Wednesday 3 September 2008

USA

So on Tuesday we decided to go to USA for more shopping as its even cheaper there than in Canada! We all piled into the van and Uncle Pat drove us to the border. None of us had Visa's yet to get over to the States, even Uncle Pats had ran out (He is a landed immigrant, has lived in Canada for 35 years)

We had to fill out some forms and give up a couple of fingerprints and a mugshot, then we were free to go over the line with fresh Visa's stapled in our passports. I'm not totally sure how long it took us to get to the outlet stores as i fell asleep! I think it was about 1 hour and a half.

The outlet stores looked huge, and there was a pretty impressive Casino there too. We headed straight for the food court and grabbed a Subway, yummy. Did lots of shopping, Jas and I had $200 US.

I bought some DC's which cost me $43 which equates to about 21 Pounds Sterling. I paid 65 Pounds Sterling for a pair of DC's in the UK ($130) which just shows how much cheaper it really is here. I also bought a ring for $20 and a hoodie for $46. Jas got a wallet for $30 and a cap for $16. He also got some DC's for $65.

Once we had all finished our shopping we headed back towards Canada. We saw loads of police cars speeding down the highway with their lights flashing. (We later found out that this was due to 6 people being fatally shot, and the shooter was being chased down the highway, still shooting off everywhere, then handing themselves in. Story here)

Got to the border and didn't have to declare anything we had bought. I think the customs guy was kind to us as he knew about Sussex and Surrey in the UK. We drove through the border after a few minutes of chatting to him, and heard sirens and whistles go! We kept on driving for a few hundred yards then realized it was because we had left Uncle Pats passport behind so we had to back up.

In the evening Jas, Stef, Stephen and I went 10 pin bowling in White Rock. I lost the first game with 74, but won the second game with 121. The third game i came third. It cos $8 Canadian each, which covered us for our shoes and 3 games. Thats about 4 quid!! Was a good day overall :)

Sally

Saturday 30 August 2008

Holiday Surprise

Friday 29th August

Started as a normal day, woke up and had breakfast and a shower.

Jas and I decided to pop into Cloverdale shops as we picked up the rental car yesterday (Chevrolet Uplander) I grabbed a copy of Mario Kart on the Wii to bring home, awesome game and 20 quid cheaper than the UK to buy. Had a Wendy's, it was the best burger i have had so far in Canada!

Jas has been wanting to take me to dinner for a while, so as we have the Chevy, he decided it would be tonight. So i quickly got ready and we headed to White Rock. We went to a restaurant called The Boathouse. Neither of us are into fish but we had some Halibut and Chips which was lovely.

We then headed onto the pier, the tide was in so the water was right up underneath. We stopped halfway to look over at the sunset. Jas turned to me and said 'I have something to ask you' I was like 'Ok'. He then proceeded to say 'Sally Ingold, will you marry me' and got a ring out of his pocket! It was one that i had looked at a week before we flew out here. Unfortunately it was a size too small but he has already organized the right size for us to swap over when we get back, so i am not wearing the ring right now.

Obviously i said yes, but Jas didn't get on one knee!!

We got back to the house and i announced it to the rest of the family, they already knew and had Champagne ready! There was a few tears all round i think. Had to stay up until 12:30am so i could call mum and let her know! So hopefully this comes as a welcome surprise to everyone, we are both so happy :)

Sally n Jas

22/8 PNE

Today we went to the PNE. Which is a huge countty fair that last the month of august every year.

We went to a Drug store to get our tickets, which gave us a nice discount of entry fee. It took us about an hour to get to the PNE from cloverdale, and we were amazed at how big it was!

Sally, Stef and I went round together, and we stopped at the CTV (Canadian TV) news stand, where Sally and I were super imposed onto a scene from LOST. We saw the wooden roller coaster from the other side of the park so we headed there.

This roller coaster is world renowned and often seen in the worlds 10 best coasters. Me being the scared of heights chicken shit I'am passed on the offer of going on it. So I let Sally and Stef get abused by the coaster. Sally came off pretty shooken up, and Stef had grazes on his knee's where the G's were throwing him around the seat. We headed to three other rides.

The last ride we went on was the best i've ver been on. You sit in a pod, and it sits on an arm that goes up and down and spins. The pod sally and I were in kept spinning even though the ride stopped. I got off and nearly fell over because I was so dizzy.

We thought it was about time to grab some food so we headed to the food strip. Every kind of food you could imagine from Scones to Burgers and Kebab's to Pizza. Sally had a burger, Stef had spaghetti and I had a corn dog.

We wlaked around all the stall's and Sally had a cartoon drawing done, which was really good.

At about 3pm we headed to watch the Lumber jack show which was really good. Some of the stuff they do is amazing, after this we headed to watch the IAM's Super dogs in action. This was fairly similar to crufts back at home but with neons lights and strobe affects.

