Summer holidays

Now that I'm fully recovered from our holiday I can finally blog about it. Last week I got that lousy (partial) molar pulled, so that distraction is finally behind me.

My little brother had kindly invited us to his wedding, so we flew to Edmonton on Canada Day. My two Ontarian sisters and a sister from BC (and their families) were to camp out with us at a provincial park a ways west of the city, while another my parents and another sister (with her family) stayed in Edmonton. The southern Ontarians took a flight to Edmonton the day before our flight, and one of them was at the airport to greet us when we landed.

(Aside: The chauffeur service was incredible during our entire trip! All told, people did 12 hours of extra driving to fetch us from or bring us to the various airports/stations. All that generosity, coupled with the fact we could travel lightly -- no checked luggage -- made our travels rather enjoyable. Thanks people!)

We and one sister (and family) headed out to the campground and found our site fully decked out with tents pitched and all the camping gear we'd need, thanks to another sister. We'd been told everything would be provided for us, but this was ridiculously awesome! Thanks, M!


We'd reserved a minivan for our travels but instead received the world's ugliest car, the Ford Flex. Strangely hardly anyone agrees with me, but I think it's right up there with the Aztec and the Prius. Ughhh... The Flex also has no power, but to its credit there's decent legroom and more headroom than I've experienced in any vehicle since I was about five.


The four camping families took up three campsites, though people spent most of their time at just one where all the cooking, eating and socializing took place. Two brothers-in-law are pretty handy in the kitchen, so we enjoyed some delicious meals, especially for camping standards. Here's B preparing steak over a charcoal fire.


Buying firewood at the campground was highway robbery as usual, so B and I decided to drive around one evening and look for somewhere else to buy some. We'd seen a sign for firewood somewhere nearby but we couldn't seem to locate it when we needed it. After driving backroads for a while with no success, we finally decided to stop at the next yard with firewood in it. Upon doing exactly that, some nice old guy let us fill the car up with free firewood! Sure beats paying $8 a bag.

The wedding was at 1pm on Friday. The weather was nice and we gained another sister-in-law. The last time all we siblings (with families) were together was four years ago at my younger sister's wedding; this time she left one of her two kids in Ontario, but other than that the whole clan was there, 26 people in all.

The immediate family.


The wedding party.


The reception involved a delicious dinner and more cake and other yummies than one could sample each of. It also involved plenty of entertainment, like the bride having to sweep the groom off his feet foot.


A sister had saved a bunch of drawings my brother drew when he was four, so we strung a few together to make a random story. Do these pictures explain why, years later, the biggest hurdle that would stand between him and high school graduation was a lousy art class?


I didn't do a whole lot of picture-taking during our trip, and it certainly didn't occur to me to single out each person for a shot or two. So I was surprised when it was pointed out to me that I took a disproportionate amount of pictures of Ontario nephews and nieces versus BC ones. In my defense, how can one pass this up...


I got a few western ones on film anyway...


...and our latest first cousin once removed. He graced us with his cute presence during an extended family barbecue that brought (some of) our Alberta cousins, uncle and aunt, plus another aunt from Holland to the lake.


On Saturday three brothers-in-law and I went golfing. The plan was to shoot 18 holes, but plans changed a little after hole 9... it hailed!!! That was not supposed to happen! Two guys in one golf cart went one way; another and I took the other cart the other way. The first cart found a sheltered spot behind some trees; our cart found no shelter whatsoever and got battered by big fat hailstones. We tried to drive it under some trees but sadly we were between those trees and the hail falling at a crazy angle. And wow, is hail ever LOUD on a golf cart. So lacking any real choices we decided to head in the general direction we recalled the pro shop to have been; visibility was near zero, partly because the hail was so thick and partly because we were driving directly into the wind and any exposed eyeballs could get severely battered by evil hailstones. Even breathing was difficult. But the cart managed to get us back to the pro shop through the several inches of hail and water on the ground -- and very slowly at that, thanks to a crazy headwind. We elicited several stares upon coming inside completely drenched. I was actually already thoroughly soaked within a minute after the hailstorm started. The other two guys drove in shortly, hardly wet at all. Not even fair. Anyway, the fields were literally white, as if it had snowed. Crazy prairie weather. We got rain checks for another full 18 holes and left. (I assume brother-in-law #4 used mine the following week since I wouldn't be around to enjoy it...)

