Luscious Okanagan

We left the Vancouver area and headed to Kelowna. We spent a couple days in Kelowna, visiting our friends, Tim and Shawna Hart, and exploring nearby Penticton and Peachland. We met Tim and Shawna at their church..a rather charismatic church, and Annika was in her glory. By the second worship song, she was up on the stage (with the worship team) waving a giant pink flag. She was really loving it.

After church we went out for lunch with the Harts and then went to a downtown Kelowna park and hung out with them for hours while the kids played. We lost Soren in the park, always a scary moment, but we found him again. By the time we left the park, it was already supper, so we headed to the RV park for the night. This one had 4 pools, 3 hot tubs, playground, games room, gym, etc. So instead of eating supper, we headed straight to the pool for a swim. Well, Andy and the kids did. I had to tackle our laundry. It took me 10 loads to get everything clean. Luckily, you can do multiple loads at once in the laundromat. The next day in Kelowna was cold and rainy, so we drove around trying to find an RV place that would fix our furnace. The only appointment we could get was for Wednesday morning, so we had to stick around a while. After exploring Kelowna in the drizzly rain, we decided to drive to nearby Peachland. There is a hike that we had heard about where we could watch the salmon swim upstream to a waterfall, so we went there. The hike was wet, but after a day in the RV, it was just what we all needed. And luckily we didn't encounter any bears (they like that creek because they can get fat on the salmon). Soren, our little fish lover couldn't get enough of watching the salmon.

The red guys are the salmon swimming upstream. These guys had a LONG way to go, still.

Annika and Sawyer playing on the beach...it's almost October.

Post-hike we drove into Penticton and had a movie and popcorn night because it was still rainy and yuck out. The next morning we headed to Skaha Bluffs (a popular rock climbing spot) to check out the cliffs, and then we headed to Skaha Beach. The playground, splash pad and beach kept us busy for hours. We didn't bother putting bathing suits on the kids, since they had already gotten soaked in the splash pad and we were the ONLY ones on the beach. There was a little waterside that Kai went down naked.

Kai, splashing in Lake Okanagan in his birthday suit.

After the beach we headed to the giant peach. Ironically, the giant peach is located in Penticton, not Peachland. At night, we headed back to Kelowna so we would be close to the RV dealer for our repair appointment the next day. As soon as that was done on Wednesday morning, we headed to Vernon. 

The giant peach, obviously.

Just tickling the ivories.

Vernon was awesome. We played at their downtown park and then headed to the Okanagan Science Centre (in the park). The kids love science centres because there is so much hands-on stuff  to do and we were the only ones in this science centre, so we could have free run of the place. After the science centre we headed to a nearby children's farm called Davison Orchards. The kids loved feeding the goats, petting the donkey, milking the fake cow, digging in the corn sandbox, etc. It was a lot like Springridge Farm and Chudleigh's at home. And the views were of course, amazing.

Andy, enjoying the view in Vernon.

After Vernon, we headed to Nelson. Nelson is one of those hippie towns where people smoke pot out in the open and most of the stores are somehow organic or yoga-related. It also happens to be one of those cities where even the WalMart sits on the lakeside and has gorgeous mountain views. But more importantly, Nelson is the home of some good friends, Rene and Jen Pedersen. They graciously let us park in their driveway for a couple of nights and they fed us, let us torture their chickens and cats, and let us eat most of their fruit from their orchard. Andy probably ate over 50 plums.

Dinner with some lovely people.

We left Nelson and headed into the USA. Crossing the border was a little awkward as the border guard asked me if we keep the kids buckled while we are driving, which we do not. I was honest with her though, and she didn't seem to care. We are currently in Spokane, Washington. Time to get used to gigantic, intimidating American grocery stores and cheaper gas prices!