We met up with the others at 5pm, where I saw a Monster Truck doing passenger rides. I thought "I HAVE TO DO THAT", so Stef and I jumped in the back of this Monster Truck (Chevy 5.8L V8 with Ford F250 Body) and got thrown all over the place, it was amazing!

At this time we were all ready to go home, so we headed off home where Sally fell asleep in the car.

21/8 The Lake

Right I'm jumping back in time now to get this blog back up to date. Get ready for a lot of reading!

21/8

Today we decided to go up to the lake to see Jim, Mackaela and Hayden. Who had been camping there for a week, while we got settled in. We got there after about an hours drive, and had just been raining. We had lunch with the rest of the family then walked down to the beach at the lake.

The water was so warm and clear we could see steam rising from it. I managed to get some really nice artsy photo's as the view was breath taking! (You will have to wait till I get back to the UK for more photo's)

We walked right along the waterfront and looked at some amazing beach house's for sale. We found out that there priced around $1.25mil but look beautiful. We headed back round to the campsite and say are goodbyes.

From the campsite we headed to Chillawack (sp?) to pick up my mum's uncle, to take him out to dinner. We went to a fish and chip restraunt called C Lovers and it was amazing food at amazing low prices!

After dinner we headed to my mums cousin Jane's house. Jane and Ken were very welcoming and there house is amazing, with a view that you couldn't get tired with. Their house is up in the mountains overlooking Chillawack. We had some group photo's done, and headed on our way home.

Thursday 28 August 2008

Update

Well seeing as Jas hasn't been bothered to update this for a while, i thought i would hijack it!!

We got back from a 2 day trip to Victoria, Vancouver Island yesterday. While we were over there we went on a horse and carriage ride round the town which was nice :) Could be very romantic in the evening with some champagne i reckon!

Done a lot of shopping, which obviously being a girl i have loved! Spent lots of dollars but got some lovely things for myself and friends/family.

We went to the PNE last week, which is on over the whole of August near Vancouver and is a HUGE event. It has fair rides, shows and lots of stalls. I got a caricature of myself done, it looks awesome. I went on the worlds? biggest wooden roller coaster, i thought it would be a fairly 'easy' ride but it was actually insane! So quick and caught lots of G's

Well i have been to the pub already today, got back at 2:30pm after a couple of Vodka and Cokes! I wish i didn't have to go back to work, i love it out here...

Sally x

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Sneaky Peak

As some of you know I got hold of a Canon 400D SLR camera specifically for this holiday, and I've had people ask for a couple of photo's and trust me I've gone through 1GB on my flash card already. So here you go some photo's just to let you guys know what were up to.




From this height you can see the curvature of the earth. +35,000ft to be exact.












This is a shot from my seat in the Airbus AC330 while over the Rocky Mountains. Outside temperature is -60 degree's. Poor immigrants








I am in car heaven! Mustangs, Chargers, Challengers, GTR's and the odd Hummer. Honestly there equliavant of a popular car like the fiesta is a Ford F150 Lightning!








The gang.
(Clockwise from Bottom)
Steve (Dad)
Denise (Mum)
Stefan (Brother)
Pat (mums uncle)
Daph (mums Auntie)
Debs (mums cousin)







Shannon Falls, we stopped off here on our way to Whistler mountain. It's amazing how clear the water is here.










This is the smaller of the two peaks, still pretty high.












This is whistler, you can't even see the peak as it's surrounded by cloud.









This is the view from near the top. As of December you will be able to go up and over (another 500ft) and across the creek to another mountain peak.
This is the first statue put up for the 2010 winter olympics, it's called an Inniuck and actually means something, not like our 2012 counterpart.






This is what we saw on the way down at about 5800ft. It's such an amazing sight sitting above the clouds. My ear's popped numerous times on the way up.









End of the word and into the Abyss anyone?











We will put some mroe pics up next week, but keep coming back to read our blog :)

Jas & Sally

6000ft and climbing

Well as I said we went to Whistler mountain yesterday, and all I can say is wow!

Whistler will be the home of the 2010 winter Olympic games, and looks amazing. We first had a walk around whistler village (size of a town) which reminds me of Switzerland.

After our walk we got to the Gondola's (cable car) which goes up whistler mountain. we had a choice of 1500ft or 6000ft, so we went for the 6000ft.

The Gondola headed its way up the Mountain and we headed off into the clouds, there were Zip lines 1500ft up in the air, didn't really fancy that :s

We got nearer the top and all you could see was white clouds, it was truly amazing! I urge everyone to take a trip to Canada just to goto Whistler Mountain! I'll try and get some photo's up tonight or tomorrow as today were off to the PNE which is a huge fair, with the worlds biggest wooden roller coaster :D

Hope everyones well at home.

Jas