May 20th

This past (long) weekend we went to visit Taylor’s family in Kelowna. It was Gwen’s longest car ride so far, remember we didn’t even get a carseat until late last August when she was almost 10 months old. The only places she’s been in a car here are the grocery store and Ikea, not exactly long-haul journeys.

I had the brilliant idea of leaving Friday night, at Gwen’s bedtime, instead of Saturday morning. That way we’d miss both the after work rush hour traffic, plus the holiday weekend traffic, and hopefully Gwen would sleep the whole way there. That last part didn’t exactly pan out- she slept partway but woke up when we stopped because someone had to pee (it was me). She dozed on and off the rest of the way and eventually I had to sit in the back of the car and let her pinch my nose because that’s the only thing that would make her happy.



Kichou is like “let’s go!”
The drive up to Kelowna is about 4-ish hours and can be incredibly tedious, but it’s even more so at night as there isn’t even any scenery to look at. For the last hour I was so tired and bored I wanted to drop dead, but I still think it was a good idea. If we’d driven up on Saturday we wouldn’t have arrived until the afternoon and Gwen would have been much grumpier. As it was we arrived after midnight and after a diaper change & a bottle Gwen went straight to sleep and woke up in fine spirits the next morning.

We had a very nice time up there; and Gwen actually behaved MUCH better than I thought she would. At home she’s a tiny whirlwind of destruction, but I guess because she was in an unfamiliar environment she was disinclined to tear stuff up. She enjoyed playing in the backyard and getting spoiled with snacks. On Saturday morning we went with Taylor’s sister Jaime and her family to Kangaroo Creek, which is like a petting zoo of wallabies and lil kangaroos. We saw a tiny joey still in her mama’s pouch and were able to hold some older babies. They were so cute! There were also some sassy goats, fat pigs, some baby capybaras, a grumpy adult capybara and assorted birds (including an emu that was just pooping everywhere). On Sunday Taylor’s sister & her family came over to their moms’ house for a barbecue and so the babies could play together (although Gwen is actually quite aloof and mostly just wanted me to hold her).




Gwen’s lil cousin Evan



Taylor is holding Steve and I have Django. Steve was very sleepy but Django was super friendly! He licked everyone like a puppy and tried to nibble Gwen’s jacket.

Jaime & Evan with Steve, you wouldn’t know it but Jaime is 5 months pregnant with TWINS here, omg




Since Taylor had to work on Monday night we left early that morning to drive back. It was a much less boring drive during the day and Gwen was a total trooper, barely fussing at all even though she was trapped in the hated carseat for so long. Georgie was a total headcase though, both ways. I realized she hadn’t been in a car since I think 2011? and she did not like it. She was shaking and panting like crazy and I had to hold her pretty much the whole way.


It was a good weekend but also really exhausting, I wish I could have another three days to recover!