Favorites

I'm enjoying my new camera and so glad I had it to take on holidays with us. We left last Tuesday and drove to Abbotsford in pretty good time- 13 1/2 hours which I'd say is pretty good with a 20 month old! But I have to admit...a DVD player sure helps!! I think it would have taken us a lot longer without one! We spent Wednesday in Vancouver showing Jose's parents around town. We drove up to Mt. Seymour to view the city skyline. We had planned on doing Grouse Mountain but didn't realize how expensive it was! Last time we went, Jose and I did the Grouse Grind in just over an hour (we thought that was pretty good time!) so we got the free ride down. Well, I wasn't hiking that at 5 months pregnant this time, nor were Jose's parents going to climb it at 60+ years, but we weren't willing to pay the $32.95 per person either! So, Mt. Seymour did just fine! We spent the afternoon in Stanley Park and it was a beautiful day which made it even better! We ran out of time to do the Vancouver Aquarium so we'll catch it next time! The following day on Thursday we drove out to Squamish and spend the afternoon up at Shannon Falls, visiting my aunt's chocolate store (and of course sampling a few to make sure they turned out all right! Ok, more than a few!) and then having dinner and a campfire at their house.

Friday we visited a few more relatives out at the coast before heading out to Kelowna. We got into town about 6:30 pm and I didn't even think that I should've reserved something earlier in the week that everything might be booked up on a Friday night! We had stopped at about 7 hotels that all had no rooms left. Jose was about ready to keep on driving straight home but by this time it was already 8:00 pm and I was not willing to do that. I was willing to drive to Vernon and stop there because I knew we could at least find something there. But we kept driving along the main drag stopping at just about every little hotel when we stopped at the Westway Motor Inn...the first place that had rooms! And no wonder why they had rooms! The place was a dive for $150 a night! But we were all tired, Katie was tired and cranky..hungry and needing a bath. So, we sucked it up and stayed at the dump. The place was so dusty it made your eyes water, it had no alarm clock or clock whatsoever for that matter, the bathub had a hole in it and had cracks...and, did I mention the rust in it? Needless to say, we all took a quick rinse in the morning but no one washed their hair, shaved legs...we weren't spending any more time in that tub than we needed! Anyways, it was a place to sleep and it is the joke of our holiday that we all laugh about but I can say I won't be staying there again and I wouldn't recommend the same to anyone else!

Saturday morning we had a nice breakfast/brunch with my aunt and uncle and cousins before visiting another aunt and uncle in Kelowna. We stayed much longer than we though- my uncle Arnie has a huge garden up on the hill overlooking the lake and Jose's mom spent about 2 hours in the garden. My uncle grows everything- all kinds of vegetables, grapes, watermelons, plum trees, apple trees, nectarine, apricot and peach trees! We ate so much fruit- even Katie! Let's just say it was quite a smelly ride home that night! So, we left Kelowna about 4 pm after stopping to get some peaches & cream corn to take back home. Katelyn did really good again on the drive home until about midnight when we hit Cochrane and all the grapes started to kick in- my goodness that girl was so bloated from the bowl of grapes she ate. She had such a tummy ache, bloated belly and farting away! We were all pooped and went straight to bed on Sunday when we got home at 3 a.m.!

And that was our holiday in a nutshell...but like i mentioned at the beginning, I was so glad I had my camera and I'm having fun with it. I have so much to learn yet and hopefully my pics will get even better. I still want to play around with my adobe photo editing program with them but I just haven't had time. But here are a few of my favorites from the trip: Enjoy!