Las Vegas!!

We decided to try some fancy hotels out since they are heavily subsidized by people who think they can beat statistics. Our first hotel was Palms Place and is now my favorite hotel ever! Just look at the pictures!

Relaxing on the couch

Proof that we're cool

Palms Place bathroom

At the Palms Place pool, they have seats _in_ the pool

'Do Not Disturb' signs? Pah! Here, it's all electronic!

On our last night there, we stayed at the Bellagio.

Our room at the Bellagio

Fancy bathroom at the Bellagio

Our window view of the fountain at the Bellagio

Night view from our room

Crazy plants

Raking in the free amenities!!

There’s a much larger Filipino population in Vegas than here, so I was excited to get some good fooood! We went to a Filipino buffet, but unfortunately we didn’t take a picture. But we did go to Jollibee (the equivalent of McDonald’s) twice!

In front of Jollibee

Posing next to the Jollibee bee

Our Jollibee food

Buko-pandan!!!

Lots of flavored tuna! Unfortunately they didn't have Spicy. =(

We visited the Atomic Testing Museum and the Mormon Fort Museum.

Atomic Testing Museum

Scared of the bomb

Mormon Fort Museum

We toured the Hoover Dam. The tours and everything were really well-organized, probably because so many people tour the place since they’ve seen it in the movies. The tour was grossly over-packed with “dam” jokes. All the engineering and thinking that went into it was pretty amazing. They said the upkeep of the dam was entirely self-sufficient from the energy generated there. They didn’t say whether tourism contributed, but I estimate that they give tours to about 500 people per hour…and they charged $10-30 per person.

It's huuuuge!

In front of the dam

Angela in front of an intake tower

Hoover Dam generators

A family I knew from my mission lives in Vancouver now

This Saturday we took another quick trip up to Vancouver.  We met up with a family I knew from my mission that had moved to Canada.  It was fun to catch up on how they’ve been and find out all the news from the people I knew in the Philippines.  It turns out there’s a huge Filipino community up there.  We got Mango Tang, Balut, and Yakisoba!  We’ll definitely be going more often!

I don't have a picture of the balut because I haven't eaten it yet.

Front of the temple

The same day was the last day of the open house at the Vancouver temple.  It was a really good experience and I was really impressed with how organized everything was.  When we went to the chapel of the church building next door, they put us into tour groups and gave us a tour guide.  It was cool that there were lots of church members as well as locals taking the tour.  The temple was really nice.  Somebody asked the tour guide what type of wood they used.  Our tour guide said that he didn’t know exactly what type but that it is the best quality: “The best things belong to God.  So we don’t mind giving them back.”

At the front of the temple

It’s a small world in the church.  After the tour, we ran into a family from our ward.  Then we (re)met a guy that we had first met about three years ago.  I also met some people who know the Lacestes that we had lunch with earlier.

On the freeway heading home, we heard a loud screeching noise.  We looked over and saw sparks flying across two lanes behind a car.  They traveled for about 1/4 mile before they stopped.  We realized what happened when we saw that their rear tire had fallen off and was rolling down the freeway.

In front of BC Place

The line to the The Bay was ridiculously long

We waited in a HUGE line for about an hour to get into the store to buy official Olympics stuff.  As is the case with all touristy places, things were overpriced.

Angela in front of the Olympic torch

The Olympic logo lit up every time the Canadians got a medal

Not "Starbucks" but "Moonpennies"

Meticulously crafted hot chocolate

Posing in front of the ski jump thing

Angela was pretty nonchalant going down a pretty hard bobsled run

Angela’s always the one that remains calm while I freak out.

You see crazy stuff like this in Canada

Angela: "What would Shaun White do?"

All the onlookers were speechless at Angela’s snowboarding skills.  When asked how she knew it she said, “I just thought, ‘What would Shaun White do?’ and I just did what was natural.”

Snowboarding

Bronze was so disappointing

Proof that we were at the 2010 curling event!

Curling competitors at the opening

This is when the US was doing well

Click here to see a video of our US curling team in action! Apparently WordPress doesn’t have out-of-the-box ability to embed video, so you’ll have to download it to watch it.

Boo! 10-3

Our team got schooled.  Ended in the seventh in, even.  But all in all, going to the Olympics was really fun.  People were really friendly and there was a lot of energy in the air.

Monday morning we went to breakfast at this “hippy” place near Chinatown.  It was pretty good, they had these really good pesto potatoes.  After that we just walked around Market Square and Chinatown.  Supposedly, Victoria’s Chinatown is the first Chinatown to be built in Canada.  It seems like winter is downtime in Victoria and there weren’t many people there or many stores open.  After we finished up there we headed to Craigdorrach Castle, which is a mansion that a wealthy family built in the 1800’s.  I wouldn’t call it a “castle”, but it was pretty fancy and it was interesting seeing how people lived back then.  The furnishing are mostly from the original family that built the house, so that was pretty impressive.  Next time we visit Victoria, I’d really like to visit Hatley Park, which is the house built by the oldest son of that family.  The pictures make it look like somewhere Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice would live…After the Castle we headed home for a little break, but headed out again later in the afternoon.  We set off on foot from the time share and saw the Parlament Building, Empress Hotel and walked to Victoria’s downtown which has a lot of little shops and resturants.  We got fish and chips at this little place, they were pretty good.  After exploring a little we headed back to the hotel since it was getting pretty late.  We did a little FHE at the time share then we caught dinner at a Japanese place then went to watch “The Blind Side” (that football movie with Sandra Bullock).  It was a pretty inspiring movie.  Showed that some people still have good hearts and it’s always good to try to help others out when you can. 

