Our Easter weekend

First off, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. I'm off today for Easter Monday so our weekend is still happening!

We started off the weekend by heading downtown on Friday. Ronel's been wanting to ride the SkyTrain so we did. Our original plan was to go to Stanley Park and take a horse drawn carriage ride through the park, but Thursday night the forecast was yucky so we decided to wait for a nicer day. We drove to the Skytrain station and parked, then headed off on our adventure. It was COLD and rainy but we were determined not to let that stop us.

We took the Expo line all the way to Waterfront Station and were planning on jumping right onto the SeaBus, but because it was operating on weekend schedule (due to the holiday) we had a 25 minute wait, so we got a hot chocolate at Starbucks and headed out to Gastown to see the Steam Clock. We got there just minutes before the hour, so we decided to wait and actually see it go off. It's been many years since I have been to the clock so when Ronel asked me if it was loud, I had to tell him I didn't know but from what I could remember.... yes?! Well, we both had a good laugh when it went off because it really isn't that loud!

After we were done there, we still had some time so we strolled through some of the stores which still had TONS of Olympic stuff left, all on sale. We had never managed to find something Ronel liked (He really wanted some Olympic souvenir) Well, we found way more keychains, clothes & various other items than I'd ever seen this side of the river, so we picked up a nice keychain for Ronel and then headed back to the SeaBus. As we were nearing the SeaBus terminal, we saw the SeaBus head out...we missed the SeaBus by like 2 minutes so we headed off in the other direction and kept a better track of time! We stopped and took some photos, saw the Vancouver Lookout at the Harbour Center (where we've decided we will go on a nice clear day --- I discovered we have a coupon for it in our Entertainment Values book), wandered up and down some streets and then needed a washroom, but because very little was open we couldn't find one so we headed back to the SeaBus terminal. We had a good laugh when we discovered that there were washrooms inside the SeaBus waiting area (not any washrooms upstairs though just outside the Skytrain/SeaBus areas!)

We got on the SeaBus and went across the harbour to North Vancouver and the Lonsdale Quay. We were both hungry by this time, so we wandered the stores outside but didn't find anything appealling, so we stopped and took some photos looking from the Quay towards Vancouver. I even managed to get a photo with the SeaBus in the background!

We then headed inside the Market at the Quay and checked out all the wonderful stalls inside. I love Markets like this! Lots of fresh produce, seafood, meats, cheeses and lots of choices of prepared food as well. We grabbed some some lunch and took it to go as we realized that it was minutes till the next SeaBus. Once we got back to Vancouver, we took our lunch and headed back to this neat little covered plaze we had found just up from the terminal.

We ate lunch and then it was time for some more fun shots!

 

Even though we were FREEZING COLD! we still had a lot of fun (as you can tell by that gorgeous smile & laugh on Ronel's face!) Using my Nikon DSLR it is hard to take a photo of the two of us by myself, so we decided to use these large and very shine poles that were in the plaza area. 

After we had finished lunch, we headed off towards Canada Place. We wandered through the connecting mall/food court (and realized it would have been easier & warmer to have gotten lunch there -- lesson learned!) Wandered around the outside of Canada Place, took some more photos (yes, I enjoy taking photos and Ronel is a willing subject!!... well most of the time! )

We then decided that it was time to head towards home (we wanted to be back for our Good Friday service) and we headed towards the SkyTrain. We decided to take the scenic route home and switched trains at Commercial Station so that we could ride the Millennium Line home (this has been around for awhile but it was also a first time for me on these section of the SkyTrain route) We then switched back at Columbia Station so that we could take the Expo Line back into Surrey.

This is Ronel sitting at the front of the train at Waterfront Station, waiting to head home

Saturday, we headed out for more adventure.... this time to Bear Creek Park. It was much warmer on Saturday and so we were able to enjoy the outdoors more.

Bear Creek Park has a lovely garden area and we wandered around, saw an East Indian wedding party in all their traditional outfits. We strolled through the paths, stopped at one of the bridges over a small pond to see the ducks, saw some squirrels and enjoyed all the beautiful flowers that are already out in bloom.

I also got to play around with my camera using this gorgeous tree full of  blossoms.

Ronel gave the weekend TWO THUMBS UP!!and we're not finished yet! It is not even 8am yet and we have a whole day ahead of us! Ronel doesn't have English class tonight because it's Easter Monday so we're going to enjoy our day together!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and that you remember why we celebrate this holiday!

HE IS RISEN!!!