Celebration of Light..

Every year there is a wonderful event that takes place in Vancouver.  It used to be called the 'Symphony of Fire', but for some reason, that I'm unaware of, it's now called 'Celebration of Light'.  My guess is that it has to do with sponsoriship or something.  It's a huge fireworks competition between different countries.  The fireworks and music are coordinated to put on a show like no other.  Once you've seen fireworks like this it's hard to go back!  The competition takes place on 4 different evenings over a 2 week span.  This makes it an event that draws hundreds of thousands of people.  There are people on the Kitsilano Side, English Bay, people in airplanes, high-rises, and boats.  But...it's CRAZY!!!  We decided to brave the crowds and head down with a group of friends for the grande finale night.  The country featured for the finale was China, although Spain won for overall show.  There were 4 famlies that went.  Everyone left their youngest children with sitters and we enjoyed a night out with the older kids.  The crowds are so insane that stollers are a nightmare to handle, besides the fact that you have to go hours early to get a spot for your blankets.  We headed into Vancouver around supper time and ended up getting home around 1 in the morning!  It was a great evening.  Crazy, but great.  We took Olivia and Abby and our two Japanese girls, Ririsa and Ayumi.  When I asked them what they thought of the show afterwards they replied, 'it was awesome!'.  This was a fun way to spend our last evening with our Japanese students. The police are out in full force, keeping things under control.  We heard that there were approximately 200,000 people there last night!  This is a long weekend here in B.C. too so I can't imagine how much more crazy it would have been if it wasn't!  We packed a picnic and hiked on down to the beach.  Half way through our wait we heard thunder...and then it POURED!  Big, heavy, raindrops fell on us for about 10 minutes. We all huddled under our blankets and got real cozy for a few minutes. Being true British Columbians we waited it out and settled right back in after it passed.  We visited, played cards, played on our phones, ate and laughed our way through 3 hours of waiting and then the show began!  I don't know how long it was, but it felt like about 1/2 hour of amazing fireworks.  Here's a few pics to share...although they aren't the greatest, they're all I took.  Enjoy.