Bertram Creek Regional Park

Location: Within Kelowna city limits, down Lakeshore Drive

Best time of year to visit: Summer/Fall

As a family of 5 living in a pretty expensive city, I always love finding places to spend an afternoon that don't cost anything. Bertram Creek Regional Park is one of our favourites around here. To get here, take Pandosy street, which will turn into Lakeshore Drive. Continue on lakeshore for several KM's, you'll need to turn right past the cherry farm in order to stay on Lakeshore. Follow this road and you'll soon see a sign for the park entrance. There's a parking lot just at the bottom. It's currently open even during the Covid-19 restrictions.

If you have small children (or big ones), they will love this place. There's plenty of waterfront, green space and lots to explore. The views and the large dock make it a great spot to take photos. My oldest son wants to buy a small kayak, and I keep thinking this would be the perfect place to bring him kayaking. It's a rocky beach so not many people swim here, and I haven't seen any large boats come close since it's pretty shallow, so it would be a safe place for him to venture out and paddle a bit safely.

There are a few different walking paths. One will take you to an outdoor wedding venue and the other to a stretch of waterfront and playground. We are looking forward for the pandemic restrictions to lift so that the kids can play the playground again, but we did come the other day and they entertained each other even without the playground access. There's a cliff just beyond the playground that my kids love to explore. You can climb to the top from the back side and get a beautiful view from there.

We usually bring a picnic lunch, or pack up our dinner and have an evening here in the summer. There are picnic tables and a gazebo or you can bring a large blanket and set it up somewhere on the green space. I truly love this place and have brought family members who are visiting us here. In the fall, it's a must-see. The colours here are amazing, and the leaves that fall to the ground are massive.

If you're living in this area and haven't explored Bertram yet, I hope this post encourages you to do so! It's truly a wonderful place.

Here are some photos of our adventures here.

xo Ani xo

Skaha Beach, Penticton BC

Skaha Beach is one of our absolute favourite places to go in the Okanagan, and it was our first beach we explored as a family a few years ago, so I thought it would be fitting to have this as my first blog post.

Located in the south end of Penticton, BC, which is about 65km south of Kelowna, it's a place we visit often in the summertime. Our first experience in Penticton as a family was during a good friend of my husband's wedding. We spent 2 weeks there in the late summer and rented a house that was a short walk from Skaha beach, and had its own lake access in the back yard. I immediately fell in love with the area. The weather was so gorgeous, and the beach was amazing. This particular area features two large playgrounds for kids, a splash park, ponds and walking paths, an amazing ice cream stand called Tickleberry's - where even the kid's size cones are bigger than your head - and a very soft sandy beach that stretches quite a distance.

While we were here we truly soaked up the Okanagan lifestyle. My husband and I woke up before the kids every morning and enjoyed our coffee on the dock. Our daughter, Charlie, accompanied us as she was still an infant. We would sit, talk about life, and watch the calm water, breathing in the fresh air. That was the trip that really made us want to raise our family here.

Skaha lake is a great place for families to spend the day on the beach for so many reasons. There is free parking, paved walkways that take you from playgrounds to beach front, tennis courts and basketball courts, and large green spaces with lots of trees and shade if you need a break from the sun. There are stands where you can purchase food, rent paddleboards, kayaks and even beach chairs.

When we plan to spend the day there, we always bring our large roller cooler filled with lunch items and snacks (and lots of water), sunscreen, a large blanket to lay on the sand, towels and bathing suits (of course), a change of clothes for the kids, and sun hats. Sometimes the kids bring their bikes or scooters. We also bring sand toys and floaties/life jackets for the littles.

There are many campgrounds near Skaha lake if you are into camping, but if you would rather get full accommodations, Penticton has many hotels and Air BNB's available. We chose to rent a house when we first visited the area, and I loved it. For the same price as a hotel room, we had a full house and lake access. After taking a quick look online I can see that prices have gone up significantly since we rented ours, but in the off-season, you can still find a reasonable price for home rentals.

Penticton is also home to some amazing award winning wineries. Our friends Matt and Rebecca Mikulik have a beautiful winery called Three Sisters Winery, which is a favourite of ours. I would highly recommend doing a wine tour if you're not from the area, and visiting some tasting rooms and vineyards. Here is a website to help you plan your winery tour:

http://naramatabench.com/

If you've been to this area before, did you visit Skaha beach or any wineries? What is your favourite place to visit in Penticton?

Thanks for reading along! Here are a few more photos of our adventures at Skaha lake.

xo Ani xo

Welcome!

Hi! And welcome to my brand new blog! This is very new to me, but I'm so excited to launch this page. I'm glad you're here, reading along, and that you're interested in my new project!

First, here's a little bit about our family. I'm a 32 year old mom of 3 (and currently pregnant with our 4th). I'm married to a handsome accountant, who also happens to be the best dad ever. I am proudly French Canadian. I grew up in a small rural town in Northern Ontario, and moved to Northern British Columbia after my second year of university. I called Fort St. John home for nearly 10 years. My family and I recently moved to the Okanagan Valley, more specifically Kelowna, British Columbia. Moving to this area is something we had talked about as a goal for the future, we thought maybe one day we would retire here. We were thrilled to be able to move here sooner and raise our family in such a beautiful place.

Our lives are normally very busy. My kids play a lot of sports, so we are always on the go. My husband and I are very active, we both run and play our own sports on top of it all. We want to do a triathlon one day, but for now, we just enjoy light training and being active with our kids daily.

My children are 10, 5 and 3 years old, and our baby is due July 6th, 2020. We live a busy, minimalistic life and have a ton of fun together, which I've enjoyed sharing on my personal social media for friends and family to follow along.

I love documenting our adventures, the places we go, near or far (these days, most often near). I decided to start this blog as a resource for families who want to travel to the Okanagan, for families living in the Okanagan who want fresh ideas on places to go and things to see, and for my family and friends who aren't familiar with this area to see where we live. I also wanted to connect with other like-minded families who love to be outdoors as much as we do.

This blog is a personal project of mine and I've been working on it for quite some time. I thought it would be a great place to create permanent memories that we can look back on in years to come, document details that I may forget over the years, as well as have it as a sort of repertoire of things to do when we need inspiration. It actually started as an idea to get my 10 year old writing. Before homeschooling was in full force, I wanted him to do some daily writing activities, and it was always the most difficult thing for him to be motivated to do. I told him maybe he could start a travel blog, and look back at places we've been and talk about his favourite things we did as a family. Then the inspiration hit me, as I was scrolling back through years of photos, and saw just how much I was already forgetting about our travels. We started looking back on our adventures as a family, and re-visiting these places, reminiscing about how much fun we had, and I felt inspired to start writing.

I'm so excited to share our adventures with you, and hopefully spark some inspiration to create exciting adventures wherever you are.

xo Ani xo