Life On The Ranch: Week 15 Summary

Oh hi there. Been a while. No excuses, just lazy.

Since I already wrote half of this summary several weeks back, I figured it would be a total waste of my time not to finish it.

We are actually moving away from Myra Canyon Ranch NEXT WEEK (!!!) Cue very panicked packing time and me trying to fit two cars worth of stuff into one car...

I already know that I won't be able to catch up on the weekly summaries for the past two months, so after this post I will be writing a "mega summary" of all of our Springtime fun. For now, here's all that went down back in February, in week 15.

A Cedar Creek Sunset

Regular readers of this blog will know how obsessive I am about sunsets. I think they are one of the best free things you can do in this world and I love it when we live in places where we get to see regular sunsets. #westisbest

The morning after our Virtual Super Bowl Party we were feeling a little bit ropey and, unfortunately, Rich had to "go to work" (the dining room table).

To help ease us through the day, Rich suggested that when he finished we could drive down to Kelowna, to watch the sun setting over the lake. As the day drew on, the skies grew cloudier and cloudier and it got colder and colder.

Nevertheless, our pounding heads encouraged us to take a drive to the lake in case a sunset could be salvaged and, armed with a flask of green tea, we ventured out.

It definitely wasn't the best we've seen since we've been here and it was so painfully cold that we only managed to walk down to the beach for about 10 minutes, and ended up drinking our tea in the car, but it was well worth the drive out.

Accidental Valentine's at the Sparkling Hill Resort

As a couple, we do not celebrate Valentine's Day. There is no real reason for this and we have no issues with it as a concept, we've just never done it.

Over the years, however, we have found ourselves celebrating "Accidental Valentine's"(AV). On our first ever trip to Australia, Richard's brother James offered us a room in a hotel that he could no longer use and we booked it in without noticing the date. We only realised later, when trying to make reservations for dinner, that most of the city was already fully booked.

Similarly, a year later, when we were on our Australian East Coast campervan trip, we pulled up in Brisbane to check into a hotel - desperate for a decent shower and being able to sit up in bed! It was only when we headed out to Jamie's Italian and found a three-level restaurant completely full of loved up couples, that we realised what we had done again!

"Family Day" in BC falls on the third Monday in February and in the two years we've lived here, that has fallen over the weekend of the 14th, meaning we have once again celebrated "accidental Valentine's"

This year, our AV adventure took us north on Highway 97 through the truly beautiful Lake Country to the Sparkling Hill Resort. We were originally meant to visit the resort for the night when we moved to Kelowna, but roughly 15 hours before we were due to hit the road we were informed that due to Covid, the resort would have to close for 10 days.

Room With A View, Sparkling Hill Resort, Vernon, BC, February 2021

We were super excited to finally get to visit the resort and me even more so, as Rich surprised me with the news just two days before our arrival.

Maybe it was because we'd built it up so much, or because the marketing team have done such a great job with their website, but we were definitely slightly underwhelmed when we got there.

Check-in was crazy full of people - I'm not that surprised there was an outbreak to be honest - and our room wasn't ready even though we'd only arrived 10 minutes prior to the suggested check-in time. Also, they couldn't seat us for dinner until 9:30pm (even though we'd pre-booked a package that included a five-course meal.)

Not a problem for us, we'd just hit the bar instead.

Cut scene to us awkwardly hovering at the "please wait to be seated" sign with all of our overnight things, whilst three separate servers ignored us. It was definitely not going well.

Once we were finally seated in the bar with wine on the way, Rich got an email, a text and a phone call advising him that our room key was ready and that he could just skip the queue to retrieve it.

Cut scene to Rich awkwardly hovering in the lobby waiting for someone to rescue him from having to re-join the queue. It didn't happen so he came back to the bar.

When we finally got into our room, once again, we felt a little underwhelmed. The room, though beautiful, was much smaller than we thought based on the website photos and we could be seen by people in the outdoor pool. So much for enjoying the freestanding lakeview bath.

Fortunately, just when I'm at risk of completely sounding like an entitled, ungrateful, whiney b*tch, I'm glad to say that the stay got so much better.

We cracked open the the bubbles, popped on our hotel robes and slippers and enjoyed the spa. Rich particularly loved the pool that played music underwater and we had lots of fun going through the hot and cold chambers in the Kneipp Hydrotherapy pools.

Dinner was equally successful, some of the best food we've ever had and even more bubbles... I was gutted not to have taken my phone to the restaurant (to try and be more in the moment - never doing that again!) when they served the most beautiful raspberry and chocolate ooey-gooey desserty goodness.

Overall 7/10, would stay again.

And with that mammoth summary over with, it's time for me to get on with the #megapost...