Touring BC, One Beautiful Lake at a Time

This week we all went to Kamloops! Are you surprised? Because I was, too. Jared had to go there for work, and we decided to tag along at (literally) the last minute. He was headed out the door Tuesday afternoon, and I'm like, " Ok, I want to come after all!". So I packed for myself and the kids in about 6 minutes flat and we were off. We went in the company van, so the kids were pretty content on the drive just because it was something different. They watched DVD's, napped, and sang "The Wheels on the Bus" about 63 times. We pit-stopped at Shuswap in Salmom Arm and hung out at the beach. It was fun to see our cabin we stayed in for a few days on our vacation last summer.

While Jared was at his meetings, the kids and I found ways to keep ourselves amused. We went to the BC Wildlife Park and it was pretty cool. There were so many interesting animals and things to do. The kids had a blast at the petting zoo, spray park, animals shows, and train rides.



Every time I would point out an animal to Hayley, she would crouch down looking for it and whisper, "Where'd he go, Mom?"

We even got to witness the two grizzly bears getting fed and it was crazy how close we were.

We all went to Ruckers one evening for some gaming fun.


After Jared was done his meetings, we planned to go to his Aunt and Uncle's house for supper. It was too early, so we were killing some time doing some shopping, and we ran into his cousin Megan and her family in Wholesale Sports. It was so crazy to see them there, because they live a ways away, and were only in Kamloops for some doctors appointments. The little kids all hit it off really quickly and we had to keep telling them to "stop chasing each other in the store!". I suppose they remembered each other from the reunion last summer. I kept marveling at the chances we'd run into them in a city neither of us live in. Also, we never get to see much of Jared's cousins and this trip was turning out to be quite the opposite. We went to Judy and Brent's for supper, and saw some more long-lost cousins. Then, we got in the car and drove to yet another one of Jared's cousin's house in Kelowna. We stayed with Leigh, Carrie and the fam in Kelowna and did some sight-seeing there. This was my first time ever being to Kelowna, and I was hoping for a sighting of the Ogopogo! Haha, no such luck, but we did have a great time.



Carter got along so well with his second cousins, Ally and Scottie. He even had his first little sleepover in their room, and they stayed up so late together watching movies and eating popcorn. Carter was in heaven. I was trying to take some pictures of them together and they couldn't agree on which pictures were normal smiles, and which were silly faces, so I got alot of this:


Then we continued on through southern BC and stayed in Grand Forks, a cute little town. This was both mine and Jared's first time traveling this route, and it's always fun to explore new territory. All the orchards and wineries are so interesting (there are millions!) and we found some fun places we want to go camping again sometime. Oh and lakes! So many of'em. Gorgeous.

We covered alot of ground, but the drive didn't seem too bad since we broke it up quite a bit. The kids were great, especially considering Hayley got a new tooth while we were there.