Hello! We are back from Vancouver. We had a very nice time, at least for the part AFTER Spencer successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis!! Wooooooooooo! I'm very proud of him. To start at the beginning though, I flew to Seattle no problem and my folks picked me up at Seatac. We drove toward the border, and we bet on how long we would have to wait to get through customs at the Peace Arch. Before we could get all the way there, though, we came upon a construction flagger lady (there is a bit of construction at the border crossing right now). She stopped us because there were two guys working (measuring something) on the side of the road (three lanes away to our right) a ways up (~50 yards away). Once she had us stopped because they were over there (and standing ON the curb at this point), she tried to get their attention to see if she could let us by or alert them that she needed to, but they didn't hear her. After appearing to be EXTREMELY nervous about the decision that she had to make (whether or not to let us by), she decided to, but told me (I was driving) to go VERY VERY slowly (major hand gestures here). She had to make sure that I didn't crank the wheel and gun it from that point where the car was stopped to cross those three lanes and squish those guys flat.

After that excitement, we drove up to the booth, and we waited a record low time of no wait at all! We got to drive right up! I provided our passports, answered the dude's questions, and we were off into Canada. South of Vancouver we ran into stopped traffic. It turned out that what we really should have been betting on was how long we would have to wait to get through the tunnel that goes under the river in Richmond. They change the direction of the traffic in the middle lanes during rush hour, so at that time of the day, there were three lanes for southbound traffic, and only one lane for us going northbound into the city. The problem was that a total of SIX lanes of traffic had to merge into that one lane, and that isn't easy at any time of day probably. Signs warned us along the way that the left lane was closed, so most people, like us, were already lined up in the right lane. Occasionally someone would zoom down the left lane to cut in at the front. Two cars ahead of us was a lady in a Prius with a Washington license plate, and she was clearly getting worked up that these people were going past and not waiting their turn. We could see her gesturing in frustration each time someone went past, and she moved her car over the line slightly, I guess to be in the way. All of a sudden, five or six cars started coming down all at once, and she got really pissed off. She tried to pull her car out into the left lane a bit more to stop them, but the first few just went around her. The she challenged another a bit more, waving her arm around at them, but they went around her too, though just barely. She finally stopped the last one by really putting her car out there in the way, then she leaned her head out the window to yell and wave her arms at them. She was really worked up, and it was a pretty entertaining scene for us. She did a grand job of further earning Americans a bad reputation while travelling in other countries....

We met Spencer at our hotel in downtown Vancouver, and we decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant for simplicity's sake. We all had a marvelously tasty dinner. Mine was scallops and pork belly, with peas and corn, with some awesome glaze. It was very good. Afterward we went for a walk (we were staying in a very trendy area of Vancouver) and got some little cupcakes, and then we retired to our room for a quiet evening so that Spencer could study a bit more.

We went to the university first thing in the morning, and were able to find a parking spot right near Spencer's defense room, which was nice. That's a benefit of doing this when school is not in session. We found his room and were there early so he could set up, but someone needed to bring him a computer and they didn't show up until about 15 minutes ahead of time. The spectators arrived, including our friends, and it was nice to see them. Roly, Christine and Gabriel drove over from Eastern BC, and Melissa came up from Santa Cruz. Spencer's talk was very good! Of course, it would be! He was polished in his speaking and with the content, and he did great. He gave a touching acknowledgment at the end to his advisors, people who helped him in the field, friends in Bamfield, and to me, which was also very nice. His defense panel questioned him for a while, which he handled just fine, and they all agreed that he passed.

After finishing there, we went with my parents, Roly, Christine, Gabriel and Melissa to find some food. We had a round of beers courtesy of Grama, and lunch, and just hung out. After that, we went to see the new biodiversity science building, and strolled through part of a lovely library. Eventually we left the university and headed back downtown. The party in the evening was at Jon's house, Spencer's advisor. There was plenty of food and drink, and the crowd was a good one. It was nice to see those people that we don't get to see all the time. They're all pretty great. The peak of the evening was a drinking competition between Jon and Spencer, to quote Allison, "to see who's the better doctor." The ladies had spent quite a while preparing this drink by hand, which was largely a whole load of whipped cream! A shot glass of scotch was set into a large martini glass, and then the whole thing was covered in a big mound of whipped cream. The contest was to see who could locate, grab, and drink their shot first, with their hands held behind their backs. Spencer won! He won with a huge margin over Jon, and it was all very entertaining.

On Thursday we just hung out around the city. We slept in at Naomi's house first, then made our way downtown to meet everyone. We met at the beach, and got some falaffels for lunch there. We walked up and down a bit of the seawall in the park, then through downtown, with nowhere in particular that we were heading. We ended up in gastown when it was close enough time for dinner, and got some spaghetti. After dinner we parted ways with my parents, and went to find another drink. We hung out there, then went to see Roly's mom for a few minutes (she's such a great lady!) before heading back out to Naomi's. There was a bit more socializing to do at Naomi's when we got there, and we made it exhausted to bed eventually.

Friday morning we had to get up early enough to leave the city and drive back to Seattle. There was less excitement at the tunnel and border crossing than when we had come up. We made it to Seatac with plenty of time before our flight, and got our seating assigment changed so that we could sit together. Our flight was on time, which was good. The flightpath down was a bit different than all the times I've flown that route before. We were on the west side of the plane. They flew us right past Mt. Rainier (just after I had complained to Spencer that they never fly us right past Rainier), then just over the east side of Mt. St. Helens, which was the first time I've ever done that. That was very cool. We must have flown right over the Oregon volcanoes, because we couldn't see any of those, but then we got a really good view of Crater Lake outside our side of the plane.

Once we got back on the ground, we went to pick up Max Power from dog camp. They didn't give us a report card about him this time (that first time was specifically an "evaluation"), but they did wash his bed and he was a very happy dog. He was also very tired, falling asleep even on the way home. Yesterday he wasn't really himself, but we think that he was just really that tired. He was pretty lethargic when he wasn't sleeping...

We had such a great time in Vancouver. It was awesome to see and spend time with all those people (I'm so glad they could come!). It was also fun to visit the city for a couple of days, and it was especially great to see Spencer finish up his work that has been such a huge part of our lives for the last five years.

So this weekend we're just taking it easy, and that's very nice. Today we both have some more couch sitting planned in our schedule... I hope you all had a nice weekend too.