day seven...

We started our day on a really nice ferry that looked a lot like this one...

We sailed across to another part of Canada, a little south of Vancouver, a big city in Canada.  Daddy took a video on the big ship, and we'll show you that when we get home.  After we got off the big boat, we drove a little while and finally reached the United States again!

We had to wait in a really long line of cars and then we had to talk to a border patrol man (kind of like a police officer) who decides whether people can come into the country.  I'm so glad they let us back in!

A couple of hours later and we were in a really neat city called Seattle.  It's very close to where Henry and Anna's grandparents live!  We went up really high in a building called the Space Needle.  You would have loved riding up the big elevator!

Here's a view of downtown Seattle from the top of the Space Needle...

After that, we went down close to the water to a place called Pike Place Market. We walked around and were amazed at all the different people selling all kinds of things.  This next picture is of the street where we parked.  You can't tell very well in this picture, but the road was SO steep.  I felt like the car was going to tip over!!!  But it didn't!

There were tons of beautiful flowers at the market!  I wanted to buy some so badly!  They are a great price and so pretty.  But I'm not sure they would have liked flying on the airplane tomorrow.  And I'm not sure Daddy would have liked having to carry them all the way back to Denver!

The coffee place we have in Stapleton, Starbucks, was started in Seattle at Pike Place Market.  Here I am getting a coffee there!

We are so excited about seeing you all tomorrow!  Will you please pick us up from the airport and not make us walk all the way home???

We've had such fun and it sounds like you have had so much fun with Carpom and Grandpa!

Tomorrow morning we will go to the airport and start traveling back to Denver.  We'll see you soon!!!!!

day six...

Today we went to a far away beach.  We went to kayak but the winds were too high, so we couldn't kayak.  We'll just have to find a lake in Colorado to kayak on sometime soon!

The beach was on the west coast of Vancouver Island and it was beautiful.  We had to take a 15 minute hike to get there.  It was so very different because we had to walk through what felt like a rainforest to finally reach the beach!

Look at how big this tree trunk is!  It makes Daddy look really small!

And here's the beach.  We watched a surfer and looked for rocks.  We may have even found a few for you guys!

Looking back from the shore...

This is a funny plant that I wanted to show you guys!

After lunch, we went to a famous place in Canada called Butchardt Gardens.  It was the most amazing garden we've been to, I think.  We'll tell you more about it.  We took a lot of pictures, but will only put a few here.  Here's what they call the Sunken Garden...

There were tulips everywhere!!!!!

I loved finding this one tulip in a group of hundreds that were all yellow.  This one had ONE petal that was red instead of yellow.

Daddy was amazed at how big some of the tulips were!

This path in the Japanese Garden made me think of you guys.  I imagined that it would be hard to stop you guys from falling in the water!  I'm glad we didn't!

We are off to Seattle tomorrow.  We have to take the Ferry in the morning and then we are going to a famous market in the afternoon.

We are so excited to see all of soon!  We love you!

the start of day five...

We don't have any pictures to show you of this morning.  We got up and walked to a little local restaurant, Mo:Lé, for brunch.  It was so yummy.  Daddy had pancakes made of spelt, which is kind of like wheat (what all our bread is made of), but supposedly a little healthier.  People and restaurants around here think a lot about how to eat healthy.  They also love getting fresh ingredients from local farmers.  The eggs I had this morning are from chickens that live around here.

Patton, it's a good thing you weren't with us at breakfast or you probably would have eaten all of Daddy's pancakes!

We also did a little shopping after we ate.  There are so many neat shops to go in around here. It's fun to have so many places we can walk here.

Tomorrow we plan on going kayaking!  We will be in a two person kayak, which makes me feel a little safer since I have never kayaked before.  We will definitely take pictures of that.

We love you all!

day four...

Daddy got up really early to go fishing this morning.  He took a few pictures while he was out on the water.  Thankfully, the weather was beautiful.  But unfortunately, they didn't catch anything we could eat.

Daddy did catch a shark, though!!  A shark!!  Can you believe that?  He threw him back in the water so that he could go back and hang out with his shark family.

And here's where Daddy found me when he got home...still in bed!!!  We miss you so much, but I really enjoyed being able to stay in bed all morning!!  And I still have my pajamas on!!

Hogan, how was your trip with your Brownie troop?

Patton, you better stop eating pancakes or you are going to turn into a pancake!

Libby, how is Grandpa behaving?  

Love you all!

day three...

Today Daddy and I went on a Zip Line course!  That means we put on a harness (something that is really strong that went around our legs and waist) and then we were attached to big strong lines and we got to swing down them, kind of like we were monkeys!  It was so much fun!!!

This next picture is of me on the scary bridge that was way up in the sky!  I was hooked onto a line so that if I fell or tripped, I wouldn't fall to the ground, which was way below me!

Here I am swinging down one of the zip lines.  Do I look like a monkey?

And here's Daddy on one of the longest lines.

He took a picture of me while he was riding!  I was next and was about to get hooked up.

We had so much fun with the other people in our group.  It was fun to get to know some Canadians!

Before we did the zip line, we went to church.  It was so neat to be able to meet people here who believe in Jesus and worship with them.  Daddy even got an invitation to go fishing in the morning with one of the pastors here!  Victoria is supposed to be one of the best places to fish, so it should be really, really fun.  I have plans to just lay around and read, maybe watch a little TV, maybe take a nap!  I am excited too!  Then we are going to go to the Pastor's house to eat fish for dinner tomorrow night!

We love and miss you all.  My toes are going to feel left out when I get home.  Maybe Carpom will put polka dots on my toenails too!

tootsetta eba...

Are you okay?  Are you still breathing?  Did you make it through that last post?

day two...

Today we woke up to rain.  That's not surprising here.  They get a lot of rain.  This picture is from our balcony.

We spent time in our place, just reading and being lazy!  

Then, you are never going to guess what Daddy did!  (Tootsie, take a deep breath before proceeding!)  We drove about an hour to a town called Nanaimo.  It was a beautiful drive, with green trees and plants everywhere!  It reminded me that we don't have moss in Denver!  You can ask Carpom and Grandpa what moss is if you don't know.  We drove by so many small farms where they raise chickens and cows and different kinds of plants.

Here are a couple of pictures on the ride...

We arrived at our destination and, like I said before, you are never going to believe what Daddy did!!  He bungy jumped!!!!  Do you know what that means? It means that he got hooked up to a big rope kind of like a rubber band and then he jumped off of a really high bridge!!  The rubber band stops him from going into the water down below.  It looks really scary to me!  But Daddy said it was SO MUCH FUN!!  It's only something that adults get to do.  It's really dangerous unless you get help from adults who know what they are doing.

Here's the big, big bridge he climbed up on...

There's Daddy way up there!  He's standing beside a Canadian flag...

Here he is getting ready to jump!!!  And the pictures after that are of him jumping!!!  You have to look really carefully to see him.  If you want to see the pictures bigger, just click your mouse on top of them and then after you are finished looking, click the back button.

Here he is just swinging upside down!!

After he stopped bouncing on the big rubber band, a man paddled out a raft under him and Daddy was dropped down onto the raft and taken to the side of the river where he walked back up to me!

Can you believe he did that?!?!?  Daddy is so brave!  And adventurous!  There's a video and I will try and post that later.

I hope you had a great, fun day.  Tomorrow is Sunday and we are going to try and go to a church here that's a little bit like our church in Denver.

We love you all.  Give each other kisses and hugs from us!