New Years Eve and Vancouver

Big B's mom and step-dad came out for his birthday. They arrived on New Year's Eve. We grabbed some dinner at Duke's Chowder House and rang in the new year playing Rock Band.

The next day we drove up to Vancouver, BC. Big B rented a car and we ended up with an Armada. It seemed a bit large at first, but ended up being nice because there was so much room for all of our luggage.

The plan was to grab breakfast at Beth's Cafe, but we didn't consider the crowd that would be excited to eat off their hangover, there was a line out the door! We finally found Scott's Bar and Grill and the food was pretty tasty. After eating we continued driving north.

After arriving in Vancouver we checked into the hotel and then wandered into the downtown area. We walked and window shopped for a while. Eventually we all worked up an appetite and decided to eat at Joe Fortes. There was some great local beer and lots of local food choices, I had mussels and frites.

After dinner we walked around a bit more and visited an ice rink constructed in honor of the Olympics.

While we were wondering around we found a place with blueberry pancakes. So the next morning we went to breakfast there. Our waitress was great and said that the nicest people she meets are always from Colorado or Calgary...that is always nice to hear!

After breakfast we headed to Chinatown. We went through the gardens, which very peaceful

We stopped by a coffee/tea shop so that we could warm up. There were a lot of different items, but the thing I thought was the most interesting was the smelling bar to pick out your tea.

We did more window shopping, went by the triangle building, ate and had a beer at Steamworks Brewing Company, and walked past the steam clock.

We also watched a Omnimax movie about called Adrenaline Rush: The Science of Risk, which was about skydiving at the Science World at TELUS World of Science.

We ate at a Chinese restaurant, Big B's pick for his birthday dinner, and then walked around some more. Below are some of the sites we saw.

There was a variety of eagles throughout Vancouver, similar to the cows, this one was a reading eagle.

Sunday was the clearest day, so I took a photo of the view from our hotel room.

Before we had to head home we went and shopped at Granville Island. There is an open farmers market and several small shops.