Awesome Weekend

Well for all of those sitting on the edge of your seat from our last blog, wondering how our trip went.  Well it started out great.  The plane came in and we had no problems leaving the island for our weekend getaway.  We got into Vancouver and caught the skytrain to get downtown to our hotel.  It was really simple.  Our stop was the end of the line so there was no way we could have missed our stop and end up lost somewhere along the way.  We got off and hit the street.  We had to meet up with someone Sonja used to work with, as they forgot their power cord for their laptop and were down in Vancouver for a week or so.  So we met them just outside our hotel and made the exchange.

We checked in and went to our room.  We were kinda cool so I put on a sweater and then it was off to the mall to get our shopping list all checked off.  Sonja needed some new jeans, and shoes that don't leak when we walk to the store and stuff, as well as shampoo and soap and stuff.  Sonja also wanted some new shirts. So we scoured the mall looking for her jeans.  It took a while and we only had a few hours until the mall closed.  Sonja is usually pretty picky when she is looking for clothes, especially jeans.  It was coming down to the wire, the mall closed at 9 and at 8:30 I had to take charge and pretty much make her buy some new pants.  She finally found some and they fit and she liked them so that was that.  We bought them and then I still needed some socks, so we rushed down to the Sears and bought some.  The cashier marked them down for me because they were in the middle of marking down prices for the next day.  We got out of there with 5 minutes before closing time.  Since we were in such a hurry to get everything, we hadn't eaten yet, so then we had to find a restaurant and eat.  We passed a White Spot on our way to the mall so we decided to eat there on our way back to the hotel.  It was my birthday meal, a week late.  It was so good.  I ate a lot.  When I finished my meal the waitress offered me more fries.  I was taken by surprise with this question as that has never been offered before.  I gave her a stupid look and eventually I said yes.  So I ate my second helping of fries and it was extra filling.  We went back to the hotel after this and went to bed for the night.

I set the alarm for after 7 on Saturday as we were off to the aquarium.  I thought that it opened at 8 and we wanted to be there before the crowds.  So we got up and went for the continental breakfast and went to the bus stop to catch the bus to the aquarium.  We got there about twenty after eight, only to find that the aquarium didn't open for another hour.  So we walked around Stanley Park for a bit.  We got back to the aquarium and found that the gift store was open so we killed another twenty minutes looking in there until the doors opened.

They finally did and we went in.  It was a really fun time.  We saw lots of fish and sea creatures, as well as seals, dolphins a porpoise, and beluga whales.  Sonja faced her whale fear and even thought the whales were kind of cute. We eventually had some lunch.  They had an amazon exhibit as a special, complete with monkeys, sloths, tropical birds, anacondas, and monster fish.  We finished up at the aquarium as it got really busy around 1:30 and was starting to get hard to walk around and see things.  We decided to go for another walk around a section of the park before catching the bus back to the hotel.

On the way back to the hotel we decided to go back to the mall for a few more things.  I bought a pair of shoes and some soap that we forgot the night before.  We walked back to the hotel and Sonja took a short nap and I surfed the internet for a little bit before getting ready for the game.  We got our jerseys on and went to Subway for a quick supper so we wouldn't be hungry the whole night.  We then continued on our way to the arena which happened to only be a few minutes away.  We only got a few dirty looks and calls on our walk there.  We were early to the arena and had to wait outside for a while before they opened the doors.  We finally got in and walked a lap of the arena before finding our seats.  We walked up the stairs of our section and the usher informed us that we could go down to ice level behind the bench where they come out and watch the warmup from down there.  So we promptly said thank you and found our way back down towards the ice.  We chose a spot right in the corner of the glass and the tunnel they walk down from the dressing room.  It was so cool to be so close and watch them from the bench.  While they were practicing the assistant coaches were writing down the Canucks line combinations so they could see what they were up against and match their lines.

After the warmup we went up to our real seats and settled in for the game.  We were pretty excited for the puck to drop.  Soon it came and the game was under way.  It is tough to be in the middle of all the Go Canucks Go cheers, but soon enough the Oilers opened up the scoring.  It bounced in off the post.  Nobody saw it but I saw one of the Oilers skating across the ice pumping his fist like it was a goal so I stood up and cheered.  The play went under review so I sat down and waited for it to be officially announced as a goal before standing up and cheering again.  It was a good game as they scored three more goals and gave us lots of opportunity to stand up and cheer and basically mock the Vancouver fans.

We had some guys sitting beside us who were pretty good sports and were joking with us all night.  When Vancouver scored their only goal everyone stood up to cheer.  I told the guys beside us to enjoy it because we already had three of them that night.

It was as stressful of a game that we had ever been to.  Because we would either been leaving with our heads held high and big smiles or swallowing our pride after all the cheering because the Oilers blew a three goal lead.  I'm glad we left on the winning side of things.  It made the trip well worth it.

We walked back to the hotel and made our way to bed as we had to get up early this morning to make it to the airport in lots of time to check in before take off.

We woke up, went for breakfast and made our way to the airport.  The trip home was uneventful.  It was a little bit bumpy as it was kinda windy here in Bella Bella, but we made it safe.  We came home and quickly made a shopping list and went to the store.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing and recovering from our fun busy weekend.

We are just watching Transformers 2 ending up the night.

Tyler