Open House and Hiking

The main reason for out trip to Vancouver was to attend the open house for the new Vancouver BC temple. Thomas had been asking some questions about the temple recently, and so we decided that this would be a great opportunity for him to look around.

After some breakfast and baths we made the short drive to the temple. As I saw the car park attendants in their orange jackets it reminded me of my own orange jacket that I had worn for the Preston, England temple open house back in May 1998. I had driven up to Preston with my best friend Rachael and met our friend Philip who was directing traffic. He lined us up with some work and we had so much fun that day.

We took a few pictures before we headed over to the Stake Center. It was pretty sunny, which the kids didn't enjoy and of course Zach didn't want to have too much to do with any of it.

A cute big brother and his sister

Some cute kids and their mom

Showing of a little too much leg!

Our family

You can't seem to get away from tulips this time of year.

The grounds of course were beautiful

The angel Moroni

Over at the Stake Center we viewed a short video about the importance of temples and the growth of the church in the area. Then we got to take a look inside complete with white booties. The interior was beautiful and the craftsmanship was impressive. Thomas said that his favorite part was seeing the baptismal font, which really seemed to be the real focal point of the lower level. We got to sit in the sealing room and I whispered a reminder to Olivia that this is the place that she needs to get married. We then had the kids look into the mirrors in the Celestial room to remind them (and us) that our family can be together forever.

Zach wasn't overly interested in the whole event. He wasn't terribly behaved, but he wasn't very interested in staying too still either. When we sat in the chapel waiting for the group before us to move on, he walked up to the front bench and climbed up with a cheeky smile. We didn't want to make too much of a fuss, but when he started banging his car on the bench Spenser intervened.

In the grand old Mormon tradition there were cookies and water over at the Stake Center when we had finished. It felt really nice to be in the temple with our family and I hope that we get to do that again some time in the future.

When you've had to be good in the temple burning off energy is necessary

Trying to take photos is impossible with a chocolate covered boy!

These two always do better

After visiting the temple we drove back to the hotel, changed, picked up some lunch, and made our way to Lynn Canyon park. We had thought about going across the Capilano suspension bridge which is some 450 feet long and 230 feet above the Capilano river, but it was kind of pricy and in lots of the reviews I had read people said to skip it and go to Lynn Canyon which was free.

Zach was asleep when we arrived

The suspension bridge was only 50 feet from the

canyon floor, but it was good enough for us!

Some of us needed a reassuring hand

He didn't stay down for long and was soon picking up sticks

There were lots of rocks along our way

I'm not sure what it is about kids and sticks. It's really just like kids and rocks - they can never get enough of them. Thomas enjoyed pretending that he was Robin Hood with his bow and arrow and we certainly had quite the collection by the time we got back to the car.

We explored

and climbed to the top of big rocks

There was moss hanging off everything

Hi there!

Someone loves to climb on and up anything he can

Thomas and Spense then decided to make their way

out to a big rock up stream

the rest of us just watched them

Mission complete

We then made our way down to a rocky area on the river bank to throw stones for a while.

Is this a good skipping rock?

After much stone skipping, Spenser challenged us to run to the top of these stairs before we headed out. Thomas was first up.

That was a lot of stairs!

Zach was determined

He made his little way up there

Thomas counted 162 steps on the way up. My legs were quivering as we came down and I knew that I would regret it in the morning.

Heading back across the bridge

( I know my eyes are closed, but the kids are cute)

These photos make it look scarier that it actually was, although

we talked about how you'd never get Grandma Elaine across it.

After a nice afternoon the kids wanted to hit the pool again. Spenser calculated that he climbed the steps to the slide around 100 times. He definitely got some stair workout in today!