fun. It was nice to do something different.

Johnny and his dad went golfing at the Dessert Springs Resort.  CJ joined them for the last few holes and he had such a great time.

Here's me and Miss B checking out the flamingos.  She loved them.  There were also black swans and ducks running around.  M loved saying "quack quack" to the ducks.
One of the ducks was trying to nibble on her toes.  She was not too happy about that, and she screamed.
We spent a lot of time in the pool because it was hot, about 105.  But the water felt incredibly nice.  Here is Daddy and his little girl.
M floating with Daddy on all the noodles.
Little fishy.
We even got Mimi in the pool.

American Idol Concert

Tonight Amber, April and I all went to see the American Idol concert.  It was AMAZING!  Everyone did great.  All of the singers got to sing three songs.  Some of my favorites were Micheal Johns who sang "We Are The Champions," Carly Smithson who sang "Crazy" by Heart, and also "I Drove All Night;" she sounded just as good, if not better than Celine Dion.   Jason Castro sang "Over the Rainbow" while playing the ukulele, and I loved Brooke White who sang "Yellow" by Coldplay.  She played the guitar and the piano, she was so beautiful.  Of course my two absolute favorites were the Davids.  The crowd was going CRAZY for them.  David Archuleta played the piano for his opening song which was  "I'm Loving Angels Instead." In between songs he was so cute, he was just smiling and giggling, and so humble.  He also sang "Stand by Me." David Cook was such a pro.  You could tell he was the winner.  He was so natural up on stage performing.  My favorite songs he did were "I don't want to Miss a Thing" and "Billy Jean."  I would recommend this concert to anyone it was a great mix of all different kinds of music, and I did not want it to end.

4th of July

The 4th of July was a lot of fun. We were down in San Clemente for the day. We went to a ward pancake breakfast. It is a tradition that has been going on in the SC2 ward for years; I grew up going to pancake breakfasts every 4th of July so it was a lot of fun going this year. The food was great and the kids put on a little bike parade. They had so much fun. The beach was really foggy that day so we went swimming in our neighbor's pool, then later we went to see fireworks at the pier.M loved riding around and being pushed by Steve and Jessie.  It is so cute she can say both of their names now.

C monster loving the parade.


In the afternoon, before we went swimming, Miss B. was playing in her car, she got in and out of it about 100 times.