To Oliver With Olive

Six-week old baby Olive went on her first road trip with her grandparents and her parents this past week...her first great adventure.

Our destination was the Okanagan Valley town of Oliver, B.C. where we were visiting our daughter Mary and her husband Greg and children Layla and Baron.  The trip consisted of a nine hour jaunt across the Canadian Rockies, so Olive got to see some exciting scenery.  She was an amazingly good traveller, sleeping most of the way, visiting with her car mates at times and crying only when she wanted us to stop so Emily could feed and change her.

Olive all snuggled and safe in her car seat

Oliver, BC is the wine capital of Canada.  The whole length and breadth of the valley is planted in fruit orchards and vineyards.  I didn't count the number of wineries there, but there were lots.  When Lloyd, Greg and Mary were golfing, Emily, Allan, Olive and I went and toured a couple of the wineries.  Beautiful places, peaceful and serene.

Tiny grapes just beginning to form on the vines

One of the vineyard mansions.

Rows and rows of grape vines.

Vineyards are planted on the hills as well as on the flat land.

Each row has a sign indicating what wine those particular
grapes will be made into.

This winery had a self-led tour of the wine making process. Those
barrels are full of wine in the process of fermenting.  The whole
room was cool and smelled wonderfully of oak.

The Road 13 winery was built to look like a castle.

Olive spent her tour in a wrap-around baby carrier. Emily literally
'wears' her baby. Easy and comfortable for both of them.

Walking in downtown Oliver, I spotted this graffiti
on a public phone on one of the streets.  Canada, eh!

As we were out driving one evening, this beautiful rainbow appeared

It turned out to be a double rainbow.  Can you see its double?

This small bridge had a large osprey nest in the top corner,
with an osprey chick peeking from the top.

Can you see him there?

This strange apparation is vines that have grown up a power
pole and along the wires between the highway and the river.

The beautiful Okanagan River runs through the center of the town.
The waters are high and fast moving at this time of year because
of winter snow melt in the mountains.

A calmer spot on the Okanagan.

It a beautiful place to be.

We had some fun times with family on this trip...so many more pictures to share...but I'll save them for another time.  Except for these last few of Olive and her fans.

Cousin Layla

Uncle Mike

Mastiff Maisie

Auntie Mary

Cousin Charlie

and Papa

Charlie is here because she, her sister, and mother (daughter Sara) came over while we were there to do some trail running in preparation for an upcoming race.  Here are a few shots of them, and then I'm done.

Charlie, followed by Baron and Mary, climbing up a steep mountain trail.

Elly, not quite dressed for it, but climbing anyway, on her way down here.

Sara, followed by Charlie.  Looks like Sara's carrying Elly's
Hello Kitty stuffie.

Elly leading Sara up the mountain, followed by Baron, Mary,
Layla and Charlie.

Sara finishing her race two days later.

And that's it for now.