The Travelling Stevens Crew are off!

It was my goal to be in Vancouver for my 40th birthday, so here I am. Having this goal has kept us all so focussed over the last 18 months and it is so exciting and rewarding to now be able to share all these fantastic experiences with the family. I think it is finally sinking in with the kids as well what a significant event this is going to be in their life. Hopefully they will look back on their days in Canada and remember the special events and family time we have had while being here.

I started receiving messages from home on the 8th over here as we are about 15 hours behind. On the morning of my birthday I was showered with home ( apartment) made cards from the kids with beautifully written special messages and trinkets they had picked up for me over their last couple of days of shopping. All specially selected and purchased with their own money, I was very impressed! Wayne wrapped up my new camera ( the one that has taken all the great photos on the blog) and re-presented this to me as well with the promise of some personal shopping time later in the day! Yeh , some adult time !

My choice was for eggs benedict at a Parisienne cafe down the road but unfortunately they weren't open for breakfast. We found eggs but they were very average compared to what I was hoping.

A wander downtown through the shops was next on the agenda but again all I managed to find was a groovy hat. No-one was hungry for lunch so we decided to jump on a bus and explore. We ended up over the water at the Maritime Museum! Quite interesting and passed a few hours before we all came home for an afternoon nap.

All pre made plans seemed to go out the window. We had booked tickets for the ice hockey on the 9th. Not really what I had expected to be doing on my 40th but it was the only night we could go and it was one of our "must do's". We thought we could do an early dinner but all the kids went to sleep and we ended up racing it to get the bus to the stadium. Hence my dinner was a burger at the ice hockey and my "bubbles" was a Smirnoff ruski in a plastic cup!! lol. Wayne still plans to make up for all of this !

All in all, the ice hockey was fantastic. Vancouver Giants were defeated by Washington DC 3-2. Awesome skills and to hear the thumps against the screens had us all going ooohh and ahhhh.

Thanks to everyone that sent their best wishes for my birthday, if I haven't had bubbles with you yet, I will definitely have more than one when we get back.