road tripping to Vancouver & a wedding

 We have a summer of weddings and weddings always make me more mushy and romantic.
Combine weddings with a family road trip, two weeks of exploring and togetherness....the perfect start to summer I would say!!!

We drove out to BC after a whirlwind week of camping with friends and me being off at Young Women's camp. At one point I literally had piles for three different trips and boy do I 'love' piles (insert sarcasm).  All were very fun things just mass prep work.  After all of the camping we took off on our road trip to the west coast. We were so impressed by how our ladies did during the 11 hour drive to Vernon. They rocked it!! No melt downs and we didn't have a need for continuous technology (we did totally use it of course), but I call that a success. This Vancouver wedding kicked off our family vacation and got us half way to our holiday destination of Silverwood, Idaho.

Vernon
Amy's parents were super gracious and offered  to let us crash at their place.  We were able to have one day where we went exploring before continuing on to Vancouver. We checked out some water slides to stay cool and then made our way to a Kangaroo farm after dinner, such a great day!!! Graham took a few hours and got in a round of golf at Predator Ridge, which is a world class golf course.

Clearly one child LOVES the water slides and the other DOES NOT! ahahahahah
It is ok Stella Bella, I am not a crazy adventurous soul either.
Her thumbs down to doing more slides is hilarious!!

Ever my little ladies they wanted to 'do' their dad's hair ;)

The Jacober and Polischuk girls had a tremendous time together! It was a highly anticipated part of our vacation and watching our daughters together definitely made both Amy and I smile.

We are both very lucky to have these women :)  I see super awesome girls weekends in our future as they grow.  Also to be noted, she likes to match her girls too!!!! It makes me feel less nerdy and we are often the recipients of stellar hand-me-downs.


AGES: Stella 4, Amelia 6, Ember 6, Eden 4

Visiting the Kangaroo Farm was a wonderful idea!!! I even got to hold a tiny baby kangaroo, absolutely adorable.

Vancouver

Here I go getting all emotional as I look at these pictures from Hon (Eddie) & Elaine's Wedding....it was lovely! Both the ceremony and the reception were held at the Vancouver Convention Center, which is right on the water and simply spectacular.  Elaine looked stunning and the ceremony was beautiful as we looked out over the water and they walked in to a harpist (Stella loves the harp and says she wants to play when she is bigger).  All of the little girls love to dance so they were ready for the party by the time the reception rolled around :) Amy and I did our song, which is tradition when each of our friends gets married. For Hon we did a compilation of songs with advice on love, the lyrics were tweaked a bit to fit the couple.  We are getting older so have been to a few weddings but this was amazing!!!! The photo booth, cotton candy, candy bar and being with friends made for an unforgettable night.  Were had many of our high school friends there and to watch Hon get married to a sweetheart like Elaine, the evening was just so great.

 You know how weddings sometimes have a few really cute little kids...yeah those were our daughters!  The little women wore beautiful dresses that twirled and we did thier hair up in crowns, they were little darlings.  Amelia kept talking about how 'pretty' the bride looked and how excited she was.

Elaine and Hon walked in to the reception with dragons accompanying them and the dragon dance that followed was fascinating and such a tremendous experience!!!

 Our friends Chris and Julie have a little sweet heart Farrah, she was a highlight of the wedding too!  It was fun to see our friends as parents and watch the joy that a child brings to lives. What a blessing little people are!

So it is kinda crazy but everyone fell asleep before the dance really got going, Stella was the only lady who was awake and got a few dances in.  We ended up pushing chairs/couches together and all four of our little beauties stayed sleeping until we closed down the party around one am.

The next morning before leaving Vancouver we decided to play tourist so took the ladies down to Granville Island.  We have always enjoyed our visits, the shops and atmosphere, love that we were able to take our girls there. The Kids Market was the highlight with the many toy stores and book stores and fun shops.

Decided to go on a little Aquabus ride because what little kid doesn't dig going on a boat ride?!

Lunch at the Public Market seemed like the perfect way to wrap up

our visit.  One day Graham and I will live downtown (somewhere) and have market visits be part of our routine.  I just LOVE all that can be packed into a market; the flowers, the food, the unique finds! LOVE IT!!!!

The coolness was around every corner....silk worms....for reals!

~ Mrs. P