We recently came home from a much needed trip to BC. We left on August 13th and got home September 1st. How I wish it could have been longer. - I started blogging the trip while we were on the road there and I had hoped I could have kept up with it, but I had no idea how crazy the trip was gunna get. So needless to say, the blogging only lasted a couple days! So take a look at how or trip started out then ill fill yah in on the rest.:
Our trip to BC- August 13th, 2009
We left surprisingly on schedule! 5:33am we were in the car with wheels turning. Our trip nearly ended early when Morris, the not so midget Moose, decided to take his morning jog across the road in the path of our anxious Durango. It was about 5:50am and we discovered that the brakes work! Glad we can check that one off. The kids are doing well. Naveah is mostly keeping to herself. Its been cute listening to her. She’s been telling us stories and occasionally calling for Daddy with a quirky smile on her face. Kael is finding the trip fun but a little hard to sit still for so long. He seemed fascinated by the ‘dark’ this morning as the sun was nowhere near up when we left. He just stared out the window. I watched him and realized that this was a whole new world to him. After all, it’s not like he’s ever really experienced the world when it’s been so dark outside. He pointed at the sky and the trees telling me what they were. And he stared at the moon with upmost fascination, occasionally looking at me and smiling. He’s made sure to keep an eye out for tractors, big trucks and go bikes and is being kept distracted by movies. It’s now 10:13am and we are somewhere past Rogers Pass Summit hoping to arrive in Kelowna sometime this afternoon….that is, if we make through all this construction! It’s worse this year than I’ve ever seen it. On average I say there is a construction zone every 60 kms. If this was in the city of Calgary, I’d be pulling my hair out. But I love how at ease both Evan and I are. It doesn’t matter that we are driving 60kms/hour in the middle of nowhere even though the sign underneath is a much more substantial number , because we are in BC. And it’s just so nice here.
ENCHANTING….
Its 12:30pm. We are just leaving the enchanted forest. I can finally say that after 20 odd years of begging to go there, I’ve been there!!! Evan wasn’t up for it really. He said it would be stupid. I said It wasn’t about him and that if me and the kids can enjoy it then he should too. Well, I’m so glad that we went. The kids had so much fun. Climbing into all the little houses and nooks, taking on all the stairs, opening doors, peering into little windows and checking out the statues scattered throughout the forest. You can tell Kael was born in Alberta because within minutes of walking into the forest Kael looked up and shouted “WHHHOOOOAAAAA!” and looked high up into the tree tops. I said “yes Kael, those are very tall trees!” to which he exclaimed back “taw twree, whoooaaaaa”. Naveah didn’t get to enjoy the forest as much as Kael did as it was hard to climb into all those teeny houses and hold her at the same time. Plus the ground was too uneven for her to walk on. We managed to get her into a couple of them, but Im pretty sure she still had lots of fun. The kids are zombies now which was part of my master plan and this is going to be a very quiet car for a while. Time to kick my feet up and relax.
KELOWNA
Its August 14th. We arrived in Kelowna yesterday about 2:30 pm Calgary time. I have to say it was a successful drive. I’m so lucky to have children that like being in the car. When we arrived Evan was headed straight to the car wash. It rained earlier that day and so the car looked a little dirty, heaven forbid!!! Kael was excited though to take the car into the ‘wall-e wash’. It’s what he calls automatic washes. Then we needed to find something for the kids to munch on so we headed to a little strip mall and felt completely out of place. I think we were the youngest ones in there. I guess it’s a ‘seniors mall’. They all thought that the kids were twins! After the kids ate we headed down to the lake and walked around there for a bit and then headed over to my friends Jen’s place. We all went to Red Robin’s for dinner and it was DELISHIOUS! I recommend the Guacamole Burger and add crispy onions on it. You’ll definitely be licking your fingers after that one!...and maybe ordering a second one. Then this morning we went to De Duth for breakfast and it was another satisfying meal. Afterwards we just went back to our friends place and hung out there as Jen is 39 weeks prego and wasn’t up for walking around much.
