Mountain Vacation 2011

We went on a tour of Alberta a few weeks ago - thought it was about time the kids saw the mountains! It was an amazing time to go, all the leaves were turning colours, and while it wasn't a "hot" vacation, it was still warm enough (for the most part... there is one photo of us in a blizzard!)

As with all of Saskatchewan residents' westward vacations, we had to stop in Vegreville to see the giant egg.

Ryan's artistic portrayal of "A Giant Egg":


Autumn Kids:


We stopped in Edmonton for a night to see some family, and play with the cousins.


Just outside of Edmonton, there is a place called the Jurassic Forest. It was incredible! Especially for a place I had never heard of before! Ryan's Aunt and Uncle told us about it when we were leaving Edmonton, and I'm really glad they did - I think it was the best "dinosaur" thing we saw on the trip. (And there was a lot...)

These animatronic dinosaurs were all along this nature walk, and they moved and made noise when you walked past motion sensors in the bushes.

They had a great big sandbox with bones hidden in the sand. There were brushes laying around that the kids could use to brush the sand away and find the bones.


We stopped for a visit with friends from BC, who are now living in Whitecourt, but I missed resizing photos from that one! Sorry Spivak's, but thanks sooooo much for the fun and hospitality!!

First mountain sighting (too bad Graye was fast asleep...)


We stopped again in Jasper for a couple nights and the first thing we saw there was Maligne Canyon. We took the kids on a big hike around and over it - I can't get over how deep it is! Scary.



Tegan being Tegan:

"Look! I'm camouflaged!"


"I'm a reindeer!!"


Supermodel?


One yellow tree in the middle of a thousand Evergreens.



We also managed to get a free ride up the tram to the top of The Whistlers.


Tegan and Graye both wanted popsicles as a snack from the restaurant at the top...

...despite it being like this outside:

Because of that weather, we ended up being stuck at the top of the mountain for about 3 hours. It was too windy to run the tram back down. They opened up the restaurant for everyone up there though, and we all got free soup, sandwiches, hotdogs, smokies and drinks. Very hospitable! I guess it pays to keep everyone happy when you're all stuck on the top of a mountain, with a very steep dropoff a few steps away, haha!

Ryan contemplating life, the world and everything.


We had an amazing loft hotel room in Jasper, with a fireplace perfect for roasting marshmallows!

This was the view we had in the morning. I think there were four elk out there:


We then went to Athabasca Falls - it is incredible how much water pours over those falls! It's hard to wrap my head around it.




On our way to Banff! And the Columbia Icefields on the way...


With another short stop at Lake Louise:



We went geocaching at Bow Falls in Banff:


And after a couple of days in Banff we went to Calgary to visit Ryan's sister, Kristen, and her husband Chris.

First stop there was the zoo! (And more dinosaur sightseeing!)

Biggest bat I've ever seen:

Joeys!


Bet you can all guess where our last stop before home was...

Yep. Couldn't leave without seeing Drumheller!


And there you have it! 300 photos condensed into this blog post. Haha! The kids traveled really well, there were only a couple of times that I was going to leave a kid on the side of the road. Not too bad! Next year, maybe we'll make it all the way back to BC.

T-Ball

We signed Graye up for T-ball this fall, with his buddy Ethan. Out of 5 classes, we only made it to the first and last one. Guess we didn't plan that out very well. He had a lot of fun at those 2 classes though! We need to practice running in the correct direction, and possibly to each base in order... but otherwise he did great, haha!

Warming up:


He's got his pitching form down!

New Layout!

Hi all - I decided to update the blog's "look"... what do you think? Too busy now? I can never decide whether the background in these ones is super distracting or if it's fun. I really liked the pattern, so I thought I'd give it a try. Let me know if it makes you cringe... :)

Here's a few things we did this summer that I missed, just so this post isn't super boring.

We went to the airshow, which was alright. The actual airshow was pretty good, except we didn't dress appropriately and it got really cold, and eventually started pouring rain (right when the best part - the Snowbirds - started) so we and the kids kinda froze. They still did great though!


Not sure how I feel about all this:


I feel like the whole thing was glamourizing war and showing off all the "cool" weaponry you can "play" with if you join the army. Maybe it's just because Graye was a little too interested! Ah, well. I think we'll just watch from a hill next time, haha!


On an entirely unrelated note, we also took the kids gambling!! No problems with that, haha!! We went to the horse races - and won! I guess maybe I have no problems as long as they are winning???



They even had a cheerleading section!




"Is anyone else having problems with their binoculars?? Mine won't focus..."


And, as always, we did some geocaching. Tegan made a new friend in a one-eyed cat. I tried not to let the kids get too friendly with it, but he just decided to take his own pets from them anyways!

We found some pretty good treasure too.

Tegan's First Day

Tegan also had her first day of school last week. She'll be in preschool for 2 years, same as Graye. She was a little more hesitant than Graye was, but as soon as she sat down and started talking to the other girls she was fine!




No looking back now!! ;)

Graye's First Day of Kindergarten

Graye had his first day of Kindergarten last week, and so far so good! He was exhausted by the end of the day, but still wanted to go back that evening, haha!

This is what Graye looked like when I told him there was still an hour to wait until the school opened, so we couldn't leave yet:

FINALLY we got there, and found the right door...

...and the right hook...

...and the right spot at the table.

Totally acing this school thing!


Finished the assignment and immediately found the dinosaurs. That kid could find a dinosaur hidden in the middle of a 5 acre field!!

Hopefully the rest of the year goes just as well! I won't post the post-school/daycare picture of both of them laying across me crying their eyes out from exhaustion. Don't want to scare any of you who's kids haven't started yet, haha!