Touring the family nursery

J and I have been in Kelowna for almost a week - we came up specifically for a family reunion. Our family business is 100 this year and we had a party to celebrate. My great-grandfather started the business and our family has grown from him and his brother to a five-generation super-family! My great-grandparents are the first generation. They had four kids. Their four kids gave them 20 grandchildren. Those 20 grandchildren produced 44 great-grandchildren (that's my generation) and my generation is just getting started, but there are 13 great-great-grandchildren.

So our little celebration was kind of not so little. There are lots of pictures in this post and I've broken it into two parts...

We started our day of celebration with a tour of the nursery part of the family business. It's the original part and the reason we're celebrating...

Apparently we all passed the first test - we didn't pose any biological threat to the trees so they let us in to play for a few hours.

We started our tour by this truck, loaded and ready to go. It had something like 94 trees that weighed 750lbs each.

The whole gang, ready to go...

We got to go on a little hayride around the property. This particular trailer is for the over 50 and under 5 crowd (because it has a canopy) but parents and helpers of the under five crowd were invited too. I was happy. It was hot.

Less than 15 minutes after we arrived my kid was already covered in muck. It was super dusty and I'm sure it was sticking to the sun screen. And she's almost three.

J was thrilled to have a chance to "drive" the tractor. We all know how much she loves machines!

J and P found a peach tree so my Auntie Jenny helped them pick peaches.

Very happy with the fruits of their labour...ugh...I should steer clear of puns. The peaches were so good though. We all had an impromptu snack in the middle of the tour.

This tree, creatively named the big tree, is important to the family.

It's where my great-grandfather (founder of the nursery) and my great-grandmother's ashes are scattered.

After walking through the life of a tree from seed to plug to big tree (I think this one is six years old) we got to see the tree spade at work.

There is a spectacular view from the nursery, although I miss the old bridge...

My dad, my mom, Kelsey, me (no Rebecca...boo. Alex and J were off somewhere doing something...eating peaches maybe?)

J loved this truck and wanted to be with the trees lots. Behind her you can see the super powerful sprinkler. It pumps water at some huge per second rate...not a sprinkler you'd probably want to play in!

The next generation - my mom and her four sister who are the current owner/operators of the business.

After the tour, everyone went home to wash the dust off before a super fun evening. But that's for another post!