All the World's a Stage

What do you do to keep 2 young girls entertained in an unfamiliar city while their mother and grandmother deal with other family issues? Especially when you are a recent college grad and broke? A trip to the temple grounds and the park across the street is a great option.

While my sister Lisa and my mother were helping out some of my other nephews and niece, I took Lisa's little ones out for a few hours of fun with Aunt Melissa.

Out in front of the beautiful Mt. Timpanogos Temple in American Fork, UT.

Trying to get a picture of the three of us and the temple. It was kind of a one or the other deal, so you can't see our faces very well.

Can't you feel the sisterly love?

After the temple we walked over to the park which, turns out, has a large amphitheater. An empty stage leaves so many possibilities for two creative minds like these girls have. They decided to put on their own version of the story of Cinderella. They didn't talk too loudly, so I couldn't hear most of it, but the way the flitted from place to place, running up the stairs and spinning around made for quite the entertaining show.

Exploring the park.

My pink giggle dances all over the place

I believe this was Cinderella and her step-mother in the kitchen. It was quite the complex story.

Consulting. There were a lot of pauses to discuss the direction the show would take.

I had to get in the fun to :)

I always have fun with these two girls. They make everyday I spend with them a 'benture.

On the Water

Sorry for the long absence from the bloggosphere. We returned from our vacation to a family crisis, and life has been a roller coaster ever since, but I've been taking pictures and storing up blog posts in my head so prepare for an onslaught of new posts in the near future.

Picking up where I last left off, here is a bit of a recap of the last few days of our awesome adventure in Canada!

I told you all about my fabulous adventure with the Beluga whales, but the rest of the aquarium was just as amazing.

The aquarium was fascinating, and had the most amazing selection of wild life. I loved the sea mammals most of all because they have always been my favorites, but who wouldn't be intrigued by a fish almost as long as my arm span is wide?

I loved the bright colors, and textures in the different tanks. I appreciated their set up. They had tanks with the diverse wildlife from the straight near Vancouver, but they had it separated by area with maps showing where each unique environment was located, and samples of the fish and plants from that locale. It was so well thought out, informative, and just plain cool looking.

After a fabulous day at the aquarium we took the ferry over to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Because it threw me off the first time, Vancouver city is not on Vancouver Island just for clarification. We had been to Victoria before 4 years ago, and fell in love with the city. It is beautiful, calming, and yet there is so much to do. We had hit a lot of the major must sees that last time we were here, so we didn't do as much this time around. We enjoyed going to church on Sunday, my mother to the family ward, and myself to the singles ward, and had a nice relaxing Sabbath. Monday was our only full day there. We did some shopping in the morning, and found some fun and unique souvenirs. In the afternoon we did a whale watching tour! The last time we were here we saw a whole pod of Orcas in the wild playing and jumping out of the water. It was amazing.

Waiting for on the dock for our excursion.

All geared up and headed out.

A whole rock full of seals. Can you spot the cute one floating around in the water?

A pair of love birds! My first sighting of Bald Eagles. They are impressive birds.

This male sea lion was lazing about on his rock, soaking up the sun when we sailed by. The captain cut the engine and we had some incredible photo ops while we quietly floated by.

Unfortunately we didn't get to see any Orcas in the wild this time around, but they had a whale sighting guarantee which means we received vouchers for a free whale watching tour next time we're up that way. Next time! :) Hopefully sooner rather than later, but I'm sure it will be a few years. Luckily the vouchers have to use by date on them. It really was an amazing vacation, and so needed to recharge our batteries before we came home to chaos.