The Rest of Our Holiday

I think that it is best to reflect on what our van actually got us through and to despite it's current failings. We drove up to Grande Prairie on Tuesday. It seems that whenever we go to G.P. it's usually to see family, not friends, and we wanted to change things up a little bit. We weren't originally planning on going to relax in Jasper, but I think we needed it. Maybe Phoebe didn't, but we did. (Phoebe is the van).

We stopped in for supper at Dana & Sylvia's first. The kids played, we chatted, it was a lovely time. At around 8:30 pm we left their place to sleep at Mom & Dad's near La Glace. We knew that they weren't home, but they had a spare key. At some point we had talked about this arrangement, but afterwards we had mentioned that we probably shouldn't make three trips to G.P. in a month and it would be best if we didn't come up in the middle of the month. We did anyway. Well, Auntie Cheryl was given the task of tending to the flowers while Mom & Dad were away and with that responsibility she got the key to the house. Unfortunately for us, she was in Jasper.

Fortunately, we called up Carmen & Luke and we crashed at their place. By now it was late and we were all bushed. Wouldn't you know it, I got up at 5:30 am (BC time) and couldn't sleep. So I went for a hike to the waterfall with the dogs. When I came back, my eye was sore and itchy - I had probably touched some raspberry plants and then touched my eye. Boy was it red! A little bit of Benadryl later and things were right as rain. We went for a quad / dirtbike ride, helped rake the dirt and pick rocks for the new lawn, and generally relaxed. In the late afternoon we packed up and headed off to Spirit River to visit Chad & Christalee.

Their kids weren't home (Corrin was at camp, Maggie and Jack were at their Grandpa and Grandma's), so our kids had some quiet time with someone else's toys and could use their beds for night! Again, it was a good visit. The next morning we got up and left for Brett & Andrea's place for lunch. Again, the kids really enjoyed themselves and we all had a great visit. From there we briefly stopped at Aaron & Erin's to drop off a baby gift and headed on through Grande Cache to Hinton to spend the night. Thanks everyone for your hospitality and understanding. We love you all!