August 3rd to 9th: Kelowna and Vernon road trip

We decided at 10:30 Tuesday night that it was a good time to take a road trip in the pink car... Charlotte was doing quite well, everything was stable and we were all healthy.

We had family camping (and having a lot of fun) in Kelowna and a generous friend who let us stay with her so we didn’t ACTUALLY have to camp (but we could still get in on all the fun!) So with a flashlight I snuck into the girl’s rooms to pack their clothes. We were on the road the next morning before 7:00. We had one unfortunate little stop to clean up a puking redhead but she felt better and we made good time the rest of the trip up to Kelowna.

We were happy that everyone seemed pleased with our last minute decision to invade their family holiday! The girls enjoyed the beach, it was a beautiful little spot where the cabins were, we spent most of our time lazing on the grass under the trees or playing in the sand under the sunshade.

 The girls enjoyed a few games of bocce, you had to watch your toes when it was Charlotte's turn to toss though... I know that yellow ball looks like she has a pretty good arm, but I think it was actually from uncle Greg who was standing behind her.

We were spoiled with all the wonderful fruit. Eating cherries in swimming suits is always a good idea! The girls had no problem helping themselves to everyones fruit, thank you to all our Aunties for feeding my daughters during the trip! We were thrilled to meet a cousin Yolanda's age to play with for the week, the girls got along great.

 Auntie Dar painted Charlotte's fingers and toes pink to match the car... and then Auntie Diana let Charlotte paint her nails... here is the finished manicures. Charlotte was so happy with herself, she kept showing everyone her nails.

 Here we are in Vernon, where we found some more cousins to play with. We had a great time staying with Ken and Kara. And wouldn't ya know it there was a CAR show that weekend! (Sorry to anyone who wanted to see car pictures, my camera was focused on other things.)

 THEN!!!... Not only did we decide in the middle of the night to take this trip, invite ourselves to stay with my cousins... then we also invited more guests for a party! It was fun and I was so glad that Jenn and Orlund and their two girls could make it all the way from Kamloops for a BBQ with us! Here is the best picture out of the twenty that I took... Try to get five little girls with ice cream to look at the camera, HA! We were missing Carter in this picture, he probably didn't have time for this silliness.
Below we have: Charlotte, Paige, Yolanda, Olivia, and Joy.... that's a whole lot of cute toes in the grass!

 We headed home on Tuesday the 9th. On the way home the car started doing something... not sure what but we thought that maybe it was a sign that we should stop and let it (and the girls) cool down... OH YA! Did I mention that the pink car does not have air conditioning? Cranbrook...to Kelowna...and Vernon in August? Anyways we were coming into Fairmont soon and lucky for us Auntie Cheryl just happened to be heading in the same direction and so she met us for a swim.

Unfortunately this is one of the only pictures that I got during the whole trip with the girls by the car, you would think that on a car trip like this I would have thought of posing somewhere cool for a family/car picture, nope. We just had so much fun with all the people we were visiting that I didn't think of it. And so here they are trying to diagnose what might be acting up.

 Home again by 6pm... It was a long hot ride but very fun. Wonderful to see so many lovely people. Wonderful to get some sand under our toes. Most wonderful to get to spend some time relaxing together.