It 2pm and we have headed up to Evans Aunt and Uncles condo in West Kelowna. They own a condo at the Lake Okanogan Resort and so we decided to stay the night before we head to Vancouver tomorrow morning. We were really hoping that we could take Kael on his first boat ride but its been raining all day today and it doesn’t look hopeful. Maybe we will get to on the way home. So far we’ve just taken the kids for a walk around the resort and Kaels been having a blast checking out all the boats and ‘go-bikes’ that are around. He starts “revving his engine” every time he sees one. Now its time to sit back and relax and get dinner started. Kael is watching “Ice Age” and Naveah is chowing down on some cheese. Gunna try and make it an early night as we leave bright and early tomorrow to Van to meet some friends at Stanley park.
STANLEY PARK
We left Kelowna at 8:03am. It was a nice drive. We went to Abbotsford first to meet my friend Tasha and we followed her the rest of the way into Van to Stanley Park. We arrived there around 1:30pm and we met up with Jamie and Lori and Derrick (who I used to work with at IKEA). It was so nice to relax at the park and let all the kids run wild. Naveah was having fun digging in the gravel, picking pedals off flowers, and just taking a little meander through the playground. Kael was kept very busy with the fire Engine that was there. When he was done with that he came and played by everyone else and pretended his hand were a digger. He would ram his hands under the gravel and scoop a bunch up then dump it into someone elses hands. It was pretty cute. Later on we went and took a walk down at the beach and played in the water. Naveah definitely doesn’t mind the sand. She was sitting in it, crawling in it and scooping it up in her hands and letting it sift through her fingers. Occasionally she took off on her hands and knees in attempts to catch one of the sea gulls that were close by. It didn’t take long before she was distracted by a seashell or some other object from the sea and the birds didn’t seem to matter anymore, until the next one caught her attention. Kael continued being a ‘tractor’ while playing on the beach. Moving sand from place to place, doing some weird crawl through the sand that I hope Evan caught pictures of. He enjoyed jumping in the waves and looking for seashells he could use as shovels.
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So thats how everything started...heres how it all continued....
From then on we took the ferry over to the Island and headed straight for my Moms house in Duncan. Thats where we'd be setting up 'camp' while we were visiting Victoria. The next day we headed to Vic and spend the day just bumming around. We had nothing specific to do since we were there a couple days earlier than expected. We stopped into see Great Grama and Grandpa Stutter then headed downtown. We went to a few different beaches. The majority of our time spent in Victoria that week was at the beach. We went to Dallas beach, Clover point, The Break Water, Willows, Gyro Park, and a few others I dont remember the name to. We went to Thetis Lake, The Causeway, Beacon Hill park(quite a few times). I re-visited most of the houses I used to live in and some of my schools, we visited friends, we met new friends, we laughed, we cried, we screamed, we camped, we SLEPT. We ate fish, we reminised, we envied, we witnessed accidents, and we walked and walked and walked. We shopped, we bought things, we got 'cartooned'- and somewhere in there we were able to relax. We all had so much Fun. It was so neat the watch the kids discover new things they dont normally see in Alberta. It was fun to watch them come to love things. It was especially fun to have Kael blossom into a Terrible 2 year old the moment we left. And it topped the Cake when Naveah starting popping her molars. Great timing you guys.
Evan and I were in shock to see how quickly Kael became -well NOT Kael. Suddenly he was 'that' kid. He screamed and kicked and punched and hit. He sprouted a new kind of vocabulary- the kind that involves "no". All of a sudden it was "NO MOMMY!, "Daddy no!", "no no NO!", and "no EV!". Thats what he calls Daddy when hes mad at him. He was always asking of "mommies house?" indicating to us that he was home sick. He became ever so clingy to the both of us and starting holding grudges towards anyone that ticked him off. His separation anxiety has only just kicked in, he started hurting Naveah and has turned 'time out' into a silly game. This was so much of a shock to us that we couldnt help but laugh at every tantrum. "what the heck has become of our next to perfect little boy!?". Everyone told us that it was just 'the age'. I dont know about you, but that doesnt make it any more tolerable for me. But despite all that, hes was as much a joy as he was a terror. He still managed to get every female in the BC area to melt over him, and a few men! We had people offering money for him or even trading their own kids!
