Hello Canada!

Troy and I were lucky enough to be able to head to Kelowna, British Columbia to visit my family at the beginning of July. My parents moved there last year and I hadn't really had a chance to spend much time there since then. Both my sisters and their families headed out there as well and my brother Uriah and his family live about 40 minutes from my parents. It was a happy little reunion except we were missing Gabe and his family and Noah. Maybe we'll get us all there next year.

We made it to Kelowna and I fell inlove. It is so beautiful there and I love where my parents live. They have a beautiful view that overlooks a vineyard and the okanagan lake. It was so much fun being with my family and it felt so good to be back in Canada.

This is the view from my parents place at night
(Please note that many of these photos are from my brother in law Paul - the photographer)

We did a lot of hanging out the first day because it was raining, but it was fun to catch up. We did manage to get out of the house for a quick trip to my parent's neighbors place to pick some cherries. They had loads of cherry trees and were happy to let us take some off their hands. They mentioned that it was a good idea to pick them before they got too ripe because they hadn't sprayed them for worms. We were sure to only pick the ones that didn't have any holes in them and went crazy eating away as we picked tons of them. We thought we were in heaven... that was until someone happened to notice a worm in their cherry that didn't have any holes in it. We all began to get a little nervous and started to break open some of the cherries we'd carefully picked. To our surprise, and COMPLETE DISGUST, 7 out of 10 of the cherries seemed to have little white worms squirming inside of them. I thought I was going to vomit. We had all eaten SO MANY! For those of you who know my mom and her frugal do not waste attitude you'd get a kick out of the fact that my mom tried to convince us that they were fine. HAHA I DON'T THINK SO MOM!! It was traumatizing, but we still managed to have a good time. I was trying to scare my neices and nephews into beleive that the worms can survive in your stomach for a week and can multiply. Haha they beleived me for a few minutes and were mortified! It will be a sad day when I can no longer trick those kids!

See how deceivingly delicious they looked?!

Haha this is my brother Uriah having the time of his life



Saylor and her cherry stained fingers

Denham and Lawson, these little punks were pelting us with cherries from up in the trees

Just after the discovery of the worms. I'm checking out my cherry and my sister Charity is doing the same thing behind me.

If you look closely you can see the little white worm on the left side of the cherry. YUCK, they were squirming all over!

Although I think most of us felt a little queezy we still managed to have a good attitude. Here's the group that went - all smiles.

The next day we headed to Vernon to hang out on the beach and went out on the boat. We did a little tubing and Troy even pulled out the water skis.

Troy picked this life jacket out all by himself!

That night we went to my brother's house for little Willow's baby blessing. I was really happy we were able to be there for that. Troy and I spent the night at Uriah's place and stayed up playing games with him and Christin. It was a lot of fun spending some time with them since we hadn't seen them in nearly a year.

Here's Christin and Willow

My sister Ariana and I.
Can you tell that she's 8 months pregnant here? I didn't think so.

One of the highlights was spending time with my adorable neice Ridley. She is too cute and too funny! Looks like the lazy eye gene has passed on! Haha I love this picture!

Another lovely highlight was when we woke up in the morning and noticed there were little white things on the counter surrounding the bag of cherries Christin and Uriah had picked the other day. Guess what they were? That's right, the worms had made it out of the cherries and through the plastic bag onto the counter. We were SO grossed out! I'm sure if my mom were there she would have said something like, "well there you have it, they've all crawled out so now you can eat them!" (She's going to kill me if she reads this... I love you mom!)

The next day we headed downtown in Kelowna for a nice walk along the boardwalk. It was really pretty down there.

My mom and my nieces

Thursday the 9th was my Troy-boy's 25th birthday! That's right, he's a quarter of a century! I made him a delicious breakfast and then we all sang happy birthday to him with 3 different songs. It was hilarious watching him squirm, he gets uncomfortable with all the attention! Haha! We all spoiled him with gifts and lots of candy and I think he was pretty happy with his goods! Later on we headed to the beach by my parent's place and spent the day laying out in the sun and having fun on the boat.

My Dad the captain

My sister Charity has a unique ability of manipulating anyone to do whatever she wants them to and by some miracle convinced my mom to join us tubing! Let me just say a few things to explain what a big deal this is! I can probably count on one hand how many times I've seen my mom in the water, it's a general rule that she won't get in unless it's about 80 degrees! The next thing is that my mom had never been tubing before and was absolutely terrified. We all got in the tube and my dad took off with my evil brother Uriah as his guide, there were a few very scary moments where we were going way too fast and even got some air. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

My mom screaming "NO!!"

A nice butt shot of Chairty

Now it's the boy's turn

I really like Troy's face in this one

After a fun day of being in the sun and some serious whiplash, we left the kids behind and went to dinner at cool German restaurant in peachland. They were having a Schnitzel buffet that night, Troy was all about it, but I opted for a delicious sandwhich instead. What a fun day!

Me and the birthday boy!

Dan and Charity

Paul and Ariana

Friday was another fun filled day. We headed out to Vernon again for a good time at a waterslide park. I figured it was going to be fun, but I didn't realize how much fun it was going to be! We had a blast! There was one slide in particular where everyone sits on on tube and goes down the slide together. There are a bunch of drops and then you are caught in a pool at the end of each one. As you come down you crash into the other people in each little pool. It was HILARIOUS! I came down right on top of Troy on one of them and my sister Ariana came down right after me and I got hurled out of my tube and had a heck of time trying to get back on while avoiding other crashes. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday was our last day and we headed to the beach again, this time we decided to go check out the high docks that were out in the water and once again Charity managed to convince me to jump in with her. It was kind of scary and freezing cold, but I'm happy I did it. We never made it to the super high ones, but we watched the boys and my fearless neices and nephews do it. I was impressed! We got home later that afternoon and packed up our stuff to get ready for the long ride home. We had decided to follow behind Dan and Charity and drive back through the night. I was REALLY sad to go and didn't want to say goodbye. I think it was a mixture of PMS and the fact that it was SO nice to be back in Canada and to be with my family and feel that sense of home that I had REALLY missed.

Here's all my nieces and nephews minus Kayla, Mercedes and Willow. They're awesome

The whole group

After a tear filled goodbye we were on our way. I was impressed with how long I lasted driving, I couldn't have made it without the red bull I drank and the sunflower seeds. My tongue was raw by the end of it!

It was such a great week and I was so grateful to be able to go. Thanks for all the fun family! I can't wait until next year!!!