Beautiful British Columbia - a chance to bond with family

This has been a great week.  It started off with Ginny, my mother and father and I flying to Seattle and then driving to beautiful British Columbia. According to Ginny no trip to the northwest is worth anything without fresh crab, so on our way north we stopped in Everett Washington for a crab. Between Ginny and mom they put down an entire crab, while dad and I enjoyed some fresh cod and chips.  Then it was on the road to the Ginny's friends Dave and Wendy Gorner in Abbotsford, BC.  We have to thank them for their hospitality and kindness, as they not only welcomed us into their home but they also invited us to have all of Ginny's family to come and visit.

For those unfamiliar with the Vancouver area, Abbotsford is about  60 miles east of Vancouver and only a couple of miles north of the US /Canada border.  For this trip we had bought a new navigation system that includes Canada.  This helped make the trip so enjoyable and we did not have to figure out what roads we needed to take to get where we were going. While the trip is very straight forward from Seattle to Vancouver the shortest route to Abbotsford involves taking several lesser known highways once you get to Bellingham, Washington.

While we had been invited to have Ginny's family over to the Gorner's for dinner we were not about to allow them to provide all the food for the tribe, so we stopped at Costco and loaded up on stuff for a BBQ and arrived at Dave and Wendy's at about 6:00 pm just minutes before Wendy arrived home from work.  It was great to visit that evening.  It was the first time I had ever met Dave, and he is a wonderful guy.

Saturday morning we started preparations for the BBQ and headed off for one of the main reasons for us to have traveled to this neck of the woods.  We were on our way to the Vancouver temple open house.  We had arranged to met some of Ginny's family at the chapel in Langley (which is only 2 blocks from the temple) and then to go on a tour of the new temple.

While our faith is centered in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for our sins and his resurrection, we feel that the family is an eternal unit that continues in the life hereafter and it is within the temple that that eternal bond is formed.  So this trip was more that an opportunity to see the temple, or just an chance to visit with family, but rather an experience that helps us appreciate and draw closers to the ones that we love and care about, our extended family, in hopes that by sharing a small measure of what we believe we can one day we can all be reunited as an eternal family.

While not all of those that we would have liked to come to the open house were able to come, we are grateful for those that did come.  For those that were not able to come, we understand and wished that you had been able to join us.   In any case,  we want each of you to know that we love and appreciated you.

After the open house we drove back to Dave and Wendy's for our BBQ dinner and when we arrived, Dave and Wendy had put the final preparation on our meal.  We just had to BBQ the chicken and a few things of that nature.  It was so nice to be able to relax and visit with everyone and the Gorner's preparation made this possible.  We can not thanks them enough for all that they did and we will always be grateful.

On Sunday we attended church and visited with other family that were not able to come to the temple open house. Once again out hosts where fantastic about opening their home and making everyone feel welcome.

Monday we drove to Stanley Park and to see the ocean. It was fantastic weather with a breeze coming in off the ocean as usual, but in the park the breeze was nothing to dampen ones spirits.  After visiting the park and the beach we drove down to Steveston, which is a docking point for the fishing vessels in the area.  We arrived in hopes of obtaining a couple of crab and some pawns. We found the pawns but no crab.  Ginny was pretty disappointed because she wanted to have a seafood feast for dinner.   With only pawns in hand we headed in to Richmond for a Chinese lunch.

This proved to be most interesting.  You see the Chinese food that Ginny remembers from her growing up years is not the same are the Chinese food of today.  Today's Chinese is very authenticate (dishes like Duck tongue, etc).  She wanted fried rice, sweet and sour pork, etc).  After trying two different restaurants she decided that non of us needed to be super adventurous and we were all very hunger, so we popped in to the closest place which was an IHOP.

Ginny just could not bring herself to settle for no seafood so we jumped off the highway and headed into the grocery store for a couple of live crab, clams, etc, so the crab fest did actually happen. The day was quickly coming to a close and we would be leaving in the morning and we promised to take Dave and Wendy for a geocaching experience, since they had never been before.  It was interesting, because by the time we got out of the house it was dark and there was a light rain falling.  Never fear, with flashlights in hand we found two of the three caches that we went after. Our flashlights, however, proved to be too much for their dog Lucy, who has a crazy fettish for light (she chases shiny reflections from the door opening or sunny reflections on the floor or yard)---and moving flashlights just made her crazy! She was such a fun dog, we will miss her!

We finished out our trip on Tuesday by attending the Seattle temple before flying home Tuesday evening, arriving home at about 11:00 pm, exhausted, tired and happy to have spent the time that we did with family and friends.