Random Summer Fun 2025
Here’s a collection of random pictures from summer break. We spent a lot of days crafting, playing with the bouncing bubbles (thanks Pinterest), swimming, and playing with friends. We were excited to welcome some friends from church to stay at the park cottage while they deal with mold in their house. Zoe loves having friends next door! It wasn’t a super exciting summer with trips but it was what we needed, especially with my mom having open heart surgery. We are so thankful for how well she is doing and the ways that God protected her in this whole journey!
Family Lake Day
We were able to join my extended family at Ron and Jane’s house for a fun lake day to celebrate Grandmama’s 94th birthday. We were missing Eric, Jenn and Piper but it was so fun to have everyone else together for the day. I love watching my girls play with my cousins’ kids after all the years we had playing together growing up. It was so special to be able to all celebrate Grandmama together! We are thankful for her 94 years and all the ways she has poured into us all!
Sloomoo Slime Factory
We decided not to do a trip this summer but planned a few fun days for the girls. One was to the Sloomoo Institute in Atlanta. It is a slime factory and the girls loved it! They loved playing in the vats of slime and then both got to make their own to bring home. It was a fun family activity!
Zoe’s Spring Recital 2025
Zoe’s dance studio put on Peter Pan for their spring recital. Zoe’s acro 3 class danced to “Crocodile Rock” to play the Tick Tock Croc. Zoe looked amazing in her lime green costume and did such a good job in her performance. Zoe also got her 5 year trophy during the performance. She’s growing so much in her skills and it is so fun to watch her shine!
Last Day of School
This year has flown by! It is crazy that 2nd grade is over for Zoe and 7th is over for Ava. Once Middle school hit, I stopped the pictures for Ava but she had a good year in 7th. We did full on homeschool all year and started figuring out what works for us for school. It’s crazy that she will be in 8th grade, just one more year of middle school for her. Zoe had a good year as well. She had a hard time finding a good friend to connect with but once she found Camdyn, she was super happy. Her teacher was very chill and helped her grow in her reading. We just can’t believe she is halfway through elementary school already!
And just for a side by side….here’s the first and last day of 2nd grade.
Zoe’s Awards Day
Zoe received the happy helper award during her 2nd grade awards day. It is crazy that 2nd grade is coming to a close!
Paris Mountain Field Trip
I got to go with Zoe on her field trip to Paris Mountain this year. Thankfully, it was rescheduled because of rain and they did not have a repeat of their kindergarten experience there when they all got drenched. Zoe had a blast with her class!
Goodbye Canada
It took 3 flights to get home but the views were amazing, especially the first flight from Vancouver to Denver. We were happy to be back home but cannot wait for another chance to explore more of Canada, a country we fell in love with!
Canada Day 6 - Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler
We packed so many things into our one full day in the Vancouver area (and still didn’t scratch the surface of all we could do). The first part of the day was spent finding Virgin River filming locations. Apparently, all of our favorite shows are in Canada…aside from Gilmore Girls but the pilot was filmed in Canada so that counts. Our first stop was Doc’s clinic in New Westminster.
The clinic just happened to be right across the street from Queen’s Park so of course we had to tour the park in Her Majesty’s honor.
Next we headed over to Burnaby to see Doc and Hope’s house, which is across the street from the park where Paige’s Bakeaway truck is filmed.
Then we headed to North Vancouver to Murdo Fraser Park where Mel’s cabin is located.
Then we hopped on the incredible Sea to Sky Highway to head up to Squamish. We tried to find the locations of all the incredible waterfall shots in the opening scenes of Virgin River but couldn’t find a list. Shannon Falls was one on the list, which was right off the highway. It was beautiful and we kept saying the forest looked like the Enchanted Forest. We later found out that this area was used as the Enchanted Forest in Once Upon a Time.
We stopped in Brackendale for lunch at the Watershed Grill, which is the exterior for Jack’s Bar. We ate outside on the patio with the beautiful Squamish River behind us.
At the recommendation of the Canadians on our tour in Hope Valley (side note, the Canadians truly are the nicest people), we hopped back on the Sea to Sky Highway to drive up to Whistler. On the way up, we stopped to see Brandywine Falls, which may be the most impressive waterfall I’ve seen in person.
We enjoyed walking around Whistler ski village and seeing where the Olympics were held in 2010. I also realized that we just missed being there at the same time as Prince Harry and Meghan for the Invictus Games.
After we left Whistler Village, we took a detour to see another waterfall that was on the way up to Olympic Park. We just happened to be on that small road at just the right time of day because we passed 3 different black bears snacking on the side of the road. We were quick to get some pictures of the waterfall because we did not want to run into any other bears outside of the car.
We headed back down the Sea to Sky Highway making multiple stops along the way for pictures of the gorgeous view.
Next we stopped at Queen Elizabeth Park in downtown Vancouver. There we got to see the oak tree planted by Her Majesty during her first visit to Vancouver when she was still Princess Elizabeth. I couldn’t get enough of all the tributes to the Royal family in Canada!
We ended our trip with a visit to the beach to see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. This time away to celebrate the end of cancer treatments was exactly what we needed after such a hard year and a half. And we could not have picked a more beautiful place to celebrate that huge milestone. The only problem is that we packed so much into our time there but still didn’t get to see everything so now we want to go back. Western Canada holds a special place in our hearts!
