This has never happened before. The kids are 10 and 12 and Simon and I have never been away without them for the last 12 years so when the stars aligned to have both of them attend camp at Anvil island for a whole week together, I was excited...
Step 1 - Send the kids away (hopefully to a place they are so stoked about and will be having too much fun to miss you). This would be camp at Anvil island. Last year, the kids went to camp together too but I decided to volunteer the week with them and I know from first-hand experience that a week here is a blast. If you're a parent then you know that you can't relax and enjoy yourself unless you know your kids are well taken care of and having a blast. We dropped off the kids 6:30 am Saturday morning and I knew they would have an adventure and so would we...
Step 2 - Pick somewhere not too far away. As much as I would have enjoyed going to Hawaii while the kids were away, I didn't want to be too far away in case there was an emergency and also I didn't want to do a big vacation without them. Honestly, I love my kiddos and it would be sad to go somewhere epic without them. Since we love hiking, biking and the great outdoors, we picked Sun Peaks in Kamloops.
Step 3 - Pack last minute. We were helping the kids pack their bags for camp that we didn't really get around to packing for ourselves until the morning we were supposed to leave but fitting everything in the truck is 100% easier when you don't have the kids and all their stuff. 
Step 4 - Enjoy the drive. Our kids are used to the long trek to Grandma and Grandpa's farm so it's not like it's usually bad but without the kids in the pack, we listened to our favourite podcast American Scandal which is a true crime podcast told like historical non-fiction, it's so good and made the drive go by so fast.
Step 5 - Coordinate with friends. A couple of our good friends also sent their kids to the same camp and we were able to meet up at Sun Peaks all kid-free. It was so nice to have the freedom to do whatever we wanted and no one whined or asked for a snack or needed to pee when there weren't any bathrooms. It's the simple joys of life.
Step 6 - Bike into a postcard. Lift-access biking means you get to start at the alpine without pedaling uphill and the view is just stunning.
Step 7 - Hike into a postcard. Same as for biking - lift access hiking means you don't need to hike to the peak to the gorgeous views. The wildflowers are right there all along the hike. Looking at the view and the mountains just makes you want to sing "the hillllls are alive with the sound of music...."
The guys had an epic day in the bike park while we hiked and admired all the wildflowers
Step 7.5 - Bring bug spray. I sent the bug spray with my kids to camp and didn't think I would need it but I was wrong. So wrong. Like 25+ bug bites wrong. We had planned to have lunch at Tod Lake but there were so many mosquitoes, we couldn't even stop for a minute. We stayed still for a nanosecond to take this picture and then pedaled as fast as we could outta there.
Step 8 - Figure out the answer to the age-old question “What does the fox 🦊 say?” This fox was so curious and came up on the bike trail and stuck around for us to awe and posed for pictures. I adore wildlife so I was stoked that this fox wanted to hang out with us. And the answer is that the fox says nothing … at least this one didn’t make a sound. 
Step 9 - Hotub with a view. The condo we rented had a hot tub facing Mt. Morrisey. It was 30+ degrees during the day so no one wanted anything to do with the hot tub but by 9:30 pm at night, it cooled down enough to enjoy the hot tub and the sunset.
Step 10 - Make new memories. Our oldest is turning 13 next week and everything has been a bit of blur since we had kids and we have never had a vacation without the kids. What a blessing it is to that Simon is still my favourite person to spend time with!
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