This last Sunday Dawn, a friend from church was telling Kacey and I (another friend) about how she went to Vancouver for 3 days with some of her kids and how fun it was. They had bought tickets and planned the visit 18 months ago. Her Vancouver visit sounded so fun and since Vancouver is just 2.5 hrs away both Kacey and I thought, "maybe we should go down and check out Vancouver". Since the weather was good, the next day we loaded our kids up and drove to Vancouver. You need to realize I love hanging out with Kacey because our kids are equally matched. They are the same age and the same level of crazy. So when my kids are being crazy it isn't a problem for her because she is used to it and when her kids are being crazy it isn't a problem because I am use to it and we are just so glad we are with someone else that we don't have to keep apologizing to. The kids did really well in my opinion. There was a lot of traveling. We drove for 2.5 hrs, then took a train for about 50 min and some bus rides while in the city. There were tons of people everywhere. We almost lost Soren on several occasions, one really sketchy one, and there were a couple of tantrums, but that is to be expected when you have 4 kids 5 and under for an extended day trip right? There were quite a few free things to do but the lines were 8 hrs long and our threshold was 15 minutes so they were a no go. The place was really crowded. Canadians have some serious Canadian pride. About 70% of the people of the street were decked out in Canadian gear. Shirts, jackets, hats, gloves, pants - all of it. Whole families were matching. They must have spent a pretty penny showing their enthusiasm.
Here we are at the flame. My kids of course had no clue about the Olympics until I was telling about it that day. They had no idea why the flame is special or important but it doesn't matter. Despite their lack of understanding they seem to always be excited and love going to new places.
There was a bunch of Olympic art in the streets. Here is Soren posing in one of them. They also had street performers and and human zip lines going down the streets and other outdoor entertainment. There were several bands playing in the streets. We stopped at one and the kids had a good time dancing. 
Xander showing his American pride! Go USA!! 
Lastly here is some sketchy dude with a baby boa. Soren wasn't so sure about this guy but Kacey's kids were surprisingly happy to pose. I think I was suppose to drop in some money in his hat for the picture but we had zero canadian money on us the whole trip. In fact this little faux pa haunted us we tried to go ice skating but you could only play with cash. This blunder caused us to swear on our life to our children that they would get to go ice skating in the near future in some country to try to squelch the tears. That is what happens when you plan a trip 16 hrs before you leave the country. It was a long day. We didn't get back until 11pm but it was fun and I am glad we did it. I have never done anything with the Olympics so it was fun to get as close as I could and feel the Olympic excitement and country pride people had. Super fast house update - we painted about 85% of the house. It is a dark green. I really like it. We still need to do the trim and contrast color that you can see on the front view of the house. It is a tan on the shakes. We are weather dependent so the house may look sort of silly for weeks while we wait for a weather break. Oh well. They are finishing up the utilities and stuff and hopefully in a week or so they can begin dry-walling - that will be an exciting step.
