10 steps to an awesome kid-free getaway

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! 

            

Spontaneous snow-camping (with a glimpse of Northern lights).

Well that was fun!

 How did we end up hiking up Seymour Saturday evening with headlamps and camp overnight?

It wasn’t even planned. Like at all. This whole trip came to fruition in a few hours. It started on Saturday morning when I woke up to what feels like EVERYONE posting pictures and messaging me about the northern lights. My sister sent me this picture she took:

“Oh it was spectacular!”

“Oh you didn’t see it? That’s too bad, it was glorious!”

“Oh you went to bed after the Canucks lost in overtime? You should have stayed up”

“It was amazing, SO many people were at the beach watching it too. Look at my pictures…”

So I started Saturday morning feeling major FOMO (fear of missing out) and I so disappointed that this spectacular event may never happen again in my lifetime in metro Vancouver. I went into a bit of a rabbit hole of articles on Northern light viewing and even downloaded the Aurora app (yes, there's an app for that!) It said to head somewhere away from lights and face north and look between 8:00pm to 2:00am. It said there might be a chance that May 11 could have a chance of seeing northern lights like the incredible light show that was on Friday evening. So I jokingly said, “What am I going to do? Hike up Seymour and set up a tent for the possibility of a glimpse of northern lights ??” 

Of course my sensible and practical husband tried to talk me out of this and suggested driving to Iona beach or another location rational humans would gather for this opportunity. 

I asked my kids how crazy would it be to hike up Seymour after dinner and tent in the snow overnight. They responded with, “that would be MOM crazy” (I didn’t even know that was an adjective for the level of crazy)

But the more I thought about the idea of it, the more appealing it sounded. Night hike! Snow camping! Constellations! Possibly Northern lights! Mountain sunrise!

The mountains are calling and I must go!

So I asked a couple of like-minded friends how crazy this idea was. Both of them it was a great idea and one said his family would be up for it. So by Saturday afternoon it became a real thing and then it was the mad scramble to prepare. None of our camping stuff was out yet so it was a race to find the camping stuff  and then borrow extra packs and a lightweight tent from friends and jam everything in the packs. 

The great thing about Mt Seymour is that it’s so accessible, we scrambled to pack, scarfed down supper and made it to the overnight P2 parking lot just after 8:00pm. We met up with the other crazy family and started hiking around 8:30pm just as the sun was starting to set.

I should have packed crampons because the snow was slushy and with the heavy pack it was not easy hiking. We made it to Brockton point in about an hour and the kids declared that we shouldn’t go any further and it was the perfect spot. 

And it really was. We had a great view of the twinkling city lights in one direction and the glorious mountains in the other direction. This is snow camping so there are no tent pads. Based on my scrambled research about how to snow camp, you're supposed to find a flat area and pack down the snow. So we found the flattish spot we could find on the top of Brockton Point and we stomped around on the snow hoping that would make it a more suitable campground. We set up the tent successfully in the dark with our headlamps on. And then we took it all in…

Little Brother was cold and tired so he fell asleep almost right after we set up the tent. We joked that he’s in all the pictures because he was asleep inside the tent for all the pictures. Big Sis stayed awake til past 11:30 and then she went to sleep too. Honestly, I thought the northern lights would get brighter as we stayed up later but the glow was pretty much the same from 11:00pm til 1:00am when we finally crawled into our tents. We didn't see the bright red, pink, purple colors that everyone saw on Friday night but at least the cameras captured some of the colors and with the mountains and the constellations, it still looks pretty spectacular. 

I wish I had slept that night but I didn’t. Sadly I forgot to pack an extra pair of socks and the ones I had on were wet from all the snow inside my hiking shoes. The good part about freezing and not sleeping was that by 5:15am, I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep so I just got up and sat and watched the sunrise above the mountains and that was pretty cool. So no breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day, everyone was still asleep in the tent but peace and quiet and gorgeous sunrise was a pretty great way to start Mothers Day. 

I don’t think anyone slept well but I was impressed no one complained. The kids had great attitudes when they woke up, we had leftover cookies and candy (breakfast of champions) and we packed up our tent and trekked back down.

Sometimes the best things are spontaneous and this was one of them! Hopefully, the kids look back at the  video of our adventure and say, "Our mom is crazy but that was totally worth it!" 

Manning 2024.

8 adults. 9 kids. Everyone on skis/snowboard and it gets better every year.

This is the 5th year we have done this so we are getting' pretty good at rockin' the multi-family vacation thing. Just remember these 5 things:

1. Rent chalets side-by-side. The ones at Manning are great. Each side of the chalet has a huge space with a double bed and 2 sets of bunk beds and two families share a kitchen. We had 2 chalets beside each other which was perfect. 

2. Plan B where there isn't enough snow. This ski season has been disappointing for powder for all the mountains in the lower mainland. Usually, our crew skis for 2 days but this time we opted for only 1 ski day. There's lots of other things to do at Manning, the moms hiked lightening lakes and it was gorgeous. This was the first year we sent all 9 kids to the pool by themselves and no adult had to supervise. 

3. Make the most of mediocre snow. With the snow barely covering the rocks, we were lucky the ski lift was even running. There were only 3 runs open, they must have taken all the existing snow to make it barely cover the cat track but the kids were happy to take off with their friends and skied all day. They spent more time in the rail park and practicing the “griddy” while skiing…

4. Hockey outside and inside. The boys all brought their hockey sticks and when they weren't skiing, they were either playing street hockey outside or watching the Canucks game inside the cabin. Noah doesn't have any brothers so he was SO thrilled to have so many boys to play hockey with.

5. Keep making memories. We've already booked next year.