We had an awesome end of summer road trip up to Canada! I can't remember how or when we decided on this trip - I just know that I wanted to go international, Banff has been on our list of places to visit, and our friends, Edmund and Kathy, are from Calgary and offered up so many suggestions that we finally decided to go with them. We are so glad we did because it was lots of fun and we can't wait to go back when the kids are older to try doing other stuff that they were too little for this time around.
Our main destination for the drive was Banff, but since that's about an 11 hour trek from Seattle, we agreed to first make a stop in a lake town called Kelowna. Edmund has fond memories of going here as a kid for weekend getaways and we can see why. It's a fairly good sized city along the shore of the ginormous Lake Okanagan surrounded by vineyards, orchards and mountains. The city itself is okay, with a small downtown area but it's very culturally diverse and has a lot of public beaches and a waterfront multi-use trail. In our few days there, we did everything from watersports (Evie and I did stand-up paddleboarding for the first time, and Evie even went solo kayaking!) to mountain biking on a really cool old train path to wine tasting and orchard picking.
People recommend Kelowna and the Okanagan valley as an cheaper, Canadian alternative to Napa and we would go back in a heartbeat!
Walking along the lake-side path
Lake Okanagan has a lake monster named Ogi Poggi.
Orchard picking! We were able to pick peaches and plums.
The apples were not yet ready for picking.
Evie on the farm
Peach picking went fast - you pick 5 and your bucket is full!
The peaches passed Scott's taste test. They were so juicy!
The picking crew
Wine stop #1: Mission Hill. It was a beautiful view!
We bought a bottle and enjoyed it outside on the patio
Stop #2: Quail's Gate. This one also had a spectacular view!
and very pretty grounds.
Fancy lunch at Quail's Gate
Afterwards, we took the kids to a spray park to cool down
Popsicles!
We also biked around the downtown area. See the kids in their swimmies?
The next day, we went to the Myra Canyon Trestle "rail trail". It was awesome! 12 miles on an old rail route, over 18 trestles and through 2 tunnels.
We didn't do the whole thing, but did more than half of it.
Just one of the trestles we biked over.
Nora loved being on the back of Daddy's bike.
Coming out of the first tunnel
Her biker name was "wee ride"
On the way back we stopped by Winery #3: Vibrant Vines
All the labels are in 3D!
Hanging out while Mom and Dad did a tasting
The next day, we went to a bike skills park for the kids to get used to mountain biking. They are hooked!
And then cooled off in the afternoon at Rotary Beach, one of 30 (!) in the city.
We did stand up paddle boarding and kayaking! Evie even went on both by herself!
Goodness, it's already 2025! It's been a really long time since we posted! We had a very lazy new year. We flew back from LA on the evening of the 31st so spent the last remaining hours of 2024 cozying up on the couch and then fell asleep before it even hit midnight! On New Years day, we slept in, cleaned up the house and then did a quick hike the next day. All in all, a good start to the year! Nora's new blanket hoodie. Cold and muddy trails. We're not in LA anymore! We hiked the Primrose trail that follows Coal Creek.
We had made plans many moons ago to take the MLK weekend for a short getaway to the Leavenworth area. We've been a few times in years past and it's always a fun place to visit especially in the wintertime. But this year, with COVID and all, we weren't sure whether we wanted to go but I'm super happy that we went. We had a blast and was able to keep safe by keeping to ourselves! First up, we left bright and early so that we can pack in a snowshoe/winter hike on the drive over. The last time we went , we had stopped for some snowshoeing on the way back and it was epic! Unfortunately, this time the snow was old and not nearly as soft and fluffy so while it was a nice diversion with some pretty views, it wasn't as great as we had hoped. The fun part though, was that we brought our camping stove with us so we did some tailgating in the parking lot and had a fancy ramen meal for lunch. It was super nice to warm the belly with the yummy noodles and broth! That evening, we ...
We got back from our week long cruise to Alaska and ready to go again! We all had a great time but really the best part of our trip was all the family time we spent with my parents, Way and her family and Kin and his family. I think the last time we all vacationed together was back in 2015 when we all went to Kauai . It was so long ago that not all the littles had even been born yet! So yes, a big family vacay was long overdue. The kiddos loooooved spending time with their cousins, whether it was playing bingo or ping pong, or biking and hiking or just hanging out at meal time or playing mahjong. It helped that since we were all on vacation mode, we didn't push (too hard) on eating healthy or limiting screentime. It also really helped that the service on the ship was so accommodating to the kids and (pretty good) pizza, ice cream and drinks were available at all hours. I was happy with the ship we picked too. The Quantum of the Seas is nearly 20 years old (first sailed in 2014) bu...
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