Off to the festival we go!

We just can’t get enough of Canada, seems most of our vacations happen here in both winter and summer. Maybe we should move there someday… 😉 Vancouver was our first stop to hang with Wendy, Tim, & Ruby!

As it was still a school day for our first day in the city and Tim and Ruby were predisposed at school and work respectively, we started our day with some time on Grouse Mountain, which seems to be a Wilson go-to in recent trips. Josh went up the whole Grouse Grind with Jenn while Ryley and I went part way up and then back down (it’s a bit of a stretch for Ryley to go all the way… maybe next time). Ryley and I rode the gondola to the top to meet the other two and found it to be fairly misty and cool up there! We watched the lumberjack show and saw a few animals before descending back into the city to reconvene with Wendy and crew! (Noted that I wasn’t satisfied with not being able to do the Grouse Grind so I made Tim come back with me the following day to do it!) The weather was great while in Vancouver and we enjoyed the Powell Street Festival / Japanese Market and then walking around the waterfront, hitting some sweet playgrounds. We ended the day on the beach watching a fancy fireworks show over the city. Ah-mazing.

Guess this’ll do

Then it was onto the Okanagan in BC the next day! We had rented a home in Summerland (which turned out to be owned by former Edmonton Oiler Cam Barker), it was awesome. Big and modern, right on the water with a beach and dock – perfect. Even better, there weren’t any forest fires in the area to smoke us out (like last year and the year before…). We enjoyed a week of lazy summer days and gourmet meals, with some kayaking and paddle boarding off the beach sprinkled in there too. An added bonus during our stay in Summerland – we were treated to a flyby by the Snowbirds on a few occasions, we weren’t sure if they were on their way to another show elsewhere or performing for a festival somewhere nearby on the lake, but we were happy to see them do a few stunts at any rate! Maybe they were there for Ruby and Tim’s early birthdays (later in August)! Or maybe to celebrate the big announcement about Andrew & Sarah expecting a baby next year (congratulations guys)!

Anyway, we also went on a few adventures. Our friend Amber’s daughter babysat the kids for a day and we went with her and the rest of the ‘of age’ family members on a wonderful wine tour of the nearby Naramata area… amazing day, hit about 5-6 wineries and came back to the house with a few bottles! A day trip to Big White was also in the cards, though we didn’t get to go mountain biking due to some power issues (lifts weren’t working) – we made the best of it and did a little geo-caching instead! We also rented a boat for a change of pace another day; the kids always have a blast riding on the tube as we try to buck them off (need a more powerful boat as the kids get bigger)!

Speaking of boats… this was merely part one of our summer vacation… read on for our next adventure!