3:09 pm

I think that we're actually headed in the right direction! It's July 15, our anniversary; a little after 11 this morning we left our “Bee Lazee” campsite just outside of Prince George. Real Canadian Superstore was the final destination on our simple quest for a tarp and Mountain House dehydrated meals. Here are a few observations we made along the way:

Canadian Tire sells camping gear.

Brick sells mattresses.

So what does Home Depot sell? Maybe lingerie?

As we were having a delirious laughing meltdown in the frozen foods section, I wanted to assure each passerby, “Don't worry we have lived overseas—in Ukraine—I promise. Yes, everything is printed in Ukrainian or Russian and we manage to get by.” Here (Canada) we could at least figure out what the French meant from its Latin roots, or simply flip the can around and read the English label!

Where's the camera now? Evidently standing in a little red cooler on top of frozen meat is pretty much the limelight for a 8 month old. Ken and I were stressing out about what we were going to eat...Low sodium, good nutrition, where we would put the cooler if we bought one. Ken asked me, “Does anyone else have this much trouble packing food for a camping trip?” When we looked down at Rawly, he was chillin', quite literally, just bouncing up and down happy as a clam. I was laughing so hard I thought that I was going to pee my pants. And finally the icing on the cake was the song playing on the radio when we got back in the car, “SOS, somebody please help me!”

Canada, Oh Canada!

Unfortunately after we had booked our tickets home for the summer, we learned that we needed to be out of the country for 330 days to qualify for the overseas tax exemption clause (I'm not sure of the actual technical jargon.) Needless to say, that meant that the good ol' US of A didn't want to spend our monies here and our options were either Baja California or British Colombia. Interestingly enough, having a baby has somewhat changed our sense of adventure, so we opted out of our amazing tour of the California baseball stadiums and a stint in Mexico for a tour of beautiful British Columbia. The plan was to make the 15 hour trip from Vancouver (BC) to Terrace where some of our teaching coworkers live. First we took it slow, Eugene to Seattle with an overnight pit stop in Canby/Mollalla to visit old friends. Our next stop was a two night layover in Puyallup where our cousins live. Isaac and Saraya kept Rawly (and us) entertained and introduced him to the Point Defiance Zoo.

Hiking with the bro

Jesse and Nikki joined us on a beautiful hike up the McKenzie to Blue Pool. It almost looks too blue to be true. Rawly enjoyed peeking out the side of the pack and his extra high vantage point atop Uncle Jesse's shoulders. Ken also introduced him to some Oregonian wildlife up close and personal—forest tigers (as we call them).

Independence Day

Looking back, we spent this fourth as all-American as possible: church on Sunday morning, family BBQ back at the ranch (aka my parents), baseball at the Em's new field (PK Park—not too shabby Phil Knight), and the most spectacular display of fireworks following the game. Rawly was pretty stoked. Although, the works + 10 hour jet lag=interrupted slumber and Mr. Sad Face. He and I ended up hanging out in the bathroom to muffle the noise. All in all, a great birthday!