Tag Archives: Sip n’ Dip

Best of 2025

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2025 was a fun year. The Sip Family made four journeys to the Disneyland Resort, each during a different season and to celebrate different occasions. We also enjoyed our first full year in our new home, being able to entertain friends and family again, while exploring parts of our province on weekend road trips. On average, I’d say we get up to something significant about once a month, so here’s 12 highlights from 2025:

Home, Sweet Home

New year, new home. We kicked off 2025 with a bang, inviting friends to check out our new abode. For the occasion, I served a Sip Advisor original cocktail, offering the Home, Sweet Home (Southern Comfort, spiced rum, pomegranate juice, lemonade, club soda) to guests. The party provided a great launch pad for the year to come.

Year of the Snake

Our first of four trips to Disneyland under our Magic Key year passes occurred at the end of January. While at the resort, we took advantage of the Lunar New Year Festival celebrations, trying a number of Asian treats, both savoury and sweet. We feasted throughout the visit, trying many dishes and drinks inside and out of the park.

Whiskey Business

Always a highlight of the years I’m able to make the event, I enjoyed the 2025 edition of the Regiment Whiskey Tasting. Pa Sip joined for the first time and got into the whiskeys served, despite traditionally sticking to other libations. We have tickets to the 2026 event already lined up, so looking forward to a repeat performance from the crew.

SoCal Bound

For the second straight year, we spent spring break on the road, once again making our way to Southern California. We spent eight days at Disneyland, broken up by a quick expedition to the Legoland Resort for a couple nights. Cousin Sip and her brood were with us for some of the vacation, providing a different experience for the Siplings.

Crawl to Order

At the end of the Easter long weekend, Mrs. Sip was due in Kelowna for work and with some time off days to spare, I decided to join her. When her work ended earlier than anticipated, we got to do a bit of a crawl around the downtown area, hitting a number of craft breweries, eateries and bars. We even won trivia on our arrival night.

Read Between the Wines

For the May long weekend, we found ourselves in Osoyoos, staying at the Spirit Ridge resort. There, we dragged the kids around on a full-day winery tour, which they behaved pretty good on. Their reward: taking advantage of the resort’s facilities, including letting the kids play in the pool while enjoying beverages from the sidelines.

While the Kids Are Away…

For two glorious weeks in the summer, Ma and Pa Sip took the Siplings on a tour throughout the province to visit distant family. This offered Mrs. Sip and I some time to ourselves without worrying about childcare and we took full advantage, attending a number of events, while also getting away for the August long weekend in Peachland.

Island Hopping

Once the kids were back with us, there was little time to rest and relax. The next day we were off to Vancouver Island for the communion of a friend’s two children. We stayed in Qualicum Beach, visiting both breweries the small town offers, while also giving the kids ample opportunity to swim and ride the waterslides of our accommodation.

Halloween Already?

At the end of August, we were off to Disneyland again, where the resort was already celebrating the Halloween season. Aside from using our year passes another time, this trips focus was to celebrate my and Mrs. Sip’s 13th wedding anniversary and we did so in style, with meals at both the Blue Bayou and Lamplight Lounge.

Speakeasies and Sinners

To celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday, we took off to Las Vegas for the first time since 2023. The birthday boy put together an amazing itinerary that took us to numerous speakeasies, restaurants and entertainment attractions. We were so busy, we never even made it to the pool, which was a reason we booked the hotel we did.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas is a magical time and particularly at the Disney parks, which go all out with lighting, decorations, food and drink to fill the season with merriment. We also celebrated Ma Sip’s birthday on this getaway and Mrs. Sip and I explored the City Center of Anaheim for the first time, learning about a new to us amazing area.

Christmastime is Here

Christmas at home is amazing too. We spent the season cramming many festive activities into our busy schedule. Best of all, I had time off from work from Christmas Day until early January, which offered a wonderful mix of doing things and doing nothing at all, seeing friends and spending quality time with the Sip Family.

2026 has a lot to live up to. I’m optimistic it can be another fantastic year, full of good times with great people. Don’t let me down 2026!

Sip Trips #200: August Awe

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Wow, I can’t believe this is the 200th Sip Trip post. We’ve documented so many adventures since I started doing them, with the best still yet to come. Typically, I’ve been posting Sip Trips monthly, but an event we attended this week is being run twice more before the end of August and I want to get my thoughts out there to anyone who may want more info on it. So, here’s what we’ve been up to for most of the month:

Our first journey took us to the Langley Farmers Market, which was featuring a Craft Beer Crawl. In attendance from Langley’s burgeoning craft beer scene was Camp, Dead Frog, Smuggler’s Cove, Five Roads, Locality, and Farm Country. We bought tall can four-packs from four of the breweries, which has stocked us well for the last couple weeks. We also enjoyed some neat ice cream from Rolled West Coast, going with the Cookie Monster offering.

farmers market

Following the market, we went for dinner at the newly-opened The Barley Merchant. I targeted a serving of Dead Frog Big Melon, Little Berries Watermelon Blackberry Imperial Pilsner, which was very good. It also paired well with my The Dirty Bird fried chicken burger with fries. I look forward to return trip to the eatery, which offers 50 taps of beer and ciders.

The event I want to highlight for this Sip Trips was the Sip n’ Dip (aka Sip & Swim) at the Otter Co-op Outdoor Experience waterpark in Aldergrove. $15.75 plus tax paid for admission and one drink ticket, with additional tickets costing $5 each. There was only 200 spaces available for the event, with registration opening a week prior. Folks should get there early, as you have to sign in and buy your extra drink tickets before entering. We picked up an extra six tickets, with me theory that we would go through a drink each half our portion of the two-hour event. I used my tickets on Trading Post Helles Lagers and Farm Country Everyday Ales. They also had two flavours of White Claw Hard Seltzers, a cider and wine available.

I thought the event was pretty well run, but three hours instead of two would have been great. As Mrs. Sip put it, three hours is not long enough for people to get too messed up and long enough for people to pace themselves better, not that I saw any issues with that over the course of the evening. A Triple O’s food truck was on site for those who wanted to eat. One issue was that only small “wallet size” lockers were available to those who wanted to secure their items. Other than that, I can’t think of any other problems.

livin the dream

Following the Sip n’ Dip, we went to the Townhall Pub in Langley for some late night happy hour treats. I had an order of Chicken Tenders with fries, while also sharing some of Mrs. Sip’s Pulled Pork Hushpuppies. It was a decadent meal, with multiple $3 highballs and finished with slices of Oreo Cheesecake.

That wraps this mid-month report. Despite our wedding anniversary coming up soon, I’m not sure we’ll get to do much for it, as Ma Sip is scheduled for hip replacement surgery the day after, along with Mrs. Sip celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday over the occasion and going away on a girl’s trip. I want to wish Mrs. Sip a fun time away and Ma Sip all the best in her recovery.