Okanagan Valley in B.C.

A road trip through the scenic mountains with all the curves, hills, sharp drops topped with the beautiful scenery make the long trip to B.C. all worth the while.

Kelowna which is set in the heart of the Okanagan Valley has some of the finest wineries hidden in the mountains, the beautifully crystal-clear Okanagan Lake, a great sandy beach to great green golf courses.

Our top 10 favorite things to do:
  1) Floating down the Penticton Canal
  2) Cliff Jumping
  3) Boating & Tubing in Okanagan Lake
  4) Watersliding
  5) Touring the biking/hiking trails
  6) Fishing
  7) Golfing
  8) Scenic-breathtaking views
  9) Sunning & Swimming on Kelowna Beach
  10)  Searching for Ogopogo

Grab a floaty or as we do an air mattress with a cooler full of beverages and head on down to Penticton for the day and spending the afternoon floating down the Penticton Canal.  Lay back and relax, take a dip to cool off and for the more adventurous types bring your snorkel gear.  The river channel is about 7km long with a halfway point rest stop.   Depending on the day/time of year that you go the water levels and river speed is always changing.  It usually takes about an hour and a half to the halfway point and to do the entire 7km it is about a 3-4 hour relaxing ride.

The Okanagan Lake is over 130km long stretching from Vernon on the north, Penticton on the south, Kelowna in the centre, as well as a few smaller towns.  The Okanagan Lake is also home to the cryptid lake monster - a giant serpent-like creature known as Ogopogo.

Taking a boat out on the crystal clear lake (you can rent speed boats, fishing boats and even houseboats) we like doing a day of searching for Ogopogo all the while tubing, swimming, cliff jumping and just touring some of the peaceful inlets of the lake to have a nice picnic.  Note: when cliff jumping please remove all expensive accessories, yes boys this does mean your sunglasses (which of course make you look so much more attractable to all the young beach babes while you are strutting your stuff up the cliffs, but forgetting to take those babe magnet shades off before jumping off that sharp rigid cliff does and will result in them sinking to the bottom of the lake, but wait let's spend an hour 'searching the area' for them just in case they just floated off!  Boys will be boys!

Just outside of Vernon is a great family water park - Atlantis Waterslides.  This outdoor water park is the perfect place to spend a hot day in the Okanagan sun, with kiddie slides for the kidlets to the River Riot tube slide for the adults, there are 10 slides, a giant hot tub pool, lots of sunny areas with picnic tables, mini golf!  Let the fun begin!

Unfortunately in my fun and wild adventures to the Okanagan so far I have not yet had the opportunity to tour any of the fabulous wineries I have heard so much about.  Although, I have sampled many of the Okanagan wines and my next trip I will definitely be touring some of the wineries.  Cheers!

Kenosee Lake - Moose Mountain Park

A very common summer trip for us is Kenosee Lake in Moose Mountain Provincial Park.  A weekend of wicked watersliding, camping, min-golf, beach time, and boating.

The Kenosee SuperSlides is fun for everyone with slides for all ages, there is a whole kiddie area with little kid slides and pools, tube slides, twister slides, bonzai slides, the free fall slide if you like wedgies, the lazy canal which is my ideal place to lounge on a floaty or air mattress and just relax while floating around the canal, and of a course a huge hot tub.  There are lots of picnic tables and areas to leave your stuff and just relax the day away while sliding, I highly recommend bringing your own picnic lunch and snacks.

The Park campsites are decent in size, clean and nice.  There is a great golf course, a fun mini-golf course, beautiful beach and lake.  There is decent fishing too.  And for those who like to be naturally adventurous there are lots of hiking/biking trails, I'm more of the sit back by the camp fire and drink kind of person so I couldn't tell you what the trails are like first hand.

Cormorant Lake, Manitoba

My great uncle and aunt owned a cabin at Cormorant Lake in northern Manitoba and one summer we decided to take a family road trip to do some fine fishing and sightseeing.

With a lake front cabin - the sunsets were astonishing.  The lake was crystal clear with beautiful rock beaches.  The lake is over 18 miles long and is said to be pollution free and considered to be among the most productive lakes in North America.

Cormorant is known for its outstanding fishing so what did we do each day - yes we went fishing and whatever we caught was always supper.  Fresh fish fry with homemade tarter sauce and homemade fries - a meal doesn't get any better than that!

One day Pacey was playing on the rock beach and caught a cray fish which he named Holly Polly, we kept it for the day in a small container of water and then he released it that night back into the lake so it could be with its friends.

The fishing that week was superb, Pacey caught the biggest fish and it was a week to be remembered by all!

Edmonton, Alberta

West Edmonton Mall is a definite need-to-see at least once in your lifetime place!  We have made several trips to West Ed Mall and always have a fantastic time!

For my son's, Pacey, 7th birthday rather than having a 'friend party' we opted on a trip to Edmonton for an Oilers game and of course to take in the mall.

We get to Edmonton were we surprised him and had his uncle fly in from Kelowna and had a few other friends join us for supper.  My husband's favourite restaurant is the Japanese Village in Edmonton so that is where we all met.  To see Pacey's face when his uncle walked around the corner and came and sat down with us was absolutely priceless.  

