Well, a lot has happened since we entered into the month of March. Doug currently serves as the Teacher's advisor in our Ward, working with the young men, so they had a Winter Camp at our cabin during Teacher's Convention Feb 28-March 1st. They had pretty good weather, a little rain, but nothing to stop them from having fun. They made snow forts, went ice fishing, snowmobilling, and blasted each other with snowballs! A good time for everyone!
That same weekend Cameron was up to write his Canadian Dental Board Exam at the University of Alberta. He had come up several days earlier to study and to review some stuff with Doug. He wrote two six hour exams on Saturday and Sunday...he was exhausted by the end of it all! He really missed his family and skyped 'D'and the girls Sunday night when it was all over. We are just praying he passes those exams!!
Lindsay and James came over for dinner on Sunday along with Grandma, she was happy to see Cam again. Lindsay was good enough to make us up some of her delicious apple pie filling and she used her handy dandy pie maker machine to crank out miniature pies for all of us. They were so fun and filling!
It was a busy weekend!
The following Thursday, Doug and I caught an early flight out to Vancouver and to attend the Pacific Dental Conference. It was so nice being away and being able to be on the coast again, even for just four days! We love Vancouver!!
This is the Vancouver Convention Centre. It sits right next to the Olympic torch on the oceanfront. We stayed at a hotel in walking distance, it was fun to be out for a brisk walk to the Convention Centre each morning.
We enjoyed the courses, Doug took several Dentistry related ones, but I was able to attend classes on topics such as, health and well being, happiness, fitness, even one on office management. It was very enlightening and helpful...and the food was great!
After our courses on Thursday, we walked around the streets near our hotel and found a fabulous Thai Restaurant, where we enjoyed dinner. The Thai food is absolutely wonderful in Vancouver, we try it every time we go there.
Friday we skipped out of classes after lunch, and drove down to Washington. We had wanted to just go for a fun drive, so we told the border patrol guard we were just going down for a few hours. He was helpful and told us we should go to Fairhaven and take the 'Checkanut Drive'. So off we went to find Fairhaven, it is nestled just near Bellingham, Washington. It is a small little town similar to Banff, only right on the ocean...very artsy and stuff. We had a lovely dinner, and started to drive up the 'Checkanut Drive' but It was too dark to see anything, so we just drove back to Vancouver that night.
Saturday morning we went to a Conference 'special breakfast' with Brent Butt, the comedian from 'Corner Gas'. He is hilarious! He was given an hour to speak, but after 45 minutes he seemed tired, starting looking at his watch and really struggled for material. That was a little disappointing, but kinda fun to see him in person.
After our courses on Saturday, we went out for a drive around Vancouver and through Stanley Park. It is so beautiful. We took a nice walk along the ocean and met up with a couple that were eating fish and chips. They told us where to get it, so we bettled off and found a cute little restaurant called 'C-food'. We had a delightful dinner of freshly battered halibut with scrumptious fries. As we drove drove back to our hotel very content from our lovely dinner and oceanview drive, we thought how great it would to live there...but our kids and grandkids are not there, better to be close to home!
On Sunday we went to church, and after church we drive down to Washington again, we wanted to do the 'Chuckanut Drive' in the daytime. It goes up over the 'Chuckanut' mountains and is high enough to give a beautiful view of the San Juan Islands. We had such a good time. Doug decided to also take the road up to Mt Baker on the way back. We were told it was only about a 30 min drive up...but we kept going and going and never getting there, so we finally turned around. But what beautiful forest and trees. They say you can go from skiing to swimming in the same day! How fun to live on the coast, with a mountain to ski on and an ocean to swim in the same day! And so many bridges!
As we returned to Canada, we had to wait at the border as usual! Each time we went across the border, we were laughing and trying to tell the border guard that we were going down just for a drive for a few hours. They thought we were going just to shop!! We were fairly suspicious, as we were from Edmonton, and coming across in a rental car. But all in all, they were very friendly and usually understood that we were just on an 'adventure'! We had a great time in Vancouver and really enjoyed the Conference.
It has been a fun and busy March so far...but more is coming!!
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