A couple of days ago I was reminiscing about our first summer vacation since all the kids were born. It’s only been about 11 days since we got back, we decided we’d head out near the middle of August since life has been pretty busy around here this summer. Even though we had only gone on our vacation for a week, we all had such a fantastic time!!
We started out by leaving Calgary, stopping at the Canadian Rockies for some pictures/a rest area to stretch and enjoy some scenery. Some pretty amazing views, even though we see the mountains sometimes from Calgary it’s not the same. Then we stopped in Revelstoke, BC enjoyed some stretching/photos with some of the restaurant picture signs (as most of you probably know kid(s) love to have a lot of pictures of stuff and being our first trip I wanted lots of photos too!) and headed near Salmon Arms to the cabin we had rented for our stay. The cabin also gave us access to an outdoor hot tub, that we could use when ever we felt like during our stay. What more could you want on a vacation out of the city when you’re trying to escape the noise. Quiet nature, the stars, the smell of the fresh air, while your sitting in a relaxing hot tub at night!
During our 5 day stay we experienced some of British Columbia’s beautiful scenery such as the lakes, the beaches, grabbed and enjoyed fresh BC fruit and vegetables. The kids got to see their first wild bear cub near our cabin. We went to go visit my sister, her boyfriend and their dog right by Shuswap lake. It was very relaxing, and perfect to unwind from the City Life, not to mention an awesome stepping stone to start our yearly family vacations. Out of the whole 5 days we were in British Columbia, the only thing that actually did disappoint me was the Enchanted Forest. I had been fantasizing about going there for a year and a bit, and it wasn’t terrible but it certainly wasn’t what I expected… I suppose we got our monies worth since the kids had so much fun there. BUT with the word enchanted you wouldn’t expect mostly nursery rhythms, and Winnie the pooh, with Snow White mixed it. Anyways! Regardless, it was worth the money to entertain the kids for more then an hour and a half that we were there, it was also great to be out in the fresh air walking around.
On our way back we stopped by Edmonton, the kids got to see my brother and we all went to the World Water Park, in West Edmonton Mall. Mom watched Emilee in the kiddie pool, and according to her Em had a blast, meanwhile I took Keera to the waves, which she was unsure of until we got in them. It took some convincing to prove that she would in fact NOT drowned considering she was in a life jacket, and she had a death grip on my neck. Dan took Zaden down some slides. A little while after Keera and I met up with Dan, and Zaden seemed to be over the moon happy to be going on the slides. Keera and I enjoyed the waves and some slides too. You can really tell which one of the older kids is more adventurous. Zaden wanted to go on all the slides even the really big ones and Keera not so much, it took a lot of convincing to get her to even go on two slides.
Everyone had a great time there, getting nice and tired. We went for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory on Bourbon Street. First time being there in over 4 years, they changed the location and the food was really good. Emilee devoured 2 cups of ice cream, even after she had a ton of bread, and soup! All in all it was a very successful holiday I can’t wait to go experience so many more new and different things in the next coming months and years. It’s especially awesome seeing the smiles on my trios faces!