Our Miss Naveah has blossomed so quickly on this trip. She seems so much older than 15 months now and Ive loved discovering her. I didnt know how much of a love for animals she has. How heartwarming it was to see her hug and kiss all the little creatures she could get her hands on. The ones she couldnt touch she shrieked out in excitement. She would wiggle in my arms and kick her legs at any sight of something cuddly. She came up with a word for everything she loved and wanted, "Bah-boo". She loved playing in the sand and squeezing it inbetween her fingers. She picked flowers and smelled them-and ate them, she charmed everyone who saw her. She would run up to people and smile at them. Its so cute the way she walks when shes after something she really wants. She kinda leans forward a bit and her face is plastered with a huge smile. She throws her arms back and charges. Its got the be the cutest thing ive ever seen.
After visiting in Victoria we met up with Evans parents to spend a week camping up island in Coombs. That week proved just as busy and the first, just as challenging and all the more fun. Our arrival to the campground was definelty a trial. Somebody had it out for us. I had booked 2 campsites months previous to us arriving and was disappointed when we saw that our campsites were NOT back to back as I had asked and they were not very big. So now were having to sneak through somebody elses campsite to get to the other and barely had enough room for our tent. Our tent is big and "T" shaped so I had let the lady know that we would need a very big site. We tried to talk to the lady in the office but she proved completely useless and seemed more frustrated with us than we were with her and made no effort to re arrange campsites even though there were solutions. To top it off, when Evan and I finally did work out a spot to lay the tent we came to discover no tent poles. GREAT! Luckily my Mom saved the day. She has the exact same tent as us and we were able to meet her in Parksville the next day and borrow her poles. So the first night there we slept in the Durango and the kids slept with Nana and Papa. We also were disppointed to see that the fire ban had not been lifted. UGH! Things got better I promise. We got out tent set up the next day and within a couple days the fire ban had been lifted. anyways, back on track here...
The only time we were at the campground was to eat dinner, sleep, then eat breakfast. I spent as much time at the beaches as I could. We went to Parksville, Qualicum, the Ice Caves at Horne Lake. We had picnics, we walked the beaches, looked for crabs and seashells. We saw amazing sandcastles, we went mini golfing, we shopped, we ate really good food. We laughed and giggled, witnessed phanomenal temper tantrums, calmed screaming babies, dressed wound and kissed owies. The kids had so much fun being in the outdoors and exploring nature at its best. Kael still looked for dinosaur bones buried in the ground, helped Nana crush cans, took Zoey for walks, made friends with the boy in the campsite next to ours who he named "boy", and he even enjoyed brushing dirt up into the dust pan and then dumping it in the bushes. We had the cleaned campsite there. He and Naveah had fun chasing the bunnies that were all over the campground. Our miss Naveah had no problems getting dirty. We would find her sitting, laying and rolling in the dirt. She would pick handfuls up and then shake her hands and dirt would go flying everywhere. She tried to eat sticks and rocks and whatever else she may have found. She followed along behind her big brother and tried to do everything he did. She had no problems socializing with perfect strangers as she would invite herself into others campsites whenever our backs were turned. Naveah has definelty blossomed into an independant little girl who has no problems taking off and exploring the world around her. She touches flowers and leaves ever so delicately, she hugs animals with so much love, she plays in the dirt with total dedication, brushes off bumps and bruises as if they were nothing but dirt, and comes back for snuggles when they are needed.
We ended our camping a day early. As much fun as we were having, the kids had had enough. Rather than trying to stick it through one more day, we decided to head back to Duncan and Victoria to say our last goodbyes to friends and family. We stopped in at my Moms first to visit then headed back into Victoria to my Cousin Sandys house. The next day we just bummed around the island, visited with my friend Wendy and my sister Tracey and walked the break water. We also stopped into see Grama and Grampa Stutter as it was Grama's Birthday and then went back to Sandys to finish up laundry and pack to get ready for the trip home then next day.
