Calgary trip to visit with Suzanne and Richard and their families

 We headed to Calgary on Sunday to spend some time with Suzanne, Sal and Kale and Richard and his family.  We started with brunch at Suzanne's.  A wonderful spread of food and good conversation around the table.  Kale has new classes starting soon - French and Music - he will be playing electric base guitar.  That will go so well with his new wardrobe and style!!!  Too soon is was time to head out to Richard's which was fine.  Kale had homework to do before an afternoon of Dungeon and Dragon's with his friends.  

It was great to see the whole family at Richard's.  He is headed back to China next week but had been working on several project since he got home.  The weather was beautiful and Richard was cooking turkey and had made fresh bread from a new recipe!! 

As always, we are blessed that when we visit all of our kids - there is always good food!!!  
Kale has prepped several meals for the family. He did very well!!!  Our kids started making  one meal a week for the family when they got to Junior high so the tradition of "life skills" continues!!  

You can see above that TT and Selina were having a lot of fun with a dance party.  Great foot work and moves by both of them!!!  Therese

  

Penticton - arrival

Here we are on the plane headed to BC.  Much the same on the way back!!!  

This was a photo of the street  - Winnipeg - on which the condo was located.  We could see the beautiful bright tree from our balcony!!!  

Therese
 

Penticton - the book store!!!!!

Brian had done some research and there was an awesome book store just a few blocks away which we visited several times and finally Brian went on his own to buy the books he had decided he wanted to buy!!!  It was so full of books and on every subject you wanted to name.  These people knew all the books and where they were in the store!!!

Therese
 

Penticton - beef bourguignon, mexican and pizza and steak

A few photos of food!!!  We went to the pizza place - Tratto - the first night and it was excellent!!

Our steak on the grill, last beef meal and our meal the Mexican restaurant!   Therese

 

Penticton - rainy day puzzle

 This was the second puzzle we made while we were away!!  The colours were beautiful and bright and you had no idea where the pieces were going though there was a grid on the back printed with letters so you could figure out that all the FFF were in a certain area and all the AAA were in a different area.  Brian was not too keen to be "cheating" but in the end when he was out at the book store I sorted them all out into alphabets and putting in the last 100 pieces or so went very quickly because they were sorted by areas.  It had 8 missing pieces which is really unfortunate.  Still was a lot of fun to work on with all its vibrant colours.  Therese

Penticton - cough control

Eventually, I decided that I needed something to stop the coughing.  We sourced a walk in clinic and arrived at 9:30am to find a sign on the door that they were full up for the day and no more appointments were available.  

We went to a Shopper Drug Mart and talked to a pharmacist and after asking me about my symptoms she recommended this cough syrup.  I took it every 6 hours like recommended - even in the middle of the night by setting my phone timer.  It helped right away and it was so much better not coughing so much.  I finished it at the airport on the way home and so far do not feel I need to buy more.  

Grateful that there was an option I could use where we were!!!

Therese

 

Penticton - crafty and beautiful art

I found this site about hand stitching fabric collage while I was there and was not able to find it when I got home but Sylvia did manage to find the site.  - Buttons and Bobbins in the UK.  This woman hand stitched on a large fabric collage for three years using up scraps from her sewing business and finally make a simple jacket using the fabric.  I thought it was just a wonderful concept.  It turns out that I had taken a photo of the website.  I am glad to have found it again. 

This was a boxed set of art cards with spirit wisdom that was at the condo.  The art was beautiful!!!!!!!!  It would be great to be able to make art like this.  I will see what I can find online as inspiration.  

Therese
 

Penticton - walk to the right to the dock

We walked to the right from the beach access that was closest to the condo on another sunny day.  The water was very clear and higher up the hill we met a gaggle of ducks just out for a walk foraging for food along the little creek that ran into the lake. We saw another bunch of ducks up by the mall as well which was also along a river/canal and they had commandeered the far section of the parking lot and were feeding and sleeping.   There was a long dock and I am sure this is very busy with people in the summer. Therese

 

Penticton - Beef bourguignon for supper!!

We had several meals from the great food Brian cooked at the class in Kelowna.  It was very delicious!!!

Therese
 

Penticton - deer

They have little deer that roam around town.  We had seen them the first day we arrived and they were in a vacant lot as we were coming back from being out.  

We have deer in Lacombe that do the same thing.  These ones seemed a bit bigger than the ones we have here

Therese
 

Penticton - trip to Osoyoos to see the Spotted Lake

We headed south to check out the Spotted Lake at Osoyous.  It was a beautiful day for a drive and I really was not well enough to do much else.  

There is a canal that goes the whole length of Penticton from Lake Okanagan to Shaka Lake on which you can float down on a large inflatables on during the summer.   The photo above is the edge of Shaka Lake and the canal stops there.  There is a beaching area just before the canal ends.  This day the canal looked reasonably calm but the lake was very rough. It would be rude to miss the landing area and end up in the lake!!!  

Osoyoos in the distance.  Not a very large town but quite a few services.  Very close to the US border.  

The Spotted Lake could only be observed from the road side turn out.  It is a sacred site for the local indigenous peoples and therefore no one is allowed to get closer.  There are actually three lakes but only this one is visible from the road.  They have mineral craters that rise from the bottom and each has a unique mineral mix which is therapeutic.  At some times of the year the water is lower and the craters become visible and when it rains a lot the lake waters rise and the craters are less visible.  It was a good drive with wonderful scenery on a beautiful day though the clouds started coming in on the way back.  

Headed back to Penticton and the sun was shining on the rocks and landscape!  Beautiful!!! Therese

Penticton - Christmas lights

 There were many beautiful Christmas lights up in the city and we took this photo while on our walk and then took one of the park later in the week when we took an evening walk.  It was magical!!

The multi colour tree was in front of the resort just a few blocks from the condo.  The pink tree which changed colours regularly. We saw it white, shimmery with green, and this magenta pink.  I expect there were other colours that showed up before we arrived.  It was all LEDs arranged on 6 flat metal supports arrange around a central post. 

Below we took our phot in the lighted tunnel on one side of Gyro Park.  It was so beautiful.  

This display had different coloured bottles and anyone could rearrange them in the metal grid to create 

their own artwork.  There was always someone there making art when we went by.  Most effective at night.

This was the other end of Gyro Park which was closer to street lights and allowed us to take a photo of the figurines in the back which had a white outline support which was visible during the day and the lights shone at night.  This is just the bit that was close to the condo.  There were lights in a lot of places and many people has great displays in their yards too.  Therese

Penticton - cooking class in Kelowna

Brian went to our cooking class in Kelowna by himself because I was too sick to go.  It was so good that he went because the food he brought back was so delicious and fed us for several days when we were not going out.  He enjoyed the class and it was a long drive back to Penticton afterwards in the dark and on mountain roads.  Therese