I'd worn my dress pants for golfing in case they had some sort of dress code. Since these were now soaked, I hung them up in the hope they'd be dry for Sunday. No such luck; Sunday morning I dangled them over the campstove for a half hour to dry them off; the pockets now have singe marks as a nice reminder. My shoes I'd worn took a whole lot longer; they weren't dry enough to wear for another five days.

Sunday night five of us siblings plus spouses, including the newlyweds, hung out around the campfire and shot the breeze... something we don't get to do often. Good times...

Carrie and I flew to Seattle on Monday to meet up with friends who moved there from Ottawa half a year ago. They live 1.5hrs away so there was lots of driving involved. Our combined schedules didn't allow for much time together, but we made the best of what time we had. We met her wonderful family and got to see both her childhood home and her new place.

On Tuesday our friend and her sister drove us back to Seattle; on the way we stopped at Cabela's, an outdoorsy/hunting outfitter store. It was a big place with more stuffed animals than I've seen in one place. Mostly North American wildlife, but also an African section and an aquarium with live fish.


Also, in true American fashion, the store had a huge firearm section, with zillions of guns on display... rifles, handguns, shotguns, machine guns... Two words: Awe Some! There was also what was called the Gun Library, which is just a nook that houses a lot of used guns, for sale and in working condition, many of which have a known history several hundred years old.


We spent the day checking out Seattle's Pike Place Market and other parts of the city.


Ye Olde Curiosity Shop had all sort of weird and novelty stuff; I expect it's comparable to a Ripley's franchise. Here's what our dog would look like if we'd locked her in the house instead of farming her out to some friends.


We jumped on a bus which took us nonstop to the border. The bus had all of a dozen people on it. On arriving at the border, the driver half-jokingly warned us to be polite, since no one wants to be the one ornery person who gets yanked out of line and holds up the border crossing for everyone. Well, there was one person who, for some reason, got some extra attention but the entire border stop was probably only 20 minutes so it wasn't too bad.

We spent only two full days in Langley, which I'm sure is some sort of record. We visited the grandparents but didn't have time to visit any friends. We did manage to see a number of Carrie's relatives when they came over for a non-ladies-only baby shower-type thing for Carrie's brother and his 8-months-pregnant wife.


After a very short stay in town, the family headed to Whistler to spend a night there. We enjoyed the drive on the new Sea-to-Sky highway, which is fortunately much improved in time for the Olympics. Whistler is beautiful in the summer, with opportunities for swimming, golfing, biking, hiking, ziplining, bungee jumping, and of course (if you go high enough) skiing & boarding.


We first hit the beach where a few of us decided to try swimming. I tried to save them some trouble by pointing out that it was much too cold, but some people insist on finding out for themselves. They didn't last long.

We considered ziplining but we didn't have enough time for that.

The next morning a bunch of us drove out of town a ways to go on a hike called the Ancient Cedars trail. The highlight of this trip is supposed to be... you guessed it... ancient cedars. The lowlight would probably be the mosquitoes. Strangely I wasn't bothered by them at all for once; usually I'm the decoy that spares everyone else. This time I got to hear every one else complain. And watch them flail. Much preferable to doing so myself. The other lowlight was taking cars up the rather rough road up to the trailhead. Low-pro tires not terribly welcome.


The very pregnant sister-in-law came along on the medium-difficulty rated trail. There may have been times when some of us were worried this day might be Junior's birthday, but the woman is tough and could possibly have hiked circles around some of us... big belly and all.

So the cedars... some them were fairly large. We posed in front of one that's probably 30 feet around.


I climbed a huge fallen tree and took a picture of the ants people below.


If you look at the left side of this next picture, you'll see dad-in-law below the fallen conifer that is probably 4 feet in diameter or bigger; but it looks rather scrawny compared to the pair of massive cedars on the right that it fell between.


We enjoyed the walk despite the bugs, enjoying the sights along the way.


The entire experience took under two hours, after which we headed back to town for breakfast. That afternoon Carrie and I got a ride to Vancouver airport to finally end our holiday. We'll have to do it again some time.