British Columbia Vacation

This is our first family vacation in quite a while where it was just the three of us. The last time we took a vacation it was a weekend camping trip to Winthrop last year. James and I have been wanting to check out Banff and Jasper ever since we have been out here so we thought it was about time to just do it! Here was our "intended" route.

We also decided to take the plunge and buy a "family" tent that we never would have considered in a million years pre-Grant. Anyway it is good we invested in it because we had a great vestibule to sit under in case it should "rain".
Rain you say? in the northwest? at the end of August? Ha! Never going to happen. Well we came to find out that it can rain in the middle of August and it can rain a lot!

Our first mistake was leaving on a Saturday. I know Saturday night no reservations we are in trouble right? Well partly right. We first tried to go camping in the Cultus Lake area. We were promptly turned around by the provincial park attendant who told us ALL the campgrounds were full. We decided to go up north toward Hope where it should be less busy. We were in luck and got into a site at a private campground right on a river.
The next morning we took a winding path down to the river from our campsite. We headed down there to practice our stone skipping skills and check out the water temperature (very cold!).

After checking out the river, we packed up and headed into Hope where we had a great lunch. Hope, incidentally, was where Rambo First Blood was filmed. We of course took the obligatory pictures.
I think Grant's hair in this picture may match Rambo's just a little too closely for my liking. He has since gotten a haircut!
On our way north we stopped in to check out the Othello Train Tunnels. This was a great little break. It ended up taking about an hour bike ride to the end of the trail and back.The tunnels are really neat. They make their way through a winding canyon that has a river cascading it's length. If you are ever in this neck of the woods it is worth the hike or bike.
After we made it through the caves Grant decided to take a cat nap in the bike trailer just so he could be nice and perky for the next three hours of driving! We did not coordinate that well at all.

Grant and I making funny faces at James!
After our bike trek we made our way over to Kelowna, BC. Where we once again found all the campgrounds full. James and I had had enough at this point and decided we should just get a hotel room for the night. We took full advantage of our Holiday Inn using the swimming pool, workout room and eating their breakfast before heading out to find our next spot.

We ended up at the Hiawatha RV park which was probably our favorite place to stay because of the playground right next to our camp site. Grant loved playing on this while James and I were setting up.
The playground right next to it.
Lunch time we decided to treat ourselves and go to a really nice restaurant on Lake Ontanagon before heading out for a bike ride. We ate at the Manateo Resort. It was a delicious lunch with beautiful view.
Having fun getting waited on.
Our next adventure was the Mission Creek Bike Trail. The start of the trail was only a few blocks away from our campsite. They had these beautiful entrances and information boards along the length of the trail with nice bathrooms interspersed in between.
Here is a google map with our route along it. We ended up going 9 miles up it then back for a total of 18 miles that day. Boy am I glad James had the bike trailer. (Thanks Honey)
It was a pretty hot day (in the 90's) so we were very happy to be biking along the stream. We even took a dip in the river. That cooled us off really quickly.
Grant got in a little farther than we did....
Toward the end of the trail things got a bit rough for a bike trailer but we persevered and Grant enjoyed getting out and hiking up the steeper sections. James was very thankful!
The views were spectacular.
We started to see the storms rolling in about this time so we did not quite make it the entire length of the trail but far enough to have had a great workout and to have seen some beautiful scenery.
We went back to our tent just before the storms rolled in. We ended up eating our dinner under the tent vestibule. It continued to storm all night but cleared up the next morning.

Our next camping spot was Blanket Creek Provincial Park near Revelstoke. I know it looks all sunny and pretty but the sun was actually only out for about an hour and then the rain started... Once again we ended up having our dinner under the tent vestibule.
This park had a really beautiful and unique lagoon for swimming. Unfortunately it was quite chilly and we had to head back to the tent quick before we got caught in the storm.

