Come fly with us!
This summer we dialled our vacation back to ‘normal’, our time was spent in Canada where we (mostly) unwound for a few weeks. We missed Canada last summer as we opted to head to Africa for last year’s trip! So this time around a week or so in BC followed by another week in Alberta was on the cards.
Ryley was actually already in Canada, hanging with the grandparents before we arrived, I had brought her up a few weeks prior to keep her busy as camps for kids her age are few and far between! By all accounts they all had a great time. I stayed to hang out for a few days with my family in Canmore when I dropped her off; after I left they took her golfing, frisbee golfing, bowling, played some pickleball, and made some pottery (to name a few things) over the next week or so. Then they handed Ryley off to Jenn’s folks for another few days of fun in Stettler – horse riding, gardening, and hanging out with some alpacas were some of the reported activities. Jenn was so jealous Ryley got to pet some alpacas! 🙂
Josh stayed home with us to do some homework (🤔), so the three of us flew out to catch up with Ryley in Vancouver to officially start our family vacation. (Ryley flew solo from Calgary to Vancouver where we picked her up from the airport not long after we arrived.)
Given this is Josh’s penultimate summer with the family before he heads off to university, we alotted some time to visit a few schools while out West in addition to hanging with the family and doing our usual vacation ‘stuff’. (Josh had already been on a school trip to see schools in Eastern Canada at the end of the school year, it was only fair to show him some out west as well!) So the first order of business upon our arriving in Vancouver was for Jenn to take him for a guided tour of UBC, while I waited at the airports shopping outlets for Ryley to arrive (divide and conquer!). Our few days in the city went quickly, we actually didn’t hang out with Wendy & Tim’s family much as we kept busy checking out Flyover Canada at Canada place, taking an impromptu seaplane ride, hanging at the Granville Island public market, and we took a quick day trip out to see the Langs in Chilliwack. We did a little forest dog-walk with the Oxenfords in their usual spot near UBC, but would do more hanging out with them while in the Okanagan!
Not too shabby
We rented a fantastic house with a pool overlooking the Lake in West Kelowna for the week we were there with Jenn’s family, which was great as it was quite warm! The first day was a nice chill pool day, we were fortunate that one of Jenn’s longtime friends Kirsty was passing through the area with her family so were able to visit with them for the afternoon. We also ended up inviting another childhood friend of Jenn’s, Leanne and her kids, to the house a few days later as she happened to be in the area, too. Good timing, fun times!
More visits with a few other of Jenn’s long-time friends from the good ‘ol days would come about a few days later, but before that, we needed a wine tour day! Everyone piled in a van (kids, too) to head down to Naramata for a day to visit the likes of Ruby Blues, Bench 1775, Jenn’s favorite Lake Breeze, and Elephant Island on what was a magnificent summer’s day. A few other ‘summer staples’ were on the schedule during the week as well, such as the Wibit in Peachland, and the Kangaroo farm in Lake Country.
Another day trip was in order, later in the week, to see Jenn’s friend Colleen and her family at Mara Lake – we spent the afternoon on the lake trying to catch a few waves behind their super-sweet boat… Josh did pretty well, and I was able to at least get up out of the water – not bad for a pair of beginners! We arrived back at the house to meet up with friends Amber & Bryn and to help Wendy assemble a massive self-made charcouterie board on the kitchen island for dinner, it was amazing!
We did take care of a little bit of business while in town as well. Jenn and I took Josh on another university tour to UBCO in Kelowna, which he was impressed with and put on his ‘short list’ to potentially make an application. Also, as our house build at Big White is moving forward, Jenn and I went to our builder’s office to make some materials selections (we have finalized plans and are waiting for permits to begin construction on the foundations before winter!).
Let’s bowl!
That was about it for BC – from there it was onwards to see my family in Canmore for a few days. Our nephews are getting big! We packed in all we could while in town – similar to Ryley’s time there earlier this summer, we played some pickleball, frisbee golf, and bowling (which Ryley beat me at, good thing she had some recent practice!). We were going to golf one day but unfortunately got rained out – however a quick pivot to a golf simulator place saved the afternoon! Naturally we got in a games night before departing for Calgary for another university tour at the U of C later in the week (another short-lister for him as it turns out).
We popped into Stettler for a day or two en route to Edmonton, that would be our final stop of this summer’s vacation. We checked out Grandpa’s work at the Museum, where he’s been busy restoring old farm equipment with great success. Ryley also wanted to bring Josh out to ride some horses at Spirit’s Respite Ranch, where she had done some riding earlier in the summer – it was good fun, they do enjoy it!
On to our last stop, where we stayed just north of Edmonton in St. Albert with the Cundliffes (friends formerly from Bermuda) in their amazing home. We had a good few days there with them, it was nice to wind down at the end of our holiday. On our few forays out of the house, we went to West Edmonton Mall (the girls went several times!) and Golf Town for a little shopping; Iris took Jenn to the big Farmer’s Market and Chad and I did a little frisbee golfing at the nearby course. I didn’t see our kids much while there so couldn’t tell you what they were up to…! 🙂
That was about it, though our vacation was slightly extended due to weather in Toronto on our way out… cancelled red-eye flights two days in a row led us to book a longer route through the US just to get home two days later than we anticipated! (We killed time in south Edmonton watching movies and going to Ikea…) Not a great way to end but oh well! Overall a fun vacation – look forward to our next one.
