Dave and Jac

Fintry Provincial Park - Lake Okanagan, BC

July 9-18, 2010

It was time for camping again. This time we would spend the entire time with the Spoor family. This summer it is Mom and Dad's 45th wedding anniversary and they wanted to do something with the family. We decided that since we were all pretty set up for camping equipment that camping would be a great thing to do especially since Mom and Dad wanted to include the kids. What a great way to celebrate....spend some time with the whole family camping so that is what we did. Eventually we agreed on a week and then found a place to go. Fintry Provincial Park was the destination. It was a new camping spot for us, we had never been there. We are always ready to try something new. The park was nice, the beach was okay, the weather was fantastic and the company........well, let's just say we had a most wonderful, family filled time together!

We booked 6 sites near each other. When we got there we realized that some of them were pretty much full sun and a little unbearable in the heat of the day. So.....some of us managed to find a way to get around the reservation system and moved to new sites.

This is our first site, full afternoon and evening sun! A little hot, not a terrible site but a ways off from everyone else after everyone had settled in their new, shady sites. We decided to change sites too.

We moved to a double site, had the one side of it and had new campers beside us pretty much every day. Thinking about sharing a site with strangers is not always fun but we had the right side of it so we could block anyone off with our trailer. It worked well and to top it all off we had great neighbors. Our new site was mostly shade and that is quite desirable for the Okanagan!

We went for a walk to Shorts Creek Gorge Falls. It was an easy hike, lots of stairs but really not a hard walk at all. The view at the top was beautiful and the little falls were impressive. Something to do before cooling off at the beach for the afternoon.

We had Opa and Oma over for brunch one day. We rarely have time for breakfast......that's what happens when you have kids that sleep in till 9:00 or later everyday! The kids didn't get to bed any earlier than 9:30 every night either. We are lucky people......the later you put the kids to bed the later they wake up. Trained them well! They match Dave and I!!

While us 'old' girls - Mom, Karen, Wendi, Carolyn, Linda and I - went to some wineries for the day - mmmmm yummm! the little girls had a jewelry sale. Jenna and Shaina had made lots of cool jewelry before hand, had planned on this sale, and let Nicole and Elizabeth help out. They had fun and even made some money. We, on the other hand did not make money, we found some nice pottery and yummy wine though!

While the girls were having their jewelry sale the boys were very busy working. Yes, I said working. Dave noticed that there were lots of pine trees around and even more pine cones lying on the cone. They were perfect for selling at Christmas time! SO....he paid the kids, whoever wanted to, to gather pine cones. Before we knew it the kids had about 15 garbage bags full gathered. that's all we could take, there was only so much room to be found to transport them home. Dave went through each bag to get rid of the ones that were not suitable. Jake and Ethan were very focused on making some good money. Every morning there were up and at it right away, they would have bags before breakfast already. Jake ended up making $25.oo, Nicole and Matthew not as much but they were happy with their profits too. It became the focus for some of the kids for a few days. They spent a good part of the 2 not so sunny days we had making money!
As for all the unsuitable pine cones......they became firewood. They burn hotter than wood! Oma even had them collecting more bags of 'bad' cones for firewood. It made the wood supply last longer.

We were lucky to have camped just before the fire ban was put in place. We could have a fire every night. These were fun times too, cuddling, yummy smores with peanut butter, mmmm good, chatting, kids biking very late into the evening/night, stories and just plain fun!

Savannah, the oldest grandchild, is old enough to drive! That's fun for all us Aunts and Uncles to watch! A niece old enough to drive! Wow! Now Paul, was that Fintry road the best road to take your daughter driving along for practice? Kind of a windy road isn't it? And steep down into the lake yet too? Must have been okay because they came back!

Auntie Carolyn had glow sticks one campfire. The kids had a blast with those. Of course they had to stay up until it was dark for the full effect so this was certainly not an early night! Fun though.

We had Uncle Bert, Auntie Louise, their kids and grand kids for dinner one night. Uncle Bert used to be a chicken farmer and has a very cool spit for bbq'ing them. It is the best chicken I have ever eaten! We had quite the spread and had a fantastic time catching up with the cousins.

Cousin Times!

Oh so much fun spending time together with cousins! So many new memories!

Elizabeth stayed an extra night with us after everyone went home a day before us and Mom & Dad. Nicole and Elizabeth thought this was the best! A sleep over while camping!

There was a light house around the corner of one of the beaches. Jake was raring to jump off of it. Dave and Paul took the older kids for some jumping! Nicole and Jake were our brave 2. Matthew watched from the shore and I, well, someone had to take pictures! I shouldn't have been a chicken and jumped too!

Beach times! Of course we had plenty of beach times. The weather was perfect. HOT! HOT! HOT! Karen and Paul had their boat so the kids did some tubing/skiing but for the bulk of the time we just had time together as a family on the beach.

Jake discovered a new trick. Put the rubber tube at the end of the dock, run, jump off the tube and take a flying leap into the water! Looked a little precarious but fun!

Matthew does not enjoy the water. He was very adament about not going in the water. "I'm not going in the water. I will stay on the beach all day!" We did managed to convince him to spend some time cooling off in the water. You had to otherwise you would overheat! He spent most of his time lounging in or on a tube and rarely let go. We had to force him in, let him know that if he had his life jacket on he would not sink! Finally he trusted us enough to let us get him in!

More tube fun for Jake!

Look out Oma.........water coming your way!

Nicole.....that is a new look!

Times on the boat were crowded times......nice and quiet on the beach though. With most of the kids gone it was prime reading time! Thanks Paul!

Before we all left we had to do a retake of the last grandkids, oldest to youngest shot. There werent't any new faces but everyone had grown up a lot!