Last day in Van City...

So we flew back to Vancouver from San Diego and stayed over at our friends place in the very cool area of Kitsilano.  We awoke the next day with the sad realisation that it was our last day in Vancouver and we wanted to make it as good as possible! Luckily, it was an amazingly sunny blue sky day!

We started it off right with brunch at Sophie's Cosmic Cafe...

By had this giant omlette...

and I had the biggest portion of french toast you've ever seen!! It was super delish!

We decided to hop a bus to head to UBC for one last time to get our final Menchie's fix!

I can't believe I've never mentioned this place before! It's our fave fro-yo place, they have crazy flavours like root beer, bubblegum, s'mores, peanut butter and then once you've served yourself the fro-yo, you get to fill up your tub with any of these toppings...

marshmallows, graham crackers, pb cups, jelly beans, pretzels, oreos...

and there's a whole heap of yummy fruit choices too!

We happened to be there on waffle Wednesday which meant you could get a free waffle bowl! They press them fresh in the store.

Of course we never end up getting fruit because who can pass up brownie chunks and reese's pieces...

or honeycomb, toasted coconut, oreos and peanut butter cups!!  

 

We headed back to Kitsilano, because of course I HAD to have one last Lucky's Doughnut before we left! They make the best doughnuts I have ever eaten! They had some kind of amazing mango, raspberry summer special the day we popped in so I devoured it! We also headed to this burger place to get a Thomas Kemper Root Beer that my friend Cassie had recommended because I had never tried it before, and I wanted another bottle to add to my collection! I let my lips linger a little longer on that bottle knowing that once we got back to England we would be root beer less once again!

and then we spent the rest of our afternoon chilling at Kitsilano beach! because who wouldn't want to hang out at the beach with the mountains and the Van city skyline in the background! Byron and I lay against the massive logs they have placed along the beach and turned to ourselves and said 'why are we leaving all this behind again?!'

We had a slightly stressful trip to the airport, because our taxi we had booked at 8am that morning never showed up! but we still made it with enough time fortunately...

and decided we needed to have one last Wendy's for the road, and so of course I had no choice but to order a side of Poutine.  Oh Poutine, how we will miss you so!

Have you ever seen a more beautiful view as you've sat at an airport before? I thought it was actually quite cruel! that we had to sit facing this amazing view of what we were leaving behind as we sat waiting at our gate! 

Seriously though, as if you couldn't already tell from following along with our adventures on this blog our year in Vancouver was more amazing and magical than I ever anticipated it could be! and believe me there was alot of anticipation! We had known since the open day we attended at Bangor university that a year abroad in Vancouver was a possibility for By's course he was studying and so I had spent more than 2 years hoping and dreaming that we might get the opportunity (despite being told at the open day that only the top 2 students on the course got sent to Vancouver and so By telling me to forget it because that wasn't going to be him!) So 2 years googling and researching every awesome thing about Vancouver and then getting there and it surpassing all my expectations was a pretty big deal! 

There was just so much to love! Beaches, mountains, ocean, forests, skiing/snowboarding adventures, buying root beer every time we went to the supermarket! having amazing baking supplies at my fingertips and being able to indulge in all my favourite flavour Oreos that we don't get in England like mint, or peanut butter, or even coconut flavour!! Road trips across the border to make all my chocolate fantasies at Target come true! Our awesome ward that we attended, we sometimes used to have 100 women alone in Relief Society! and all the amazing friends that we had countless adventures and games night and meals out with - we will never forget them!

So I'm just going to finish up all about our Canadian adventure by posting ten of our favourite places we visited whilst we were there! (Believe me it was hard narrowing it down to ten!)

1. Whistler (Could it have been anywhere else?!)

 

2. Deep Cove

3. Indian Arm

 4. Whytecliff Park

 

 

5. Cherry Blossom Lined Streets of Van City!

 

6. Garibaldi Provincial Park

7. Steveston

8. Cypress Provincial Park Viewpoint

9. Sunshine Coast

 

10. Amazing Sunsets over Vancouver's Beaches

 Okay, I had to sneak an 11 in because my list couldn't not feature a Waterfall!

11. Brandywine Falls Provincial Park

Until next time Vancouver...

Our Final Week in Van City...

 

So our last week in Vancouver consisted of lots of farewells! like my last day at work! A few days before they very sneakily told me to bring the autistic boys I worked with into a classroom at lunchtime for a farewell - I was thinking it was a farewell for the boys as one of them was moving onto High School...but as I walked in and everyone was staring at me I realised I'd been tricked! Not many of the kids really understood what was going on but they saw there was cake so they all shouted happy birthday! haha, it was quite cute!

 My amazing colleagues, knowing my love of cupcakes had arranged for this giant cupcake cake to be made for me! Isn't it awesome! it had a giant aeroplane flying all the way from Canada back to England! and there was even coconut and chocolate cupcakes and all my favourite treats! Sadly all my photos from it were saved to my work email and I've lost them since, but it was a lovely surprise! I was a bit horrified because I'd had pretty bad morning sickness that day before I left for work so I hadn't even bothered to put make up on and suddenly everyone was taking pictures of me! so maybe it's for the best they went missing! They made me a lovely photobook of all my memories from Maywood School and all the autistic kids in the school put together a book of their favourite things about Canada and things I needed to try before I left - it was super cute! 

