C'est combien?

Day 4

Work days are so hard to get a family activity in, so tonight's was a Christmas movie - The Grinch (old school). It is pretty nice snuggling on the couch with boys and popcorn.

Day 3

Dec 3 - The boys baked ginger snap cookies and delivered them warm to our neighbours in the cul-de-sac. They were very cute and Kian did a great job offering them "warm, fresh from the oven" cookies. They loved giving them away and wanted to go further than then cul-de-sac and keep delivering cookies - a bigger batch next time!

* I wish we had a picture of them in thier pj's and snow boots delivering the cookies but of course we didn't think of it! and it was cold outside so we just stood at the door and watched them.

Day 2

Dec 2 - Today's family activity was hanging the Christmas lights. The boys helped make the pattern using some new led lights that screw into an old light string - they look pretty good (pic coming soon) and it let's us pick our own pattern rather than the led lights that are pre-strung. This year we only bought white to try them out so the green and blue are old incandescents. Definitely buying more for next year.

The Start of Advent - lots of family time

Dec 1 - the start of advent. For our family activty today we went to the Kelowna Rockets family skate. The boys thought it was to get to skate with real hockey guys. Unfortuately the wolf mascot scared Asher so he benched himself with hot chocolate until the skate was over (for some reason Rocky the Racoon is an ok guy but the wolf was a bad guy). The highlight as always was watching the zamboni.

Back at it!

We have found that we really miss having a blog, although I am sure that we are the only ones who miss it! We are not diary type people so this was a great way for our memories to be kept with commentary, unlike the pictures we post on Facebook that only have a snippet of information. So we are back at and will try to back date from when we stopped - this could take a while.If there is anyone still out there after so long, HI.

A Rocky Time

For the July long weekend we met up with some friends in Jasper for a weekend of camping, hiking and eating ice cream in town.

Malign Canyon Hike (well ok, it was a walk but with an extra 30lbs on our backs it felt like a hike)

Up the Tramway and a short hike to the summit made for some pretty spectacular views...

We paid for the beautiful scenery along the Icelands Parkway with the amount of time it took us to get home and the crankiness of the kids (and Sarah).

We got in!

After trying unsuccessfully to get into Haynes Point a site suddenly came available for one night on a different weekend (someone must have cancelled) and Sarah snatched it up. Even though it was only one night it was worth it and we can now see why this campground is so hard to get into; with waterfront campsites, a beautiful warm lake (well not quite warm when we were there, but it is apparently the warmest lake in BC) and great weather. Kian spent the entire weekend at the waters edge throwing rocks - easy entertainment!

Ranching

For fathers day we met up with the Kamloops Shantz cousins at the historic O'Keefe Ranch to see the animals, tractors and... well really this is mostly what we saw; the kids weren't very interested in the historic buildings.

Alice Lake

For the first weekend in June we went camping at Alice Lake, just outside Squamish. It was a great site with great friends. We had fantastic weather and while having lunch at the beach Kian discovered sand is not yummy and tried to claw it all back out of his mouth (did the Yummy Yucky book not teach him anything?)

The kids spent almost all day everyday riding their bikes up and down the road and at the mini bike course (only in Squamish/Whistler would you find kids starting at the age of 2 to mountain bike!).

Kian thought his tricycle should lean against the log too...

The trip had been planned for months and then a week before we were due to go Sarah discovered Thomas was going to be there. We couldn't go all that way and not see him...

Spring Shots

Well we have had to turn on the airconditioning, it must be summer. So here are a few of our favourite pictures from the spring that didn't fit in any other posting...

Enchantment

Ah, long weekends are great; especially when the forecast is wrong and it is sunny all weekend.

For the holiday Monday we ate breakfast in the car and drove up towards 3 Valley Gap to go to the Enchanted Forest with the Gonellas. It was great. At the first little house Kian let out a big "wow!" and went inside to check it out. We told him there was another one up ahead and he said "run" and took off, greeting the next house with another big "wow". Each house got the same treatment... and the water features and more than a few rocks along the path and the fish...

Trailer Trash

We broke down and instead of buying a bigger tent to fit us all in, we bought a tent trailer. So we tried it out for the first time camping with the Gonella's at Ellison, a nice local provincial site so that we weren't too far away from home if something went wrong. And the worst that happened was that we forgot the keys to the trailer (tents don't need keys - it didn't even occur to us that we needed to take keys camping). At least we caught our mistake before driving all the way to the site.

We also found that the trailer is the perfect height to be a shelter from the drizzle, which luckily was short lived.

We had a fantastic site that bordered onto the large grassy area with a playground so the kids were easy to entertain and supervise. And the beach was perfect for throwing rocks into the water. A great weekend and a great first camping trip for Asher.