It was a long trip home. The kids were tired and cranky and just wanted to be home. Naveah decided to pop another molar on the way home as well which made things a little more exciting. We ended up staying in Golden that night and finished our mission home the following day.
So thats our trip. Now that this blog is so long I wont add too many pictures. Ill email those ones....We've been home almost 2 weeks now and things are still challenging. The kids are having a hard time these days with everything it seems. Kaels tantrums are pretty wild and he seems to have forgotten the concept of sharing. Everything is "MINE" even if just something hes looking at in the store. Naveah is teething like crazy. She has 2 molars poking thru, 2 more molars coming and all 4 eye teeth, at the SAME TIME! Sleeping is null and void at this point.
Other than that im enjoying my family more than I ever have. I love that I can look at my family and all I want to do is smile. To me its (nearly) perfect. And I love it.
One of the highlights of this month was getting to take Kael to the Air Show in Lethbridge. Wow did he ever have fun. Every couple seconds it was "airpwane!!!" Naveah had a pretty good time too as she is just as interested in everything Kael is interested in. We also got to take them on a Monster truck ride and Kael got to hold a huge gun (with a little help of course). After the show we took the kids down to Magrath to visit their cousins Keira, Anika and Traver. They had fun all running around the yard and playing in the dirt and stuff. It was there that Kael got his first real bug bite! Suddenly Kael started screaming and reaching for his leg. I thought it was a bee at first but wasnt sure so I asked him "was it a bee? or an ant?" he didnt answer at first but then he started saying "owwy ant, Owwy ant!" and pointing at his calf. It only stayed puffy for the night. But he still to this day is talking about the "owwy ant". Even though his bite has long since healed. 
Well just this past weekend we spent 4 days camping near Bragg Creek. It was a lot of work but it was a lot of fun. We went with Evans parents and it was totally spontaneous. I had one day to get ready for it. Suzanne and I headed out early Thursday to get a campsite. It was the long weekend so it would be busy. Then Evan and Tom came after work. What an entertaining time. The first night be got rained out. Everything was soaked and it wasnt a very 'comfy' night to say the least. The sun came beaming down in the morning though and stayed that way the rest of the weekend. The kids had SO much fun. They explored the entire campsite and when they became bored of it, they tried to explore a little further. We went for many walks along the river and through the campground, made yummy camping meals, searched for dinosaur bones, chopped wood and at times we even sat and did NOTHING! Well, the adults did. Kael and Naveah had better things in mind. What made this trip funner than the others was that we got to take Kael fishing for the first time! It kept his interest for a while, but he just wanted to keep reeling it in. After getting frustrated with Daddy for telling him to just 'watch the bobber and dont reel it in so we can catch a fish" he started to pay to other things...like the "TIRE!!!" in the middle of the pond (dont ask me why it was just there). Then it was the "booat!", "wroks", "sick", and of course "dio-sore cone"(dino bone). What an adventure Naveah was having in such a new environment. She has been camping twice before this. Once when she was only 8weeks old and then the other time was for this past Canada Day. But this time she was way more into it. She looked so cute wondering around the site squatting down with her hands on her knees to get a better look at the bug crawling through the dirt. She examined rocks-and then ate them. Expored the charcoly firepit and a couple times tried to tackle the tent (the tent won) She also seemed to have gotten in a scrap with the firewood cause there is a pretty nasty bruise on her cheek to show for it. I loved watching the kids help Daddy with the firewood. Evan would chop it and then the kids came rushing in the help stack, well throw, it in a pile by the pit. 
I wish would could have stayed longer but was very glad I didnt. That very night we got home we had one of the BEST thunder storms since I moved to Alberta. The kids slept through it, thank goodness. But WOW! had we been CAMPING! we'd have been looking for our ruby slippers that morning.
