Okanagan sunshine, my girl, my ma, my adorable niece, and my two sweet nephews… It all makes for a pretty great morning.
♥
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Tag Archives: vacation
A Morning in the Sunny Okanagan
Running on the grass…
Swinging in a tree…
Learning about lacrosse…
And Bella hugs. ReBar Modern Food
Last night we finally went out to ReBar. Been waiting for a long time to go there, but since we are underage our ID cards would not let us buy drinks. After conducting much research online we found a very helpful website for where to buy a fake id that would be scannable. Was a great time last night at the bar thanks to the fake ids we bought online. We enjoyed some great flavored cocktails.
The restaurant, which prides itself on carefully and conscientiously preparing food that is local and nutritious, had an awesome {mostly veggie} menu and a fun kids menu to boot. After going through the options, Miss G confidently selected the ‘Curious George’, a peanut butter and banana sandwich with a honey drizzle on delicious bread with an almond milk to drink.
During the wait for her meal, she was given paper and crayons to use, but they weren’t needed for long as her food arrived before we’d even put in our orders. Though our food wasn’t quite as timely (there was a large group ahead of us), it was absolutely delicious when it arrived (even Brad loved his vegetarian meal!) and the servers were all very friendly.
Yummy food, local ingredients, and lovely servers in a munchkin-friendly joint? Now that’s my kind of place.
ReBar Modern Food is located at 50 Bastion Square in Victoria, BC and is open 7 days a week.
♥
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Downtown Victoria
This morning after our visit to Beacon Hill Children’s Farm, we headed downtown to walk around and see the sights. We took photos in front of all the ultra-touristy spots (we’re cheesy like that) and it took me back to my first ever trip to Victoria with my friend Laura when we were 12 years old. We both flew in an airplane for the first time that trip (how different things are for Miss G!), we stayed with Laura’s grandparents, and we visited all of the most touristy spots, film cameras in hand. It’s funny to think that both Grae and I have the same photos, only twenty years {and many technological leaps} apart.
The only difference is the photos with the killer whales… Those certainly weren’t around during my first Victoria trip. Gracen adored them and wanted to visit and touch each one we saw. Perhaps I have a new photo project on my hands? ☺
♥
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iPhoneography // Headed Home
.until next time, Okanagan.
.a practice in patience.
.nearly home.
.celebrating with sushi.
Today we left the lovely Okanagan eager to get home, unpack our suitcases, and get back to life as usual… This final leg of our Christmas holiday adventures made up hours 32 to 39.5 of our trek, and let me tell you, we were ready to be home. While the first half of our trip was uneventful (other than the fact that the Connector was a skating rink), not long after passing the old toll booth centre, the traffic came to a standstill. I find it easy to get impatient in these situations… Gracen had just fallen asleep moments before and it would have been incredibly lovely to gain some distance while enjoying an hour of silence, but that wasn’t in the cards for today. An hour and a half later(long after she’d awoken from her slumber), we were still sitting in the middle of nowhere, now attempting to entertain a toddler strapped into her rear-facing seat. Of course, we got through it. When we did get moving again, we eventually passed an accident scene where an SUV had been crushed between the meridian and a semi truck. And then it struck… That mixed feeling of absolute sickness and pure gratefulness all at once.
How lucky we are to have had the opportunity to wait. How lucky we’re home safely after 3 weeks of winter road tripping. We’re home safe and sound, and that’s all that matters.
♥
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Snow Dough {for 4}
I loved this simple variation on the usual cloud dough, and today I simplified it even further for some messy morning sensory play with the cousins. To create some “snow dough” of our own, I simply made our usual cloud/moon dough and dumped in a couple of small bottles of silvery light blue glitter. A fun way to kickstart the New Year, right?
Though I could have added more festive / wintery items (mini evergreen trees, plastic animals, snowman accessories, etc.) to the sensory bin, I just stuck to the usuals this time around… Plastic cups, bowls, spoons, and cookie cutters and the kiddos loved it.
Three of the four munchkins were very eager to join.
Let the fun begin!
The sparkles are hard to see, but if you look closely, you should be able to spot them.
Kinslee digging in.
The fourth monkey just couldn’t resist the fun.
Snow dough toes. ☺
Korbin was a master moulder.
A girl who isn’t afraid to get messy.
Snow dough smoothie, anyone?
Experimenting with snow dough snowmen…
A safer building site.
Snowballs stacked.
Ummm, Grae… What happened to your hair?
Who says the snow dough has to stay in the bin?
Mission accomplished!
This explains things.
Sparkly Snow Dough (we doubled this recipe for a group of 4 children)
- 8 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1 cup of baby oil (or other oil)
- 1 small container of white/silver/blue glitter
Mix with your hands or a whisk until ingredients are evenly distributed. Play!
♥
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These Two.
