Friday's Fave Five #244

Hi everyone!  I'm back from a wonderful holiday with my family and though tired and trying to get back into work mode, I am glad to be back at FFF!  I have to apologize for the link not going up last week.  I was a good girl and had the FFF already to autopost and for some reason only known to who knows, I apparently put it to post on August 30.   A fact I did not discover until I came home and sat down to read everyone's FFFs.  So a big apology.  I will have to double and triple check the next time.   So moving on to this week.

1.  Family vacation.  I am sooo grateful that our "kids", young adults really, are still willing to go on vacation with their parents.  I love having them and look forward to it every year.  I know one of these fine years one of them will be the first to jump ship and not come but for now, I enjoy every minute of having them along.

2.  Enjoying the familiar and the new.  The last few years we've headed to the Okanagan valley each year.  There is so much to do there.  Each year we try to do some favorite things and eat a favorite restaurants and each year we try to find something new.  This year was no exception.  We found a local sushi/Asian restaurant that we really enjoyed, I tried Pad Thai for the first time and it was delicious.  And we gave the suspension bridges at Kelowna Mountain a try.  This I heard about at my gym from someone who heard about it second hand.  It's quite the project-in-progress, going on 10 years now.  It will eventually be the home to vineyards, a PGA worthy golf course, ski hill, mountain bike park, hiking trails, amphi-theatre and those 4 awesome suspension bridges.  (One of those being the longest in North America).  All with a spectacular view of Kelowna and Okanagon Lake.

You can see the start of the some of the ice wine vineyards underneath the longest suspension bridge in this pic with my lovely Oldest Daughter.  You can also see the posts for the ski lift chairs.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I'm sure it's going to be something else when it is all finished.

3.  Beach time.  Once again we drove about 45 minutes through orchards to one of our favorite beaches in the valley at Summerland, Sun-Oka Beach.  It's perfect for all of us.  It's got a great beach for the sand lovers and swimmers of us, lots of grass and trees for shade with concession stand and picnic tables all over for those of us who don't like beaching it and a short walk around the bend is a dog beach for the pooch.  

We wanted to try other beaches right in Kelowna, there are at least half a dozen or more right in the city which we've never tried but the weather wasn't co-operating with good beach days.  So we found other fun instead.

4.  A safe trip there and back.  The trip is about 10 - 12 hours in the car depending on the route one takes and whether we are on our way there moseying along in vacation mode or tired and just wanting to get home on our way back.  There are several mountain passes through the Rocky Mountains we must go through and some very, very busy sections of highway.  I am very grateful that it was a safe trip all around.

5.  Fresh fruit.  As always lots of good eating from all the wonderful fruits grown in the orchards in this area of Canada.  We ate some of the sweetest, darkest and biggest cherries we've ever had this year.  So good.  The plums were also some of the best we've had and the peaches were good too.  I wish we had room to bring scads of it back but we don't so we get our fill while we are there.

There were many more favorites from the week, but sadly, I must now move on from our vacation.  I need to get my head into work mode and I tell ya, it's been tough this week.  And when I downloaded the pics so I could post some of them, I just wanted to be back there.  But they were my favorites from last week so I toughed it out.  ;v)

What were your favorites?