Beaver's 95th | Vancouver, British Columbia

The next destination on our big holiday was the relatively small city of Vancouver.  Before booking our flights, we hadn't done any research about what we could do in a short-time in Vancouver, but thought it would be good to see a Hockey game and experience a little of Canada.

Well our three days has blitzed past, mostly due to the fact that every other shop features Beaver's...so we've been going a little crazy.  Given we're all exhausted, we've spent the last couple of days strolling around and trying lots of different foods.  But onto the action.

We enjoyed a nice taxi ride from the airport, and due to an accident on the main road, we got taken down some side streets and got a good glimpse of suburban Vancouver.  The girls were super impressed with the hotel, which is a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment...  After admiring the apartment for a few minutes, we rushed out to get some food before our first activity.  Dinner was mum's new favourite dish, Poke, which dad seems to like as well as it provides a great opportunity to poke and tickle the girls.

After that we headed over to Rogers Arena to see the Vancouver Canucks play the Edmonton Oilers in a pre-season game of Hockey.   Claire quickly selected a Canuck's hat, and we got ready to watch our first game.

A little theatre prior to starting, and then the national anthem.

Dad even got into the action with a shirt (and ordered a cap online)

When we booked the tickets, we knew it was a 7pm start, but we forgot to factor in the 2 hour time difference from Chicago, so we were all very tired by the end of the game.

Our first full day we started out with another healthy breakfast of crepes, and (not shown) a smoothie in a bowl which was delicious.
 

Then we explored some of the shops along Robson Street, and quickly realised that there are plenty of Beaver toys, souvenirs and products available here in Vancouver...which was very exciting.

Even this guy in the window of a restaurant.

And maple syrup lollypops!

Next was False Creek, where we tried the little ferries to make the journey across to Granville Island.

The kids liked that there was a section of the market dedicated to kids...

Some local seafood for lunch.

 And two trips to the donut store!

Very good donuts!

It was then back onto the little ferry to see more of the creek and head out to Yaletown.

We loved these little river houses.

The little ferry.

We wondered around Yale Town, but as the girls were rapidly tiring, we headed back to the hotel early, but not before getting pearl milk tea, which they have been craving since we left.

Our second day in Vancouver seems to have been a little of a repeat... with a healthy breakfast this time of waffles.

Followed by some time exploring Gastown and the various shops, cafes and boutiques.

And continuing our beaver-fever.

 We tried an organic soft serve (which looked something like the stock photo on the left), but was so good we forgot to photograph it until it was too late!

 The girls had some lunch in the Old Spaghetti Factory (which featured an old train car)

 And then we spent the remainder of the afternoon just strolling along the waters edge.

This statue is a Digital Orca.  We didn't have enough time to get out to see the real Orca's, which I think we'd do if we had a couple more days...but the girls liked this one, considering it a minecraft Orca.

And to end the day, a nice cute house boat.

After a seafood dinner on the waters edge, we took the weary family back to the hotel to try and rest a little before our final hurrah in San Francisco.