Japanese Village is an exciting place to dine as they put on an exceptional show while cooking your meals right in front of you.  It's a bit expensive, but a great experience.

As we were finishing up our supper a bunch of very good looking girls started filing in and they were all wearing Oilers jerseys with 69 on their backs.  The guys had their eye-candy fulfillment.  When the birthday cake was brought out all the girls joined in singing and a few of them came over and gave Pacey a hug and he got a picture with them.  He was so embarrassed, but all the men were fully loving it.  

When we exited the restaurant a limo was just pulling up in front and a few girls came out behind us and asked Pacey if he would like to go for a ride with them around the block in the limo.  Before the chauffeur even had the door to the limo fully opened the men were jumping in without even asking if they could tag along.  So the boys all went for a ride with around downtown Edmonton in a limo with some sexy showgirls.  A 7th birthday never to be forgotten!!

The next day we hit up the mall to go to GalaxyLand, the world's largest indoor amusement park.  With dozens of rides for all ages and a triple loop roller coaster, the fun never ends.  I think we must have did every ride two or three times until we were all exhausted and still had to have energy for the big game that night.  

From the mall we were off to the Oilers vs. Detroit game.  If you or your kid loves watching NHL games, I must say that it is a rush to be at a live game - expensive, but another one of those things that if you are a fan you need to go to at least one live game to feel the thrill and excitement!  Although for me, I would rather watch it on tv as I like having the commentators explain to me what is going, but I a have truly enjoyed the live games we have gone to, just find that they are costly.

Now, whenever we go to Edmonton we always have to have a full day to spend at the mall World WaterPark.  This is by far one of my most favourite places to go ever!  It is like a tropical paradise, being the world's largest indoor wave pool with the tallest indoor permanent bungee tower (which I still have not got up the courage to try, but I will one day) and some many unique and crazy fun waterslides.  I could spend a week at that place and never get bored!

We usually do a round of mini-golf at the Putt 'n' Glow, it's a funky glow-in-the-dark mini-golf course.

The mall also has a lot of other great attractions like the indoor Ice Palace, bumper boats, Deep Sea Derby, and a great IMAX theatre which is always a good time and let's not forgetting about the shopping and eating on Bourbon Street.

When I was a kid we stayed in the FantasyLand Hotel right in the mall and they have the coolest theme rooms.  We had bought the coolest game while there, it was called West Edmonton Mall and it was a knock off of Monopoly but the board was the mall, it's crzazy how much the mall has changed over the years looking back at the game board and going to the mall now.

TeXaS

In 2007 my husband, Ryan was working on the rigs in Texas, just south of Dallas so for Father's Day my son, Pacey and I planned a surprise trip down there to visit him for a few days to surprise him for Father's Day.  The night before we were flying I ended up telling him so that I could get directions to where exactly he was and which hotel he was staying at.  He was shocked!

This was a trip of a lifetime.  We flew down to Dallas and rented a convertible car with GPS.  I was so nervous and had major butterflies about driving in Dallas.  Without the GPS we wouldn't have been able to make it out of the airport let alone out of Dallas, the driving was insanely intense.  Driving through 10 lanes of one-way traffic was nerve-wrecking.  Even with the GPS a did take one wrong turn, I think we were driving in 'the hood' it was scary, but got turned around and took a bit to find a way back onto the main road but got there safe and sound eventually.

While Ryan was working during the day Pacey and I would set out on adventures with our top down and go where ever the wind took us!

An a couple of hours of touring around the middle of no where we finally found the Dinosaur Valley State Park we were looking for - it was nothing great and I would not recommend going to see.  It was no near comparison to what Drumheller in Alberta has to offer.

A must see was the amazing Wildlife Adventure.  It's a massive drive-thru zoo where you drive your own vehicle through a beautifully scenic valley with exotic animals coming up to your vehicle.  We had giraffes, zebras and deer sticking their heads right in the car through the windows and licking us.  There were rhino's, jaguars and so many other species.  We even got to see two giraffes getting the deed done - wowsers I've never seen something so big and large enter something so small and it was so continuous and only a few meters from us.  Once at the top of hill it is the mid-point of the drive-thru zoo with a gift shop and snack bar with an incredible view of the entire valley of animals.

One exciting day spent at Six Flags Over Texas with so many rides we didn't know where to began.  We got to meet Bugs Bunny (one of my childhood favs), Daffy Duck, Batman and many other awesome cartoon characters.

As I am a hardcore scrapbooker and I like to always get at least one postcard everywhere we go and then just take hundred of pictures as well, we went into every single gift shop to try to find a postcard.  By the end of the day we had been in every gift shop and not one had postcards, as I am talking with the cashier Pacey asks me if he can get this giant colourful looney tunes lollipop and I said sure and kind of shooed him off while I was having the cashier call around to find out where I could get a postcard.  After finding out that they don't have postcards anywhere I was in a frenzy and grabbed Pacey's hand and stormed out and we were ready to leave the park.

Now the entrance to the park had security and the scanners and right after we get through security Pacey asks me to open his lollipop and I realized I did no pay for it (it was a $12 sucker), I panicked and told him to walk fast to the car.  To this day he still reminds me of how I stole a giant lollipop.  And we all know the saying "Don't Mess with Texas" - well I messed with Texas and got away with it!