Tuesday morning we headed out to catch the morning ferry back to the US of A.  We drove through Port Angeles a little, but then we headed to the center of Twilight-dom and drove to Forks, WA.  Home of the Cullen vampires etc.  Forks was as small and bleak as the books described…I think there were like 20 buildings in the whole town max.  We ate lunch in a little diner, checked out the local high school and some Twilight stores…that was about all there was to do there.  After Forks, we headed back home. 

Overall, the trip was pretty nice and relaxing.  Victoria was very quaint and peaceful and a perfect Christmas town.  Maybe next time we’re up North we’ll visit the National Park and Victoria’s other sites.

We got in pretty late the Saturday before Memorial Day, so there was just chatting and getting ready to go to bed.  Moomers is a very well behaved baby!  She’s very good natured and not too fussy!

Sunday it was up bright and early for the baby blessing.  It was really nice and Moomers was very well behaved!  After church we had a family lunch as Monkey’s house with her in-laws and all.  After lunch Dad and Mom took Jon and I to Washington DC, which is about an hour away from where Monkey an Dragon live.  Jon and I are still to young to rent a car without a big fee on top of it so Dad drove us around to all the sites that are hard to reach via foot.  We first went to Arlington cemetery, which was very striking especially during Memorial Day weekend.  There were lots of veterans visiting the area to pay respects to their friends that had died during various wars.  At Arlington we saw the Changing of The Guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.  It was really respectful and it really reminded me of how we should treat those who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms and liberty.  After that, we went to see the Iwo Jima Memorial, which was interesting since we recently watched the movie, Flag of Our Fathers, which I recommend.  So, we had some historical background about the memorial etc.  After that we headed out towards the Pentagon.  We drove by the new Air Force Memorial they have and stopped at the Pentagon’s 9/11 Memorial.  The Memorial is really well thought out There are curved structures that come out of the ground and they’re placed in a straight line by year of birth of the victims who died.  The ones pointing toward the Pentagon are the memorial plaques of those who died on the plane that hit the building, the plaques pointing away are commemorating those who died within the building.  On the plaques dedicated to the plane victims they also wrote the names of those they were traveling with.  It was really striking that the youngest victim was this little 3 year-old, it was just really thought provoking about what a real tragedy 9/11 really was.   After that we hit things a little closer to the mall, Lincoln Memorial, WWI Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, and the WWII Memorial.  After that, we headed to the Jefferson Memorial and we were off.  Dad took us to the Washington DC temple which is one of the prettiest temples I’ve seen!

Monday was Memorial Day and it was the last day in town for Mom, Dad, Bo and Buff.  We ate lunch at a buffet in the Inner Harbor.  They gave each of us these huge pitchers of water, Jon really liked that.  Buffie had to head out right after lunch so, we took her to the airport and saw her off.  Dad took Jon and I back to DC and we saw the big Air and Space Museum near the Dulles Airport.  The main attractions there are a Concord jet and a real space shuttle!  Jon really enjoys plane museums, so we had a really good time.  Dad took us by the White House and we were off back to Baltimore so Dad could fly out with the rest of the gang.  We enjoyed the rest of the evening with Moomers, Monkey and Dragon.  Moomers is so cute!  I liked just sitting and watching her.

The next morning, Dragon drove us to the train station and we took the train to DC.  It was our first time riding a train in the US and it was an interesting experience.  It was a commuter train, so it was mostly full of business people.  We arrived at Union Station, then walked to the Capital to get tickets for the tour.  The tour was a lot shorter than I remember it being…we got tickets right away.  Probably because tourist season wasn’t up and going yet.  After that we took the underground tunnel to the Library of Congress.  Then, we walked to the Supreme Court.  It was the day that they announced President Obama’s nomination for the new justice so there was a lot of hustle bustle.  After that we headed to the Smithsonian.  First place we visited was the botany gardens.  Then we went to the main Air and Space museum there.  We went over to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, then walked over to the International Spy Museum, which was $18 so we didn’t go in.  But that museum is near the Navy Memorial, Ford’s Theater and the place where Lincoln died, so we got to see those things too.  We went and checked out the Natural History Museum and we stayed there for a long long time.  We headed back to the Air and Space Museum until it was time to head home.

The next few days we just hung out with the Moomers and had fun with her!  Moomers we miss you!

Friday, morning we set out for New Jersey with Dragon’s brother.  He took us by Princeton University and we saw their campus, then took the train from Princeton Junction to Penn Station in NY.  We met up with some of our Provo friends at the World Trade Center site.  The museum they have there is pretty striking.  I can’t wait for the new memorial to be up at ground zero, I think it’ll be a great area for growth and remembrance.  We went all around Manhattan, we walked down to see the Statue of Liberty and Wall Street.  We went to have a really good sushi dinner over by NYU, then headed to Times Square.  That night we trained back to NJ where we met up with my uncle and aunt.

The next day, my uncle and aunt took us to Philadelphia where we saw the Liberty Bell, Town Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the site where George Washington’s house used to be.  We also had a really good Vietnamese lunch!  The train station there was really nice!  We trained back to Maryland and had our last night with Moomers, Monkey and Dragon.

Thanks for hosting us, Monkey and Dragon!  We had a really good time and we’ll be sure to visit again sometime soon!