Here and There

What’s happening here? The morning started out cool so I decided to do my exercise on the treadmill.  Ron and I went to the grocery store to get some things for our Easter dinner.  Sarah stayed and did some school work.  

Ron took the bicycle out for a ride once the day warmed up. After lunch, it was nice enough to sit out on the deck.  

While I soaked in some sun, Ron and Sarah took the side by side for a ride.  

They were gone for quite awhile and were gaining elevation on their adventure.  

When the trail got too snowy, they turned around and came home.

Our day ended with the Leafs winning their game and clinching the division.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world….

Stephen and Kylie flew all night and arrived in Amsterdam.

From there they took a train to Barcelona. They travelled all around using the transit system to see as much as they could pack in.  

By10:00 pm, they were in their room ready to crash.  They are 9 hours ahead so while I am typing this and thinking about bed, they are up and ready for a full day.  They want to do some more touring and then will board the ship in the afternoon.  Quite an adventure!

The Mountie Always Gets His….suitcase??

Our day was a quiet one.  Ron and I started off with our games of Sjoelen.  

He then spent some time organizing the garage in case we want to take the side by side for a little ride.  Sarah slept in with the little fur family in the big king size bed.

I did a little housework, laundry and made cookies.

I also am enjoying their air fryer.  We took the dogs for a little walk.  So, I thought, what am I going to put in my blog for today?  

Don’t worry…I’ll tell you about Stephen and Kylie’s day!  They started off by going to the Vancouver Aquarium.  They sent a few pictures.

And then Stephen called with a story… “Mom, what is everyone doing?  Get them all together and put me on speaker phone.”  My question was “is everyone okay and is the problem solved?”  I ask these questions so that I can sit back and listen to the story without worrying.  He assured me that “it was okay NOW.”

So let’s start with the day before…Stephen and Kylie flew to Vancouver.  They were meeting their friends from Kitimat there.  Let’s call them Charlotte and Stephen….because, after all, that’s their names. Charlotte and Stephen arrived but their luggage did not.  It would be coming down the next morning, which was this morning.  While Stephen and Kylie were snapping pictures at the aquarium, Stephen was getting texts from Charlotte.  She had an AirTag on her luggage (which was called Stephen’s luggage).

The messages were getting a little more frantic as she noticed that her luggage had left the airport and it wasn’t with her.  She watched it bounce around, at first looking like it was near Stanley Park. 

Charlotte watched it move towards the down town area.  

Stephen said that he would try and follow the location of the luggage.  Meanwhile, she contacted the police.

Stephen and Kylie arrived close to the marked location of the luggage.

It was a pretty rough area of Vancouver and not really safe.  As they walked along one area they saw a bunch of luggage stored away with a person guarding them.  Some of the locals started pointing at Stephen and said that the police were there with his honey.  I guess Stephen still looks the part even when he is on holidays. They decided to move on.

As they were watching the location of luggage move, an unmarked police car pulled up.  The police said, “hey, are you Steve?”  They were currently on the phone with Charlotte and Stephen and Kylie didn’t look like they belonged in the area.  The luggage looked like it was taken into a homeless shelter and the police were going to go there just to take a look.  They gave their number to Stephen and said to call if they found anything.

All of sudden, they spotted someone strolling a suitcase.  They snapped a picture and sent it to Charlotte and called and told her to check it right away.  

It was hers.  They called the number that the police had given them and followed her.  Then this person put the luggage down and started to pull items out ready to sell.  

They had to move in.  Stephen went to quickly grab the luggage and the girl began to argue with him. Another girl stepped in to help the one that had the luggage.  Kylie became the back up cop.  All of sudden, the police arrived.  The girl in possession with the stolen suitcase wanted Stephen charged.  She was told to leave.  Stephen and Kylie packed up the luggage hoping that everything was still there.  They saw a new toothbrush in the luggage and left it there.  Charlotte would have to get a new one.

Stephen and Kylie headed to the bus with their found luggage.  The police took note and offered to drive them back to their hotel.

At the hotel, they boarded the shuttle with their luggage plus one and headed to the airport. 

Charlotte and her luggage were once again reunited.  

In the words of Ron, “Interesting day. The aquarium, helpline for home and stolen baggage retrieval. The old air tag paid off…and having a policeman friend (with an intimidating partner) dying for an investigation file.”

Case closed… or should I say suitcase closed! 

How is a Mediterranean cruise going to top this?  They are now up in the air, hopefully with all of their luggage.

So our day may have been pretty quiet but life in Vancouver was pretty exciting.

On Our Own

Kylie got up and made us breakfast again.  German pancakes have become our favourite and it is a recipe that I am taking home.  German Pancakes 

Kylie was trying to squeeze the few things in her suitcase.  Ace was thinking she might like to sneak in on the cruise.

Stephen got an email from the airport that the plane wasn’t going to be able to land in Bella Coola so they needed to be at the airport sooner to take the bus up the hill to Anihim.  He was not excited about going up that hill in a bus but Kylie had done it before and said that it was fine.  When a bus or transport/semi are going up the hill, there is a radio channel for other oversized vehicles to turn to so that two large vehicles don’t meet.  This is a serious hill!

We drove them to the airport and they checked in their luggage.  

We went for a little walk to “the tree.”  

The bus arrived and off they went to the tarmac to load.  

They will be off to Vancouver for the evening before their flight tomorrow.

We are on our own now…well kind of.  We have two dogs and two cats that want to be very close to us right now.  We stopped on the way back to the house to pick up a few groceries.

When we came in we found a frying pan on the couch and the drawer from the air fryer on the floor.

They had been washed and were left drying in the sink.  I washed them again and put them away this time.

Sarah did some school work and then went to have a nap.

We had wanted to go to church but the Pentecostal church has been shut down for 10 years.

After supper, we took the dogs for a walk and managed to find our way back home again.  Princess, one of the local dogs led us for a little while.

We tried to get a picture of Sarah with the dogs…we tried!

Sarah is going to try the king size bed to see if she can collect all the animals for the night.

Boat Ride to the Hot Springs

The weather was still cool but the sun was shining.  Today was our boat day.  We dressed in lots of layers with our bathing suit being the base layer.  Off we went to the marina.

Stephen and Kylie got the truck backed in and the boat launched, ready for the passengers.

The sun felt warm but the wind was cool and the further out, the colder it got.  We had hats, gloves and hoods on as we travelled across the water.  

Once again, the views were beautiful and it didn’t matter which way you looked.

Stephen and Kylie pointed out different things along the way while always looking for any sea creatures.

We arrived at the very natural Tallheo Hot Springs.  Stephen dropped us off at the rock and then anchored the boat in the very cold ocean.  He put on his wet suit and was able to walk to shore. We soaked in the two hot pools.

The sun had warmed up the air a bit but it was still cool once we got out of the warm water and had to dress to get back into the boat.  When it was time to go, Stephen put his wet suit back on and this time had to swim to the boat because of the tide coming in.

On the way back Kylie and Sarah saw a whale.  We all got to see porpoises.  Sarah was very excited. 

Kylie and Stephen spent some time in the afternoon packing for their cruise. In the evening, we played some games.

 It was another great day.