Last getaway of summer 2010

Since Dan and I love late bedtimes, early wakings and sugary roadtrip snacks that make the girls hyper, NOT! we decided to drive up to Kelowna! We left at 9am on Thursday and arrived in Kelowna at 2:30. We had a pretty smooth trip except for the traffic hell at Abbotsford. Seriously, who closes a lane on a highway that's only 2 lanes to begin with??? The icing on that cake was when we drove by the construction part and they weren't anywhere near the highway!!! I'm no construction expert (even though I should be b/c it's summer in Vancouver and that means lots of it) that lane could have been open!!! Anyways, when we arrived in Kelowna we unloaded our stuff at G-pa's and headed off to see G-pa's & Joyce's new house. The house overlooks Okanogan Lake and is going to be pretty fabulous when it's finished. Olivia wasn't all that impressed. She said "I want to go back to the other house." We did see some pretty cool stink bugs though. Then there was more travelling to go to the lake- aka Auntie Betty and Uncle Willy's house. Here we got to hang out with family in a gorgeous setting and just relax. My cousin Linnea's 9 year old daughter J was there with a friend and they were kind enough to look after the girls. Woo hoo!!!! I need J to move to Vancouver and be our babysitter. (Seriously, if you know of any lovely girls (or boys) who would like to make some money babysitting let me know!)

The highlight of the day had to be when the big girls and Dan with G-pa Knox, J, her friend M & Uncle Willy went out on the speed boat. We hung out, ate pizza and went swimming. That night the girls- all 3 of them- didn't get to sleep until about 10pm. The sleeping that night wasn't too bad. Olivia and Lexie slept on a blow up queen mattress and "slept in" until about 6:45. Miss Cassidy slept until 5:18am which is pretty awesome. She wouldn't go back down in the play pen and slept in our bed for about half an hour.

Our second day in Kelowna was a pretty busy one. We took the girls out to the playground close to G-pa's place first. Then it was off to Auntie Betty's place to pick up J, who offered to help us out. We then went to a beach near Oyama called Kaloya. We hung out at Kalamalka Lake (I think that's what it's called?) where the water is a pretty blue-green. See the picture with the weeping willow and turquoise water? That's where we spent a few hours. The girls swam, played on the playground and swam some more. We packed up our stuff and off we went to visit G.G. (great grandma- my grandma who is 96 years old!) at her care home. Next to grams place was a farmers market where we got some fruit to bring back home. It was the cutest farmer's market with people who were clearly proud of their produce & the fact that they didn't use chemicals or pesticides. They let Olivia and Lexie sample some fruit too. Your mouth is going to water when you hear what we got: peaches-yummy, perfectly ripe peaches, peaches & cream type corn & a blueberry nectarine pie. After picking out our fruit we were off to the lake for a last visit. This time I got to go swimming too. Getting into the lake is quite the ordeal. It feels so cold at first and it's kinda a shock to your body. It's easiest to just get it over with and get yourself in quickly. Once I had been in for a minute or so it felt wonderful. It was 72 degrees (or 22 celsius) and really felt like a swimming pool. Olivia and Lexie had these little Toy Story themed boats that they loved and felt really comfortable in so they spent a lot more time in the water this time and didn't want to leave!

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the wonderful, fun stuff we did while we were there. We really packed a lot into 2 days. See the next post for more photos.