Sunday, August 7, 2016

I’m home again from a great two weeks with Christy, Rick, Dylan and Taylor. I was there to help look after the kids, and it felt like a fun holiday for me; the time went really fast but we kept busy doing something fun almost every day.

Since I planned to be knitting while I was there I took along some extra needles and yarn to see if Dylan and Taylor wanted to learn to knit. Dylan caught on right away, but Taylor didn’t enjoy it as much. She did enjoy counting the rows for me as I made her a pair of wrist warmers and a scarf.

 

Kanaka Creek runs right through Christy and Rick’s property and the kids swam in the creek almost every day. Dylan loves the water and plays all sorts of diving games while he’s there. The water is cold; I tried it one day but that was enough. Taylor likes to play in the shallows; we swam at the indoor pool one day and she is completely different there – diving off the side, going down the slide, diving for rings on the bottom of the pool. I took a lot of videos of Dylan diving but I’m not very good at it. I’ll have to see if I can edit the one I’m going to send to America’s Funniest Home Videos – Dylan lost his bathing suit on one of his dives!

Their property continues on the other side of the creek and on Sunday they gave me a tour. I chose to wade across the creek but the rest walked across on the rocks. The extra girl is a friend of Taylor’s; Dylan was at his Dad’s for the weekend. They have lovely grassy meadows back there, as well as trails for them to use the quads on. There is even a tree the bears like to use for scratching.

We had a fire down by the creek one night. Rick likes to light a big fire to burn the bush he and his neighbour clear away but he also has a fire pit that is great for making S’mores over. It was a great ending to a nice weekend.

 

How to Make the Perfect S’more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A vacation with Grandma isn’t complete without a hike of some sort. I was assured we could walk to the head of the trail (which we did), but signage along the way said the start of the trail was a kilometre away – after we walked up the hill from their house. It was a lovely forested trail and the kids reminded me of all the spots where their Mum takes their photos. We ended up with a picnic at the Kanaka Creek Hatchery and a stop on the way home at their school (to raid the garden Taylor helped plant) and for an ice cream at Webster’s Corner store.

We also saw two movies while I was there – The Secret Life of Pets and Ice Age: Collision Course. They really aren’t making movies the way they used to; both were okay but not fantastic. After our second afternoon at the movies Dylan said we should have gone to see Finding Dory – he may have been right.

Dylan plays football and although the regular season doesn’t start until September they are heavily invested in their practices. He played three nights the first week I was there, and twice the second week. There is an optional practice every Friday night but Dylan chose not to take part in those. They are really put through their paces – two hours each practice session – and their warm-up exercises would be more than I could accomplish. Christy was always careful to dress him in either a brightly coloured shirt or socks so we could tell who he was once he was dressed in his gear!

 

 

One of my favourite things was a visit to Wild Play and I was so happy that we were able to do it on a day that Christy could come along. Taylor did the kids course but Dylan started out on the Classic (Green) course. By the time he came down from the trees he had moved across the Red course and almost all the way through the Black! Each course is progressively more challenging.

 

Taylor’s Course

 

 

 

 

 

Dylan’s Course

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My easiest day out was our trip to Crash Crawly’s. While I sat and read, the kids spent three hours in the climbing gym passing in and out of the various tubes and up and down the various slides. It was noisy though!

 

 

 

 

I had a little time for shopping – two trips to Michaels and a trip to Fabricana. Our first trip to Michaels was to find yarn for Taylor’s sweater and on the second trip (to a different location) I found bins on special. On the day we went to Crash Crawley’s we made a side trip to Fabricana to find buttons and I picked up their version of the Row by Row challenge.

 

The drive was uneventful – a good thing – and I was much less nervous on the way home than I had been going. The traffic in the Lower Mainland is horrendous but by the second week I had no difficulty maneuvering in it. It is good to be home though and I’ll get back into my regular routine next week. And it is also good to know that I’ll be home for awhile; our next planned trip isn’t until the end of September.