We left on July 28 (Fri) after work and drove to Calgary. We stayed at the Best Western near the airport which I will not reccommend to anyone. It was really loud there. There was a pop machine outside our room and people came in all night. I think one party must have got about 20 bottles of pop. Next time, I write an out of order sign on any machine before I go to bed.
The next day, we headed off. When we got to the Rocky's, we heard there were 2-4 hour delays through Kicking Horse Pass because of road construction so we went a different route that put us behind about 1.5 hours. The weather was good, but hot. Kendra was so good. She didn't have a breakdown until about 5 minutes before we got to our campsite because there was a BUG in the car. We had to all get out and DH told the bug to leave, "Out Bug, Out Bug, Go away!" (I didn't actually see it leave, but Kendra was satisfied.)
We finally arrived at our campsite between Kelowna and Vernon at about 7. It's a provincial campsite which we reserved, but it's still on a first come first serve basis. We didn't know this. We drove around and around and around and finally found one where someone had left but hadn't taken the reserved ticket down. It happened to be the best site in the park. We almost lost Kendra while putting up the tent. She wandered off to see the lake and suddenly we see her about 2 feet from the shore. I've never seen DH run so fast! She did great in the tent. She slept on her Dora Toddler air bed and had a glow stick with her until she fell asleep.
The next day Kendra met 'the boy.' There was an 8 year old little russian boy in the site next to ours and Kendra became his shadow. She even took her camping chair over to his campsite to watch the marmots on the cliff behind their site. She always called him 'boy'. It was so cute. They went swimming together, played soccer together. It was a lot of fun for her. Kendra was good about the fire and the camp stove. (Our BBQ broke down the first night). That evening Dh's brother and girlfriend came up. She's a strange one, but she kept quiet most of the time. Mostly we just sat around and talked.
The next day DH's Mom, Step-dad and little sister came up. We had lots of fun the whole day. We all went swimming for most of the day and had a great big campfire dinner. They had to leave a bit early because they had a 3 hour drive back. In the evening all the men around us and the young boys played soccer. DH fell a few times. He is not athletic at all. It was funny. Kendra and I played soccer on the side lines. They also had a maze there made of grass. We had fun chasing each other through the maze.
The next day, we drove 2.5 hours down to Osoyos to see my brother, his wife, and my niece and nephew. Kendra had so much fun in the lake with them. I think there were about 8 ten year old girls and they were all making a fuss of her. When we left, we got about .25 km away and she was asleep!
The next day, we went winery hopping. We went to about 8 wineries and bought lots of wine. I also bought some fantastic salad dressing. Wow. We finished of the day with friends and had a BBQ and then went for coffee.
The next day, we left the Okanagan. It was another long drive into the Kootenays. This part of our vacation was the relaxing part. We were away from family and friends. We spent the next 8 days lazing on the beach, playing with the blow up alligator, tubes and beach balls. We went hiking. We searched for spawning salmon, we walked and swam the sandspit, we went to the hot springs three times. DH went spelunking. (Kendra was too little to take into the cave). One day we went to a place called Crawford Bay. There are all sorts of Artisan places there. We watched ironsmiths, glass blowers, broom makers, potters... and more! The town of Nelson is such a Hippy town. The whole area is very Hippy. While we were waiting for the ferry, a man was swimming in his underwear, and when he got out, he put on his skirt! I've never seen so many dreadlocks in one place. Kendra got addicted to Horsey Rides and needed to wash her hands every 10 minutes (because I gave her a horsey ride to the washroom.) On the last evening it rained so we went to the hot springs again, but our stuff didn't get wet. It was fun!
After the Kootenays we booked into Calgary again. It was another long drive. We were really close to Calgary in a place called Black Diamond when I noticed the rear right tire was very low. It was only at 20lbs! So we filled with air and drove down the road to a garage but they had no mechanics on. Then suddenly a terrible storm came. There was hail, rain, thunder, lightning, and wind. We waited out the storm and put a can of fix a flat in the tire and drove to Calgary.
The next day, we tried to get the tire fixed in Calgary, but they couldn't find the leak because of the fix a flat stuff. I did go shopping and got some fall clothes for Kendra from TCP, and Old Navy. We did lots of shopping and continued to fill our already full van.
The next day, the tire was flat AGAIN! So we took it in and they fixed it... for free. Gotta like that. It gave me time to do some MORE shopping. We then went to the Zoo. I think Kendra has a think for monkeys. It started to rain and we decided to make our way home. Again, Kendra was very good in the car.
The trip was great. Kendra has really started talking. She's using 3,4,5,6 word sentences. She's a bit bossy... LOL. Her vocabulary has grown tremendously. Even her dexterity has improved.
Now we are back to potty training. She seems excited about it. I'm doing the M&M thing now.
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