Camping Herald 2010

This summer Ryan and I headed to Herald Park up in the Salmon Arm area for two weeks. It's our 3rd consecutive year visiting the park and we love it every year. It's family friendly, private and generally pretty quite as well. This year was a bit of a challenge in the way of keepingCamia occupied. While she did fabulous on the beach, it was after showers and after beach time that we had to find ways to keep her busy. Eventually, while in Vernon, I picked up some ponies for her to play with, some sidewalk chalk and some water markers for her to colour with. I felt a little silly seeing as I have ponies at home, but when I packed, I didn't know what kind of toys to pack. I took along a few of her favourites as well as some books, but they did not serve their purpose. It's hard to keep an adventurous two year old occupied for more than 10 minutes at any given time, but these ponies and sidewalk chalk did the trick for a little while.

As mentioned in the previous post, I am thankful that her molars did not come through like they did last year. She was also a fabulous sleeper, and slept through most of the nights well, which made for an added bonus. For the most part I can't complain since she was a good camper. We had Ryan's brother and his wife across from us, so she was a frequent visitor there. She told me 'I be back, I go to Dawson' and would run off. She did know, though, that she wasn't allowed past the edge of the campsite and for the most part listened well to that rule. Towards the end of the trip she got a little more daring and took off down the road on us several times before we knew what was happening. Given some understanding to an event in my past, I was quite leary of this and was paranoid when she took off down the road, even though it is a campsite and people almost always go slow. All it takes is one second and one person not watching. While we were there, I saw a deer just hanging out on the side of the road. Of the 20 or so pictures I took, none of them turned out fabulous. This is the best one of them all.

Camia has become a mimicker and discovered throwing rocks after watching her cousins on the beach. She even got a few skips from some of her rocks.

She also found a boogey board, and fell right in love. She played with it more than the floaty toys I took along for her, and when we went into town for groceries, it was all about the boogey boards. For a while, it was the only way that we could get her into the water without getting upset.

She also discovered sand castle building.

Though this mammal dumped her several times into the cold waters, she still found a special place for it in her heart:

Before we left on holidays, Ryan and I bought her this little chair, which she loved. It was nice for her to have her own chair instead of constantly occupying ours.

During the last week of our holiday, she fell in love with the inner tube and spent so much time just floating in it. Since I didn't want to continuously chase her down the beach to where she had drifted, we tied it to a log so she would stay close and in shallow water. It worked out quite well!

Sitting on the beach with Kelsey:

While we were there, there was a forest fire not far from Herald. A helicopter came several time to fill up with water from the ShuswapLake.

And, of course, the obligatory photo op for Mom. Can't not have one of those on a family holiday.

She's done:

And while we packed up to go home, Camia took her place in the drivers seat.

She hasn't quite caught onto the rule of don't drive and talk yet. We'll have to work on that one.

On the way home there were areas where the smoke from the fires was so thick that it almost stung your nostrils. It was hazy and it was difficult to see what lay in the distance. There are supposed to be mountains in this photo. Because of the smoke, they are impossible to see.

While we had a great vacation, I was definitely ready to come home. Things were going on here that I was feeling homesick for and I was ready for my own shower and my own bed. So, on our way home, we stopped in Yarrow to visit a sweet baby girl who had surprised her parents by arriving 4 weeks early. We visited with her mom too, and that was also grand. A lot happens in 2 weeks! So we spent the next few days catching up. You'd think we were gone for a lot longer than 2 weeks!!