A few more summer pics

Our getaway at the end of the summer break consisted of more than just the 2 days we spent at Barkerville. I thought I would share some pictures of some of the other things we did. It reached some crazy hot temperatures... I managed to catch the thermometre at 37 degrees. At some points it even got hotter than this!


A view from my passenger window of some cool hills in Kamloops.


We spent a couple hours at the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops. The size of it is lovely, and it is so interesting to see so many animals from the BC area. The park is beautiful, and the workers we talked with were super friendly. The best part... our GV Zoo passes get us into the Wildlife Park for freeeeee!!!


The Buck-Doe City was the cutest thing I've ever seen... a complete miniature town. I am curious to know what the story is behind this little village.



The Bison were very cool to watch.






We didn't go on the train, but we'll have to grab a ride next time we go there. (Notice Scott chose to wear his GV Zoo shirt on the day we visited the Kamloops Zoo... how organized of him!)


Elise got chosen to be part of the bird show. The kids had to push a button to get a beeper to work, and that would get the owl's attention, and make her fly to that child.




This Grizzly Bear was all about the pool on this day. Not sure if this is the brother or the sister bear, but it looked so lovable and cuddly... but, I am sure that those big paws could do a number before we could even blink (I've seen "We Bought a Zoo", remember?!)




So playful! We watched him play for probably close to 10 minutes, and then he (or she?!) heard the dinner bell and took off out of the water like a bolt. It was probably salmon... I'd run for salmon, too. Yum!



Two of the hotels we stayed at had swimming pools, and one of them even had a waterslide. The key, we found, is to go to the pool in the morning, before or after breakfast, and you will almost guaranteed get the pool to yourself for as much as an hour! We did this both times. The first time we only shared it with 2 boys for about 10 minutes, and at the waterslide hotel, a father and son came in for just a few minutes to get one last slide in before they checked out. I heard people saying that the hotel pools at nighttime were crazy busy, so I'm glad we chose the morning.
swimming







Another highlight of our little adventure was stopping at my cousin's farm in Kamloops. They had come to visit us just a week or so before, and they said for us to stop in when we were going by so the kids could see the animals. My kids loved it, and her boys are so incredibly cute!



This goat became quite attached to Steve... Rather hilarious when he started eating shoelaces!



(Note to Auntie Louise... Todd started his obsession with this shirt sometime in the summer. Even though he's had it for awhile, and worn it a lot, it has recently become a staple that he begs to wear every single day!)




And a family favourite, on both sides, A&W rootbeer... a quick stop for a treat before hitting the road again to head a few more hours north. I think this was somewhere around Cache Creek.

Gold Fever

Summer has almost come to an end... I have actually already started work. I started back on Thursday for orientation and to meet some new coworkers. Information overload, to say the least!! Then today, I got to meet all the staff as it was the first official day back for everyone. After a morning jam packed full of meetings, the Principal surprised everyone by saying we were going to go play laser tag and then to DQ for blizzards. I love this school already!!

Before my summer ended, we wanted to take a little family holiday, and Steve was able to take a bit of time off work so we could get away. He will stay off until the kids start school, because then they will just be coming to school with me.

We decided to head north for a few days... way up to Gold Rush territory! We visited the historic town of Barkerville, BC, and spent 2 days exploring there. I went there a couple times when I was a kid and have great memories from that place. It was such a great experience for our kids. Here are a few of our photos from Barkerville. I will do the rest of the trip in a different post.









St. Saviour's Anglican church




I have a bit of a fascination with cemeteries, so when it was time for the walking tour to Barkerville Cemetery, of course I dragged my kids and Steve up the hill behind the priest to go hear stories about who was buried there!! So very interesting.


People came from all over the world during the gold rush days.



Yes, we had ice cream on both days!




Steve and the kids are standing at the original end of the town, close to Richfield. Now, the Barkerville tour starts on the other end of town because that is how the road leads to town in our present day.





Scott got to be helper for the talk on the history of Barkerville.



Barkerville's Chinatown was very interesting, too. It is the oldest Chinatown in BC.


We even got to go to school on our holiday! Here's Elise waiting for the teacher.


The teacher goes to the centre of town a few minutes before class and rings the bell over and over... and never cracks a smile!!


Our teacher was Mr. Mandel. I hope I don't scare my students like this when they come back to school next week!



The kids (Todd, especially) really wanted to pan for gold. This young man was very patient with them and we came away with 4 small flecks of gold. Not enough to retire on, but definitely enough to make the kids feel like successful prospectors!





Todd didn't really need to see the town to feel like he had been there... most of the 2 days he had his head in the map. I often had to stop and wait for him to catch up to us, but he was so intent on not missing any buildings, and he kept a checklist in his head of all the ones we had seen the first day and made sure we went to the other ones the next day. It actually came in pretty handy for me that he was keeping track of this information!!


The Town tour was so good that we went on both days.


This is Miss Kate... we saw her over the 2 days in several different costumes. She led some dancing lessons, played the Hertie Gertie for us, and stopped to chat later in the day after she had changed to a different dress. The funny thing is that at the end of the 2nd day, once we had returned to the nearby town of Wells where we were spending the night, I ran into her in the General store buying ice cream with her boyfriend. I said, "good day" and it was really quite awkward after seeing her in character for 2 days to see her in jeans and a t-shirt and in real life 2012... It must be hard for these actors to live the life of the 1860's for 5 months of the year and then have to step back to present day.


Mr Grimsby is quite a character. He does the waterwheel show and was such a great actor. Apparently he's been there for around 20 years... and someone said he's had the same hat all those years, too!!





Barkerville even had a town library.



At the saloon... now a restaurant where we had lunch.