 

Here I am with Erin and Sue - I couldn't have done my job without these ladies! I worked with a boy who liked to flee the classroom quite a lot and Sue worked in the classroom opposite so whenever she saw me chasing him down the hall she'd be out quick as a flash to assist, and Erin had worked with him before I got there so she was always a huge help in dealing with him too! They were always on hand to crack some jokes and make the stressful part of my job less stressful! and they indulged me constantly talking about cake and baked goods! haha...

and here I am with the classroom teacher I worked with, Arnold.  You've heard me talk about him alot, him and his partner were so good to Byron and I and lent us their truck far too many times to recall for us to have fun Whistler adventures or to see all the sights when we had family here - I loved everyone I worked with at Maywood School - and it was pretty sad saying goodbye to everyone!

 

On the day I finished work, we headed to this place on Main St called Roots Cafe, By had been promising to take me there for yummy treats for a while after he discovered it on a study session one day.  The best part was when I ordered and asked the guy behind the counter if they made their milkshakes with ice cream, he looked at me like I was crazy! He was like 'what else would we make them with?!' I told him tons of places in England only use milk so I was just checking...he was like 'well that's not a milkshake'! I was like you're telling me! He kept shaking his head and couldn't get over the fact that crazy Europeans think milkshakes can be made without ice cream - he promised to make mine extra thick to make up for all the mediocre shakes I've had to put up with living on the wrong side of the pond! It was seriously tasty!!

 The next night I had a serious craving for pizza, like I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole way home and it couldn't just be any pizza - it had to be the good kind! The real good authentic stonebaked kind!

 

So we stopped at the oh so cute Via Tevere over on Victoria Drive.  Check out that little car out front! It was super amazing pizza! and was worth the queue we had to join just to indulge in some!

On the Saturday we checked out the International Buskers Festival on Granville St with Cassie and Peter.  It was a beautiful sunny day in the city, and was fun to be out and about taking everything in.

This street art was pretty cool!

and this guy Reuben Dot Dot Dot! had come all the way from Australia to showcase his talents! We were impressed with his skills,

but of course the favourite part of our day was heading back to Tacofino, and introducing it to Cassie and Peter!

Since they've lived in Texas before they know what good Mexican should taste like so they have pretty high standards! 

I was glad our meal lived up to expectations!

and they certainly never disappoint with their desserts! this was a chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich filled with horchata flavour ice cream!

and because no Mexican meal is complete without a happy churro ending we had to give their banana churros a try!

The next day the sun was out in full force again! so we gathered all our favourite people and headed to Kitsilano Beach for an afternoon of Beach and BBQ fun! 

Did you know you can't buy disposable BBQ's in Canada? I guess no one needs them when they bring their beefy real deals down to the beach!

Peter was the BBQ king in charge of grilling up those tasty burgers!

and nothing makes me happier than stripey straws!

Nicole brought a little bit of American patriotism to our picnic by making these delicious sugar cookies..

and topping them with blue and red berries!

Kristen made these amazing white choc and pecan cookies! and Jen made some delicious crumble - one thing you can be sure there was never a shortage of good desserts when we got together! 

  I whipped up a tropical fruit salad because when it's so sunny outside you just have to!

We played this ladder toss game, and things got pretty serious when it was boys vs girls!

Is this not the most perfect setting? green grass, sandy beach, blue ocean and mountains in the background!

 The boys also gave badminton a go...until wind stopped play!

We had a few rounds of beach volleyball which took me right back to our ward beach volleyball nights when we lived in Turks and Caicos!

I quickly became official photographer after I kept forgetting I was pregnant and diving for the ball a little too frequently!

I love this action shot! and this one below of Jeff in slow motion!

 

We took this group shot just before we all had to start heading home - have you ever seen a group of happier more lovely people? Oh, how we miss these friends of ours!

and I could take photos of Kate and Lila all day! They are super cute!

 We left just as the sun was setting over the ocean...

Writing this post is making my heart break for how much we miss this place!!

On Monday, it was Canada Day! So we celebrated by our friends cooking us up an amazing Mexican feast at their cool apartment downtown - I wished I'd taken pictures but I was too busy stuffing my face full of super delish slow cooked tacos and homemade guacamole!

After dinner, we tried our first taste of Marble Slab ice cream (Canada's equivalent of Coldstone) which was amazing...and then headed down to the waterfront to catch the fireworks!

I had taken my little Canadian flag along to wave it patriotically among all the other people in the crowd dressed in red and white!

It was the perfect end to our last few hours left in our favourite place!

 We got home pretty late...finished up the last of our packing and a few hours later we were awake again to begin our American road trip adventure - up next!!