Only 6 weeks apart and absolutely smitten with one another.iPhoneography // Baba’s House
We’ve had such a lovely time at my Baba and Opa’s house the last couple of days… Besides being a wonderful host, amazing cook, and very talented painter (giving us wall after wall of art to gaze at), she’s so, so great with Grae. I swear she still has all of the patience, motivation, and creativity she did when my brother and I used to stay with her as kids, if not more. She’s read books, played memory, fashioned doll clothes from scarves, crafted mini snow ladies from styrofoam and toothpicks, and served all of Grae’s drinks in fancy teacups and glass goblets since arriving a couple of days ago. She’s also given Grae full permission to roam and the four levels of their giant house as she pleases and swears “There’s nothing she can break. And if she does break something, then great. It’s one less thing I have to clean.”
Gracen absolutely adores her, and so do we.
Love you, Baba!
♥
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iPhoneography // Edmonton Bound
We are so, so lucky to have good weather and an awesome little traveller. Today we’re back on the road and headed to Edmonton to visit my Baba and Opa, as well as sneak in a quick trip to St. Paul to visit my other grandparents. Fingers crossed it all goes well!
♥
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Morning Play Dough
Gracen is absolutely loving hanging out with her cousins. We woke up this morning, had some breakfast, and pulled out our play dough gingerbread people supplies for the kids to play with. In addition to the original supplies, this time we added some miniature baking pans, tiny rolling pins, and more cookie cutters to the mix.
All of the kids really enjoyed creating their play dough masterpieces and the activity provided a great start to our day.
♥
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iPhoneography // Cochrane Bound
packed up and ready to go // on the road
potty pitstop // Cochrane with cousins
♥
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Pike Place Market
This morning we headed downtown to the quintessential Seattle destination… Pike Place Market. I’ve always loved strolling slowly through the market and out onto the nearby streets, and I knew Gracen would too. Live music, flowers, fresh treats, and flying fish… What’s not to love?
Here’s our morning in photos…
Topping the favourites list? Watching fresh fish fly through the air to slippery-handed market visitors was without a doubt her favourite, and coming in a close second? Devouring the roasted nuts she was more than willing to be strapped into her stroller in order to eat.
♥
To the {Woodland Park} Zoo!
Zoos are one of those things I love and really dislike all at the same time. (Well, unless we’re talking about the Kuwait zoo, that is… Sadly, that one would have to fall into the category of ‘really dislike’ more than anything else… Animals from all over the world all kept in dry, desert-esque habitats with school children harassing them and visitors feeding them ice cream and popcorn is just not my idea of animal-friendly.) So when I found out that we were staying outside of downtown Seattle this weekend, very close to the Woodland Park Zoo, I had mixed emotions about going. On one hand, I knew Gracen would love visiting. She’s a true animal lover and it would be a chance to see many of the animals in person for the very first time. On the other hand, I knew that leaving feeling terribly for animals kept in small, non-natural confines was a real possibility (I obviously hadn’t done much looking into the Woodland Park Zoo beforehand).
I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised. The Woodland Park Zoo is the least zoo-ish zoo I’ve ever visited. And I mean that in the very best way possible.
Because it spans 92 acres, its {more than} 1000 animals have tons of space to live and roam as they would in their true habitats. And the best part? There are no tiny plexiglass confines or cages in sight. In fact, most of the animals live in fields and forests so giant that visitors can only see small parts of them (though many can be accessed from several sides and have designated viewing areas). It’s hard to describe, but it felt as though we were visitors to the animals’ environment, rather than them being the visitors in our environment. It was peaceful. And beautiful.
And we had a wonderful time.
Here’s our morning in {a ridiculous number of} photos (try to ignore the fog and smudgy fingerprinted glass)…
♥
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A Visit with Great Grandma Shirley
No matter how long our vacations in the Okanagan are, we still seem to have troubles making time to see all of our friends and family members during our stays. It just seems there are always too many plans and not enough time… Luckily, many of our family members make the trip out to see us, which is always very appreciated.
Today, Gracen’s Great Grandma Shirley was able to come out to the farm and spend the afternoon and evening visiting with Miss G (and us too of course). We played outside, went on a couple of walks, and had dinner, all whilst Grae showed her great grandma her best tricks.
♥
Father’s Day 2.0
Because we didn’t really get to celebrate the real Father’s Day properly last week, we said we’d set aside a little time to do something special during our Okanagan vacation. So this morning, after Bradley had a chance to sleep in, we all got ready, packed up some things, and made our way to Polson Park. Once there, we played at the playground, explored the park, had a little picnic, opened the gift G and I made for Brad, and visited with the ducks. Despite the fact that much of the park was covered in a generous layer of water due to the recent rain, it was a gorgeous morning. The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, and the park was as green as could be.
Here is our morning in photos…
Swinging with Papa.
Soooo happy.
Snuggles and sandwiches.
Checking out the water park.
Grae and Mama.
A little gift.
Checking out Papa’s 2nd annual Father’s Day photo book.
“High! More high!”
High fives while swinging. No big deal.
Hungry ducks.
Sprinkling seeds.
Headed home.
♥