Anyway since our last blog my (Martyn’s) family visited in Sept. We really enjoyed showing them around where we now call home. The weather didn’t start off too well and was a bit blustery down at the beach in White Rock, but it didn’t take too long to improve. The highlight was a drive up the Sea to Sky highway to Whistler village and a trip on the recently installed peak to peak gondola. This was especially exciting as we not only saw OUR first wild bear but 6 wild bears, luckily from the safety of the cable car. We think they enjoyed their visit… you’ll have to come back during the winter though and see the other side of Vancouver.
Halloween is a big celebration over here. This year we carved our own pumpkins and took a journey on the Stanley Park Ghost Train (the latter being a slight disappointment compared to their Christmas Train). But in saying that what made it was the family behind us. At the beginning their young son was so excited to get on the train but only seconds into the ride said it was too scary and wanted to get off. For the rest of the journey his mom (not mum anymore) was trying to point out how ‘nice’ everything was even to the point where we could see some dolls coming up in the distance. “oooh look at the dolls coming aren’t they nice”, she said, only when we got closer you could see some where on stakes and others were being hanged ‘oooh yes they're nice’ we thought… hilarious!
In Nov we took our first trip across the border and into the states (that was after 20 questions, finger printing and mug shots taken by the border guards). Our destination was Seattle, only knowing this city from watching Fraser and the scene from Sleepless In Seattle but enough of that! Having prepared my famous ‘itinerary’ we started our whirlwind tour as soon as we dropped our bags at the hotel. Typical Seattle weather is rain and this didn’t disappoint. From the Space Needle to the Music Experience home of Jimmy Hendrix, the Underground Tour of old Seattle to the ‘flying fish’ of Pike Place Market and the very first Starbucks, we did it all. We woke on our last day to blue skies and the sun shining, so it was back around all the sites again to retake all the photo’s…Hayley was so pleased….not!!!
Now winter is well on its way and the snow has returned to the mountains, opening up the ski slopes (we’ll be there soon). And the buzz of the upcoming winter Olympics is picking up pace.
Writing this we have just returned from an amazing night at the top of Grouse Mountain where we had our first touch of this years snow and fantastic clear view of Downtown at twilight, at -6 degrees was a bit chilly but well worth it. On our return we stopped off at Capilano where they have currently switched on the ‘Canyon of Lights’. Lights are strung across the suspension bridge and around the treetop and lake walkways.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Martyn & Hayley
Well after the motorbike show a few months back Martyn decided we were going to go to the Classic and Custom Car show! Oh well, I suppose it keeps him happy when I want to do things scrapbook related!! There were some really cool cars and not that many car babes much to Martyn’s disappointment!! I don’t know much about cars so here are some pics instead!! 
Last time we mentioned we had some tickets to an ice hockey game – it was our first game and it was great! The Vancouver Giants won 6-3 (I think that was the final result!) The atmosphere at ice hockey games are great, it’s really family orientated and there’s so much going on in the intervals – mascots running around giving out freebies, mini blimps flying about dropping vouchers down into the audience!! The Giants are in a lower league to the Vancouver Canucks, the Cunucks are in the NHL which is the equivalent of the English premier league of football. The Cunucks had been doing really well and got to the playoffs! So it was hockey fever here for awhile! We even bought some jerseys to wear whilst cheering them on! Unfortunately they didn’t get past the 2nd round but hey ho there’s always next year! As you can see from the pic below, we enjoyed the games in true Canadian style, beer, BBQ and wearing our shirts!!
We have been getting our apartment ready for summer; we have plants and a BBQ now on the balcony ready for the hot weather! We have decided to rent here for another year as it’s really handy for transit and our apartment is nice, big and quiet!! Its coming up to the one year mark and we both can’t believe just how the time has flown! We are still loving it here and can’t see us moving back to Blighty, of course we really miss our family and friends but by what we have heard from people and the news we have seen we moved at the right time. Canada has been hit by the economy problems too but not to the extent that the US or UK has as Canada has a different banking and credit system…basically you can’t get it!! Let’s just hope things start to get better soon.
I also want to take this opportunity to introduce you all to a new member of our family…Martyn’s new goatee beard! He thought by growing some facial hair would help him integrate into the local community!?! What with drinking beer and watching ice hockey it won’t take him the normal 3 years to become a Canadian citizen!!
