Monday, June 2, 2014

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.

8 comments:

Mickey said...

Whata beautiful blog Pat!
Loved seeing all the family pics and also the winery tours. Looks like an Italian landscape!
Olive is bursting with personality! Think she loving her big family❤️

TARYTERRE said...

ENJOYED the vineyard tour in pictures. OLIVE is adorable. And surrounded by all that unconditional love. Never saw that kind of wrap around thing. Kind of cool.

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

What a beautiful place to visit. So nice that many of your family could join in too. Olive is adorable. She looks very contented and happy. Many of our grapevines here were damaged from the severe winter we had. It'll take a bit for the vineyards to recover.

Bev said...

Olive is adorable!! My sister in law lives in Oliver....I think we need to visit...it looks so nice there and it's been awhile....thanks for the reminder:)

RoeH said...

How adorable! I really like those things that hold the baby so close that they have these days. I sometimes think that I didn't cuddle/hold my babies enough and that may explain a few problems today. Heck. I had no idea what I was doing or how to take care of a child. I'd never even held one before she was born. Alas.

doodles n daydreams said...

Hi Pat, are you sure you were still in Canada when you took those vineyard shots? It looks so much like the area where we have the caravan parked that I'm sure that's where you were. I'll have to post some pics next time we go up. Quite uncanny.
Your wee Olive is so cute and alert, and it looks like she is much loved by the whole family :)

Diana

Granny Annie said...

Wait...where is a pic of grandma and Olive??? Love the one with Aunt Mary. Olive is adoring her so. I do believe that you all stumbled on the hiding place of Big Foot under all that greenery. Great pictures and looks like a good time was had by all.

Anonymous said...

Happy takes, happy family.