Vancouver

On Sunday, July 3rd, we flew to Vancouver, BC to visit Jeff and Jess. What a wonderful week – where to begin? Be prepared for a long post.

The flight to Vancouver
I was pretty nervous about flying. Whenever I would mention my nervousness to friends and family, their first comments were inevitably, “Oh, because of Lost?” Well, no, but thanks for adding a mysterious plane crash to my worries! lol. Actually, while I was a bit nervous about a plane crash, I think I was anxious about flying overall as this was to be my first flight since 9-11.

I was also nervous about how Adrianna would fare on the flight. Especially during take-off and landing when your ears tend to pop and can hurt if you don’t get them equalized or do a fair amount of swallowing. I had read that giving a baby a bottle during these times can help, so I had one ready. But since I had fed her not too long before, she wasn’t interested. We used her paci instead, and she seemed to do just fine. Our fellow passengers commented after the flight on how good she did. I am sure they were relieved not to be seated by a fussy baby.

Speaking of feeding Adrianna; before our flight she was hungry, so I ducked into a rest room to feed her so I could have some privacy. I sat on a toilet since there wasn’t any other place to sit (fully clothed since I wasn’t in there for the normal reasons). The toilet was one of those instant-flushing ones and it kept going off on its own. ARGH. I had to keep standing up in order to prevent the butt of my jeans from potentially getting wet from any of the spray from the flush. Now that would have made for a pleasant flight.

Another thing I was nervous about flying was actually more in regards to getting in to the country due to our lack of birth certificate for Adrianna since this was an international flight. (Her certificate still has not arrived in the mail even though I filled out the paperwork before we even left the hospital with her.) Sure enough, we were hassled about it upon landing and going through Canada’s customs. The first guy we talked to appeared to be ticked off at the world before we even were unfortunate enough to approach his counter. He gruffly asked us how we could have gotten Adrianna’s SSN without yet having her birth certificate. He then stamped our customs document and curtly informed us that we would have to go through immigration. *sigh* So go to immigration we did. Thankfully Greg and I were together so they didn’t completely suspect us of stealing a baby. We called Jeff to let him know that we were stuck in yet another line, and I prayed that we would get someone understanding of our plight and who was not bent on a power trip. I watched one guy be totally rude to this poor Asian student who didn’t know English and crossed my fingers that he wouldn’t be the person to wait on us. Thankfully, he wasn’t. We got a really nice girl who let us into the country without any further complications. She did inform us that getting back into the States might be hard without Adrianna’s birth certificate though, since they tend to be even stricter about such things.

Sunday, July 3rd
We met up with Jeff, who was picking us up from the airport. We then proceeded on to Jeff and Jess’s apartment. Kristi was there as well, as she had flown in on Friday. It was fun introducing Adrianna to her auntie Jess, as this was their first time getting to meet. Jess gave Adrianna a really nice crocheted yellow and white blanket that she had made. I love it – it is so perfect and special to me and I am sure it will be to Adrianna as she gets older and learns that her Auntie Jess made it special just for her.

Sunday evening we went to a BBQ to celebrate the 4th of July with other Americans that Jeff and Jess are friends with up there. Greg and Jeff played a bit of badminton. Later that evening back at the apartment, we all had fun playing Big Boggle, a Reimer family favorite. Greg had the largest word of the evening – “disgusting”.

Monday, July 4th
On Monday we went to this great 3-level mall. As I was able to see more of the people and neighborhoods in Vancouver, I became very much aware of the fact that there were quite a few differences between Vancouver and Denver.

1. Instead of hearing Spanish as a secondary language, you hear a lot of Chinese and French
2. There aren’t very many large chain stores/restaurants in Vancouver. It is mostly made up of small shops and restaurants
3. Labels on many food items contains both English and French rather than just English
4. Canadian money looks like play money
5. Restrooms are called “Wash Rooms” in Canada.

On Monday evening, Jeff and Greg went out to have some brother/guy time and Kristi went out with a friend of hers, Joy, who happens to live in the area. This left Jess, myself, and Adrianna at home. I had a really good time talking to Jess one on one. I don’t know if we’d ever had that opportunity before, so it was really cool getting to chat a bit.

Tuesday, July 5th
Tuesday morning we walked to a coffee shop called JJ Bean for breakfast and for the Reimer coffee fix. I think Jess and I are the only ones who aren’t big into the whole coffee thing. Of course we married into it though. hehe. I had a big glass of milk and banana bread. Good enough for me!

On Tuesday afternoon, Greg’s parents arrived in Vancouver, along with Marilyn’s cousin and her husband, Butch and Mary Lou Cope, who live in Portland. (Dave and Marilyn had flown to Portland first to spend some time with them before making the drive to Vancouver.) It was cool getting to put faces with the Copes’ names. Adrianna was loving it, because now not only did she have her two aunties and her grammy to spoil her, but she also had an honorary grammy (Mary Lou) to spoil her as well.

Tuesday evening we all went to La Casa Gelato for what else but gelato? The place had 200 or so different flavors to choose from. You were allowed to sample many of the flavors before deciding on one or two. They had the normal chocolates and vanillas but also had weird flavors that contained fig, garlic, and curry. I wasn’t that adventurous, so I cannot tell you how those tasted. The bravest I got was cotton candy. I ended up getting a chocolate fudge flavor which was a real dark and bitter chocolate and was absolutely delicious.

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Well, it is past 1:00 a.m. here and Adrianna is fussing, so I guess I will have to continue tomorrow…