Vancouver Temple

I love the temple! I love to go there and feel peace. Temples are beautiful inside and out. When we went to Vancouver in February, we were able to go see the almost finished new temple. I wish we could go up to the Open House, but I think we've used our allotment of Canada trips in the last 8 weeks. Oh well, at least we got to see the outside of it. We've been able to take our kids to the open house's of the Sacramento and Oquirrh Mountain temples, we love it! I love knowing that our family is forever because of the temple. I also have come to have a deep love for family history work, and not just because of the temple work part of it. I can't begin to describe the feeling I get when I discover a new ancestor or a new fact about an ancestor I already knew about. Seeing a great grandparents handwriting on a census form or finding a birth certificate sends a thrill through my entire body. I love it. Two of the things that I inherited from my grandma were her journals and pictures. I haven't begun to explore them yet because I don't have the time to do it properly. Maybe when school gets out. People ask me all the time what I'm going to do with my time when Emma goes to school... this is one of my answers!

The Olympics!

What a vacation! The only word I can really use to describe our trip is PERFECT. You'll have to wait to hear about the other days of our trip, this is just about the event we went to. Like I wrote before we left, we went to see the medal round of men's and women's skeleton. What a completely unforgetable day. Even though the event didn't start until 3:45, we left my grandma's at about 10:00 so we could get up to our parking lot to meet the bus. The ride up to Whistler was about 2 hours. Fortunately, it wasn't a school bus!

The scenery on the way up was incredible.

We had to have our Canada "touques".

Arriving in Whistler. What a cute resort town.

At the bus parking lot they were passing out hot chocolate. Emma finished hers and wanted more but we were already on our way. Before she fell asleep, I promised her we would get some when we got to Whister. She didn't forget. As soon as she woke up she was looking for her hot chocolate and life was not good until we found some.

At the base of the mountain.

Getting ready to ride the gondola up to the top of the mountain.

Waiting in the security line, it actually moved fairly quickly.

The first of MANY potty breaks for the day

Finally arriving at the track.

Heading up to the top.

The walk up to the top was long and steep in places. Emma needed a few breaks (so did Mom). Jason ended up carrying her for a lot of the way.

Waiting for one of Emma's breaks

Almost to the top!

After we made our way to the top and were headed back down, dinner time came upon us. Emma was in DIRE need of food and drink. So we found a place to stop and wait while Jason went to find us some food (the only things allowed into the venues were unopened water bottles or we would have packed our dinner in). Food was a pretty welcomed sight, even if 7 hot dogs and 6 hot chocolates cost a mere $64.

The starting house.

Noelle Pikus-Pace

It was amazing to see how fast the racers go. You would miss them if you blinked!

Emma and Dad at the end.

The final turn.

The finish line.

The leader board right before Canada's Jon Montgomery did his final run. It was so cool to see him take the lead. After all, he's Canadian and from Russell Manitoba, eh! We headed down to leave once the American's had all dropped out of medal contention. I walked out of the track right after the last slider started but Jason called me back to watch and I'm so glad he did. As we watched the last slider on the screen he was ahead of Jon Montgomery at every check point down. I was sure he was going to win. But when the final score was up and Montgomery won, the entire crowd went crazy. It was so incredible to see. YEA CANADA!

We hurried and rode a shuttle bus down to the big busses and got on the first one out. The kids took a few minutes to settle down, but quickly crashed.

It was a wonderful experience to take our family up to the games. I'm sure they will never forget it.

To sum things up:

Tickets to the Olympics: $too much$

Tickets for the bus ride to Whistler: $insane$

7 Hot Dogs, 6 Hot Chocolates: $outrageous$

Trip of a lifetime: Priceless