O Canada!

This year we spent one month in Vancouver, BC, from mid-June to mid-July.

 

It was a great trip and I think we all feel some affinity for and attachment to this city now.

We rented a small basement apartment for the month that I found on the internet, and that is always a bit nerve wracking since who really can tell online about the neighborhood or strange odors? It turned out to smell just fine and was located in an extremely fancy neighborhood in North Vancouver and it worked out very well for our family. Here's the house that the apartment was in. Note the great, enormous trees all around.

And here is the beautiful view across the harbor from the street. (That's not Vancouver itself, but the suburb Burnaby).

 

It had just two bedrooms so the boys got squished into this one room together for sleeping. I wasn't sure how that would work, but it worked so well I've considered putting them all together in a room back at home. And they looked so cute all asleep together.

 

And here is our living area. You can see that it was nothing snazzy, but at this point in our life we count that as a plus since we don't have to worry about our boys breaking something too valuable.

 

We were lucky to be there to celebrate Canada Day. I've never celebrated a national holiday in another country, and it was a great experience. It started with the very moving singing of the beautiful national anthem O, Canada at church on the Sunday prior. It is a gorgeous song and people were choked up. People love their countries, and why not, with all the beauty and nature humanity and history and culture and institutions that bind a people together? The day started with a parade, and I was interested to note that the parade in a suburb of a large cosmopolitan city is not much different from a parade in our little rural town - a bit of cheap candy thrown from floats highlighting the local hardware store, martial arts studio, high school sports teams, Shriners, and retirement center. Also, lots of O, Canada.

 

That night we watched the fireworks across the harbor.

One of my favorite parts of vacations are the unexpected memories and themes that pop up. Who knew that an important part of our time in Vancouver would be badminton? There was a net set up in the backyard of our home, and quite a lot of competitive badminton went on over the month.

The flags from the parade made great court markers, too.