Beautiful BC

The past few days we have enjoyed a lot of God's goodness. Often when I look around this gorgeous place we are so blessed to live in, I wonder how can people NOT believe in God. Our license plates say "Beautiful BC" for a reason. The past few days have reminded me why many people choose to come here for their vacations! I get to live here! I remember when Kevin and I were in China. We were in that fun, flirty stage where you ask random questions to try to find out as much as you can about the other person. Kevin asked me if I could go anywhere in the world, where would I go? I honestly can't really remember what I said, but he replied by saying, "You're supposed to say Vancouver!" He then went on to sing the praises of his beautiful province. At the time I thought he was exaggerating, but now that I live here I know that he wasn't. He told me that it was one of the most beautiful places on Earth and he was right!

This weekend we enjoyed much of what BC has to offer by taking a trip up to Keats. We took off on Saturday morning and stayed until Monday morning. Our friend James was kind enough to drive us up in his jet boat. Talk about an adrenaline rush! He gets that thing going pretty quickly and my heart rate gets up there as we fly over the waves. It always jumps up into my throat when we hit a wave hard and get that airborne feeling for a few moments!

If you read this fairly often, you know that Keats is one of my favorite places. It is just a different world! We enjoyed picking berries, going for walks, and an amazing fresh salmon dinner with family and friends! I was very happy to see our friends Brian and Jalene up there. They are expecting their first baby and I hadn't seen her as her cute, little pregnant self yet. She's looking pretty cute! Congrats you guys...we're praying for you!

Kev's parents had to leave on Sunday morning. We woke up around 10 and went to church at the camp at 11. I LOVE church on Keats Island. There is just something about sitting outside under the shade of the trees with the sun shining down on all of us. As we sing the worship songs I always feel the presence of God surrounding all of us. After church we spent the rest of the day just lazing around. I enjoyed some time laying on the deck in my bikini trying to catch some sun-don't worry Mom, I slathered on the sunscreen! Kevin braved the prickly bushes and picked us some fresh blackberries to use in our dinner!Sunday night I made us some fresh blackberry pancakes and then we enjoyed a walk out to Campfire Rock. We caught a gorgeous sunset and enjoyed long moments just sitting on the rocks, listening to the waves crash and talking about our future. It was a peaceful, relaxing end to our weekend at Keats. I love those quiet moments with Kevin, God, and nature all around.
On Monday morning before we left I got the unique experience of watching the boat come in with the campers. There is a huge Christian camp on Keats Island. Kevin worked there for years and years and every Monday a huge boat brings in the new campers and takes the outgoing campers back to Vancouver. It was pretty neat to watch. The entire staff goes down to the wharf and blasts music, singing and dancing to welcome the new campers. They played mega hits like "YMCA" and many others and I found myself singing and dancing along from the deck. Quite the experience! Sadly, just as they came in it was our time to go. Hopefully we will make it up there one more time before summer ends!Today we decided to tackle one of Vancouver's toughest challenges...the Grouse Grind! It is often referred to as Mother Nature's Stairmaster. It's pretty tough! It's a 1.8 mile hike straight up the side of Grouse Mountain. Grouse Mountain is beatiful, in fact it's where we were engaged! I had hiked the Grind before, but Kevin never had. We did pretty well, and made it to the top in 80 minutes. The average is 90 minutes so were happy to beat that at least. I'm sure we will do better on our next time. The views from the top were incredible! We loved looking out over the ocean and Vancouver.

After we finally made it to the top we walked over the actual place we were engaged. We hadn't been back there together since that night and it was fun to remember it. My heart jumped into my throat as I remembered the sweet words he said to me that November night. I remember there being a bit more snow on the slope though! It's amazing to think of how far we have come and all of the wonderful things we have been blessed to share together. I love this man so much, I am so blessed that God brought us together! What a fun few days it has been!