Bright Nights, Big City...

Last night we trekked up to Vancouver, B.C. to enjoy Tiffany's birthday celebration. Her fond wish was to gather the Honcoop & White families for dinner and an excursion to Stanley Park's "Bright Nights" Christmas Extravaganza.

First stop: Ye Olde Spaghetti Factory in Gastown for a carb-loading feast...

The Birthday Girl blowing out the sparkler on her spumoni!

(Yum! Spumoni...)

Then we wended our way through the Big City, enjoying the lights and high rises, and fancy shops...

and overall classiness!

(Well, maybe not on Hastings so much.)

We arrived at Stanley Park and hurried to the end of the line for the train ride...We just made it!

There are lights EVERYWHERE in the park! In fact, the Firefighters of the city do this as a fund-raiser. From Nov. 1 -25, 20 guys are busy 5 days per week getting the displays ready.

It's just beautiful!

We rode the little train through the trees to see the plethora of scenes, all the while singing along to the Christmas songs that were playing.

I loved it.

And I took a lot of really bad pictures with my little camera...

But I'm putting them up anyway, because they look pretty to me!

A bad picture of our family group...It was CHILLY!

That just made it seem more Christmas-y...

At the end, we caught a glimpse of the Jolly Old Man himself -- apparently making a practice run...

It looks like they'll be ready for the big day!

Good news, kids!

What a fun evening! We so love Tiffany's family, and love it that her birthday always makes for a fun Christmastime outing together.

It's a blessing!