The next day with the rain still coming down we packed up and headed into Revelstoke. Revelstoke had these beautiful bronze bear statues. These statues were about as close as we came to seeing wildlife with a three year old who loves to talk in tow.
The Blanket Creek campground also had a really neat deal with the city of Revelstoke. They gave you a family pass to the Revelstoke Aquatic Center. We of course took advantage of this amazing facility. It had a three story fully enclosed waterslide (check out the pic of the waterslide on the link), a climbing wall, a lazy river, a HUGE childerns swimming pool, lap swimming and two hot tubs one for kids, one for adults. Plus we got free hot showers after we swam!
We had such a great time here. It looked like there would be a lot of fun outdoor things to do if it would not have been raining cats and dogs since the night before!
Here is a picture of what it was like for the rest of our trip. We finally had enough and headed home. We never even made it to Banff. Oh well I guess we will get it the next trip.
Here is the map of our "revised" route. Those are little raindrops all over the map in case you were wondering...

We did make one stop in the rain on the way back. This was the one thing rain is good for waterfalls. Check out this beauty called Bridal Falls.

Northwest Washington State Fair

It is Fair season! So Amber and I decided to take the kids to the Northwest Washington State Fair this week. It is one of the biggest and nicest in this area. Of course we still had to get our workout in so we loaded up our bikes, bike trailers, accompanying paraphernalia and kids to head up to Bellingham and get some Mountain Biking in before heading up to the fair.

Lucky for us the Wyman's have a seven seater Highlander that has a hitch bike rack to transport bikes. As you can see we were pretty much filled to capacity. No shopping this trip. (wink, wink)
All geared up and ready to go!

Great smiles!

We biked to a lunch place in Bellingham and ate outside on one of Washington's glorious summer days (we have had way too few of these this year!). It is kind of nice taking the bikes and getting front row parking :)!
Ayden was in a very gregarious mood and handing out kisses left and right at the restaraunt. I think she really appreciated all her Mom's hard work during the bike (2008 Amber Wyman tow capacity - at least 80 lbs!).

Hmmm what is going on behind this menu??
We finished up lunch and rode back to the car to pack up and head to the fair.
The kids were sooo excited to see all of the animals. Amber and I made a huge rookie mom mistake and forgot the accessories to turn our bike trailers into strollers so we didn't realize it after our bike ride but our workout was NOT over for the day. In all fairness though the vehicle was well and truly stuffed!

We got to the fair and met up with my sister who took the afternoon off to enjoy the fair. We headed straight to the poultry barn. It was sooo cute to see how excited Ayden was. She definitely is an animal lover. Thank goodness my sister was along because three kids and two mom's equals one pair of arms short! My sister was very helpful and carried Ayden around when we had the boys. Geez, can I tell you all how nice strollers are when the kids are tired and it is hot (warm for you southerners) out.
Ayden really like the poultry barn because she could see right into the cages.
Amber and I were joking around with how much Tracy has rubbed off on us as far as taking a billion picture of everything. Funny we both forgot our strollers but both remembered our cameras! ;-)
Checking out the silly hair doo.
That is a LOT of bacon!
One thing I love about fair's is seeing all the hard working kids taking care of their animals. The barns at this fair are kept absolutely immaculate with round the clock attentance. Some of the 4-H kids would bring the animals over and let our kids pet there animals. The boys liked that but were quite tentative. I of course wanted to buy this little guy, so it is a good thing the car was packed!
This cows name was Ben. Ben is 3500 lbs.!! He was gargantuan in every sense of the word.
They had a maternity ward in the cow barn where this little calf was born four hours earlier.
My favorite cow the Jersey. Oh the little boy is pretty cute too. ;-)
The boys thought the tractors were pretty cool. Ayden just wanted to go see more animals.
"Gee Dad, this would be the perfect tractor for Mom!"
One of the most unique things at this fair versus others that I have been too is the six horse teams they have perform everyday. These are the really, really big draft horses. Very impressive creatures to watch in action.

The kids did really, really good for no naps all day long. Ayden fell asleep as soon as we headed home but the boys were so wound up they did not fall asleep until we were about fifteen minutes from home (of course!). A very different picture at the end of the day won't you say???

Random Pics

Here are some random pictures that James took of Grant. He is hanging out at our counter. Black and white gives everything such an artsy feel. Don't you think?


So Grant's current obsession is volcano's. How or why he even knows about them I am not sure but he asks for me to show them to him on the computer all the time. Possible future vulcanologist???