Rick, Chinatown & the Spirit of Alaska...

Thursday, before our flight left, Rick drove us through Vancouver took us down to Chinatown.

Can you find the turtle?

They filmed a scene from an episode of Smallville...RIGHT HERE!

We stopped at a Chinese restaurant of course for lunch. You had to mark on this little card what you wanted. Justin picked pot stickers, Michael picked dumplings, I got wontons, and Rick (who forgot his glasses and couldn't read the menu) marks some random item. That random item was delivered to our table last, and as the waitress sets in on the table, she laughs. She knew that NO ONE orders this! (I wish I could remember exactly what it was called!!) Here's what it looked like:

It wiggled, kind of like Jell-O and that black goo flowed from the center when we broke it open.

We each tried it, but Justin's expression was the only one film-worthy...yep it tasted just like that! A hint of a peanut butter and the texture of sand...weird!

While waiting in Seattle for our connection we took a walk down the C concourse and found this at the end...our newest fancy painted livery...The Spirit of Alaska Statehood. Just some cool background on this guy. The images on the plane were designed by a 16 year old from Sitka, Alaska as part of the "Paint the Plane" contest put on by Alaska Airlines that was open to all school children in kindergarten through 12th grade in the state of Alaska for the state's 50th anniversary. Click here to see a picture of the entire plane.

Thanks again, Sharon and Rick for an AWESOME five days, and we can't wait for you guys to come down here!

Chester, Charlie, Ice & Elvis...

Wednesday we slept in a little, took our time getting ready and did a little more browsing/sight seeing in Gastown while we waited for Sharon to get off work at 4. When she got home we rushed out to Langley where we met up with Tony and he led us out to Dana's place to meet some more celebrities. Sharon and the guys kept this a surprise the ENTIRE week! They wouldn't tell me what we were doing Wednesday night until we got there and walked out to meet Chester and Charlie. It was a GREAT surprise and SO much fun!

This is Chester...He's AMAZING! Yes there was a hot wire fence between us, however, that hot wire fence was NOT ON! Yep, we're standing less than twelve inches from a real live bear! Dana is an amazing animal trainer who trains different types of animals for the movies. Chester and Charlie have appeared in A Bear Named Winnie (when they were cubs) and most recently in Borat (which I wasn't going to watch but might have to get from redbox just to fast forward and see these guys do their thing!)

This is Charlie's mean bear face...yep he portrays a mean bear REALLY well.

We got to feed Charlie some cookies...he likes his Chips Ahoy!

Yep...I got bear slobber on my hand!

Then we met Ice....Ice is a wolf/Husky hybrid. He can turn from vicious dog to sweet puppy in one command. Sharon, of course, is FEARLESS! The rest of us didn't get this close!

Meet Elvis. How many of you can say you've been locked in a cage with a raccoon? Oh, yeah just Justin, Michael, Sharon and I!

After leaving Dana's we stopped back at Tony's where he showed us what his famous dogs could do. It was crazy watching this dog, Bobbi, attack (from the safety of the second story deck of course) ;) The loony guy in the attack suit is Dean. Needless to say we were all a little too sane to jump into that suit...especially after seeing the bruises those teeth left!

Tom, Emmanuelle, and the Temple...

Tuesday Sharon took off from work and took us to the set of SMALLVILLE!!!! Where we got to go on a fantastic tour of the set, with our gracious tour guide Pat (thanks again!) and got to meet Tom Welling. We also got to watch some actuall filming with Alison Mack (who plays Chloe) and meet and talk with her (bummer, no pictures!) Sharon did not disappoint in the Smallville department!

After checking out the Smallville set we headed over to an "on location" shoot to meet another actor, Emmanuelle Vaugier, who played Dr. Helen Bryce on Smallville and has also stared in Two and a Half Men, and CSI: New York.
She was REALLY nice!
On our way back to North Vancouver we took a detour to check out the newest Canadian Temple, which is currently under construction.

Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, Gastown and the Vancouver Canadians...

We got into Vancouver on Sunday afternoon. Sharon picked us up at the airport (our first time meeting face to face!) then we headed over the bridge to North Vancouver. After a few errands we went back to her place where we met her husband, Rick, and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon on the patio. Friends of Sharon and Rick, Pat and Franki, joined us for dinner and Pat just happens work for SMALLVILLE!

Monday we started out with a short drive up the the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge. Followed by a 20 minute hike to Twin Falls and back up the steps to where we started.

After lunch we took the Seabus over to Gastown for a little browsing/shopping.

The steam powered clock in Gastown

After Sharon got off work we met Franki at the Vancouver Canadians minor league baseball game where they were playing Tri-Cities (from Eugene, OR).

Me, Sharon, Franki

Justin, Michael

They had something going on between each inning while the guys in the field were warming up. At one point these four guys came out to sweep the infield and started dancing to Vanilla Ice...this just might have been the best part of the Game!

We left the game at the bottom of the eighth inning with Tri-Cities leading 10-1. :) We headed back to North Vancouver and up the hill aways to park and take this picture...cool right?

Oh, Canada!!!

We can't thank Sharon and Rick enough for being such AWESOME hosts for us last week while we were visiting on "holiday" in Vancouver! We had so much fun and can't wait to go back! So for a little background on our trip to Vancouver...Sharon and I met through work, she's a travel agent and I, at the time, worked on the travel agent support desk. She caught my eye when she kept calling in to get upgrades for Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, the two stars of my FAVORITE show, Smallville. So I asked her about it, and that started our friendship. She's been telling us to come up for several of years and something has always come up that has gotten in the way of us getting passports.

Then Michael moved in. Michael served his mission in Vancouver so he was dieing to go back. What a great idea, I thought! So we ordered passports, booked some positive space tickets and planned a trip!

Thanks again Sharon for EVERYTHING! We can't wait for you guys to come down here so we can return your hospitality....and we will be back to Vancouver!!

Teagen's First Plane Ride...

Justin flew to Idaho Falls to pick up Jori and Teagen yesterday and bring them back to Boise while Jesse rode with Janeen, Brent and Baby Jacks. Teagen was SO excited for his first plane ride, he couldn't stop smiling.

Now that Teagen knows how fast it is to fly to Boise he's not going to want to drive ever again!

Hot August Nights...

Friday, August 7th we drove down to Reno to see Michael's family and go to Hot August Nights. It's been YEARS since I've been down for Hot August Nights. We left Friday night after Michael got off work at 5. I had uploaded Harry Potter 7 on my ipod so I made them listen all the way there (and back). Out first stop when we got into Sparks at midnight was non other than In-n-Out of course! :)

Saturday we slept in and ran some errands before meeting up with Michael's parents for dinner at Applebees. Then we headed down to watch the cruise.

The Mystery Machine

I got to meet up Saturday night with my best friend from elementary school, Kayla, we hadn't seen each other in at least 10 years, it was so great to catch up!

Sunday morning we slept in, again, (we like to do that) and went to lunch at In-n-Out with Michael's parents and newly adopted brother and sister.

Angel (4) & Thomas (2)