Kamloops has been a much nicer place to visit than we were expecting. We've spent the last couple years planning to move here with nothing to base it on but the map. Now that we've spent a week here, we've discovered a nicely planned city with golf courses galore and most subdivisions wrapped around a golf course. There's intense building going on right now. We're interested to see how the next couple years go. We've visited the Wildlife Park next door a couple times. Jim caught this wolf basking in the sun the other day. Today, we spent the afternoon at Riverside Park which is a beautiful park - obviously right on the river. There are huge weeping willows and a tree someone thought is a Linden throughout the park that provide ample shade. The highlight of the day was a boat zipping past with a waterskier in tow. No - not the show, but the waves he made. All the kids went running down to the water to float on the waves. Quite fun! Yvonne met a couple friends at the spray park, so that took the play pressure of us. We're wrapping up our last few days here before returning to Bridal Falls. Happy Labour Day everyone!

Barkerville Historic Town, BC was the site for our weekend's entertainment. Billy Barker discovered gold on Williams Creek in 1862. This triggered a stampede of 100,000 prospectors over the next eight years. They travelled the Cariboo Wagon Road, named the Eight Wonder of the World, and converged on the goldfields and the boomtown called Barkerville.
In its heyday, this was the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. Hard to believe now. When you visit, you have no cell phone, no internet, and it's darn cold even in August. Gold had a huge draw at the time, though and those services just weren't in too high a demand.
The kids all had a great time gorging on old-fashioned candy. There's numerous stores that sell all types of candy. We also had a fun stagecoach ride and panned for gold. We all managed to get a few flakes of gold in our pan, so it was quite exciting.
We are now in McLease Lake which is just half an hour north of Williams Lake. The grandkids don't want to go home yet, so we've extended our holiday for another 2 days for now.
The top picture is one that displays the horrendous mountain pine beetle damage in the northern pine forests. It is pretty much entirely dead with just a few green trees poking through here and there. Next year, the only green will be the non-pine varieties. We got to see some nice art work done with the wood from beetle infested trees and it's quite pretty. They give the wood a fungus that makes it turn a bit blue. That may be the direction of our forest industry for a while?

Dragon Lake, Quesnel. Hi everyone! We're up in mid-central BC with our grandkids, Mackenzie and Alexandria. We have a gorgeous campsite right on the lake. We spent Max' birthday yesterday renting boats. Jim started off taking them fishing for 2 hours, then we got a big tour boat for 4 hours and took two trips out for fishing and swimming off the side of the boat.
The weather is gorgeous and warm. We have one last sunny day today, but then it is supposed to get cloudy and rainy for our visit to Barkerville. We leave tomorrow morning for Barkerville and will be there three days to tour around.
Stay tuned........ the adventure continues.

Bridal Falls - we're on the move again! Well, after 4 and a half months in one place, we're happy to itch our feet with a bit of movement. We spent a fun filled weekend in the sun in Point Roberts. All the old gang were around, so we got to spend hours visiting, swapping lies and enjoying good food. The weather was about as perfect as it gets and we all refreshed our tans.

We're currently about an hour and a half east of Vancouver at Bridal Falls. It is such a beautiful spot and we enjoy it every time we are here. There are waterslides next door. We spent yesterday there and are all a bit sore today. That 5 year old is getting tough to keep up to. I guess we just may get into some better shape???? We actually haven't stayed here in the summer time when everything is open, so the ambiance is quite different. It's full of families on holidays, so lots of children's laughter. Yvonne has met a friend and is off playing most of the day. She's on her second Madison friend of the summer. We're really enjoying this summer as last summer we did a pretty heavy duty travel schedule. In contrast, this summer is more "normal" in that we are staying for longer times and getting to meet other kids.

We are on our way into mid-central BC to pick up our grandkids and do a little trip to the gold rush town of Barkerville. After that we plan to half-heartedly look at property with plans of settling down. We are so enjoying this lifestyle, that unless the prices come flying down, or the most magnificent piece of property jumps out at us, we will very casually look.

Three more weeks until SCHOOL!!!! WOW, hard to believe we've made it to Kindergarten.