Hyack Festival

Every May, our city hosts one of the largest Victoria Day/May Day celebrations in the British Commonwealth. It's a whole week of celebrations, parties, parades and fun stuff to do. On Victoria Day, I took the boys to Queen's Park for Family Days. The petting farm was open for the season and the boys had a good time visiting with the goats, bunnies and month-old baby calf. We played on the playground for a while and then went to check out the amusement park rides that were there. It was way too expensive ($4 per ride - I wasn't paying $12 for the three of us to ride on the elephants!), so we just wandered around. Daniel was upset about not going on the rides so I bought him popcorn instead - that ended up being his favourite part!

Next we went to see the "Ancient and Honourable Anvil Salute." Supposedly, back in 1860, they didn't have a cannon to salute the queen with, so they set gun powder under an anvil to make the salute instead. It's been continuing every year since here in New West. Tradition is very important here! The boys thought it was pretty cool seeing the explosion and the anvil go flying - the first three times. But they do it 21 times! By the third time, Daniel had had enough of the "big boom" and was getting a bit scared. It really is loud - I had to cover Adam's ears and Daniel covered his own - but there was no one to protect my ears!

Adam's favourite part was the dog agility racing, of course. We watched the dogs race and climb for a while but then it started to rain. But we had a fun little morning out, just the three of us.

The next weekend was the Hyack Parade. It's become a bit of a family tradition for us to go to the Hyack Parade. James used to participate in it every year with the North Vancouver Youth Band and now we take the boys to see it. We met up with Gramma and Grampa and their friends, Don and Marilynne, and watched the parade in the beautiful sunshine.

It's a long parade but the boys paid attention to most of it.

At one point, the float from Kelowna came by and broked down right in front of us! After a few minutes it was obvious that it wasn't going anywhere. So James went to join a bunch of other guys and pushed the float down the street. There poor Ogopogo sat until the end of the parade - when the tow truck could actually come by!

The boys had a great time. I think Adam's favourite part was the ReMax entry - all the real estate agents walked by with their dogs! This boy loves animals! Daniel's favourite part was either the Seattle Seafair entry (a huge pirate ship float that occasionally sets off a loud cannon) or the entry from the Fathers for Justice (I think they're called). They were all dressed in super hero costumes. Although it seems like an odd addition to a parade, I'm sure it was a favourite of all the 3 year old boys!

The weather was beautiful, the parade was fun (although a little slow at times) and we all had a good time.