Tunnel Mountain Village #1, Banff, Alberta, Canada

After Drumheller we headed west over to Canada's first National Park System in Banff, Alberta. We set up camp in Tunnel Mountain Village #1 and a few hours after we arrived my FAVORITE cousin Gord and his son Austin arrived from Vancouver.


The next day my Auntie Mary Lea, Uncle Rye and cousin Elena drove down from Prince George, British Columbia. We had the best campsite...Complete with a constant campfire, screened picnic tables, and the best company ever.


The first day we hiked down to the city of Banff. It was a fun walk down to the valley. The city was under major construction, and I think that's part of the reason I didn't take any pictures there. I did take one (not very good) picture of Reeve, Kyle and Austin skipping rocks into the Bow River.

We didn't stay there very long because we were determined to catch the bus back to camp...no one was eager to hike the mountain road back up to our campsite.

We really enjoyed the nature programs the campsite put on in their ampitheatre at 9pm each night. I'll post more pics of the HOODOOS and Sulphur Mtn. in the next few days.

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

We had one whole day in Drumheller, and we had fun. After we toured the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum we spent some time exploring the badlands.

Reeve really had his heart set on going to Drumheller and finding a dinosaur fossil all on his own.

Kyle was happy to help his big bro on their dino expedition. It was a beautiful day and Tom and I were more than happy to take a break and read our books while the boys searched for fossils.

After awhile Kyle gave out and Reeve continued his search in what he said was an ancient river bed. He scoped the scene before he made a decision on where he thought the most likely spot for a dinosaur to be found.

After lunch and the dig we walked around Drumheller. It's a cute little town with dinosaurs on every corner.

Our Trip to Canada

Our vacation started out by taking a 10 hour drive north to Winnipeg, Manitoba. My Great Aunt Louise lives there and I had never met her before. She's an extremely dear woman to me. She remembers to send us birthday cards, anniversary cards, and seasonal cards every year. I've corresponded with her the most I have with anyone else in my life, so I had to meet her!

Her grandson Leif stopped by when he heard we would be in town. We had a great time talking and visiting.
Aunt Louise lives in a condo that is connected to a huge shopping complex that houses a huge YMCA. In the winter she never has to go outside to go shopping. They have EVERYTHING in there...including an Office Depot. We were really surprised to see that Winnipeg is a HUGE city.
After our visit we hit the road again. We drove about 15 hours to Drumheller, Alberta...the Dinosaur Capital of the World. We arrived in the morning and drove through extremely thick fog in the badlands to get there. The whole drive was terribly BORING. Nothing but canola fields and wheat fields. We had to pull over twice to sleep, which is very uncharacteristic for us. Usually one of us is able to sleep while the other one drives...that just wasn't happening in lonely, deserted, SASKATCHAWAN.

This T-Rex greeted us after our long journey. Reeve was very concerned that the whole thing was going to topple over. Our campground was just across the street. I didn't take any pictures of it...it wasn't much for looks. It had rained the night before and everything was very muddy. It's one unique feature was all the bunny rabbits they had hopping about. Not wild bunnies, but domestic rabbits let loose to multiply throughout the campground. Each site must have had 5-10 little bunnies hopping around. They were'nt "friendly" bunnies. Not one would let us pet them, but they were everywhere.

Reeve and Kyle are standing near a T-Rex skeleton...I think they were a bit disappointed to learn the actual size of a T-Rex. It was no where as large as the fake one they had just seen.

Kyle's set

Here's one on of Kyle showing that he's 4 with a butterfly on his hand.

We asked Kyle to get dressed before he came outside because we were going to take pictures. He didn't want to get dressed and if Kyle doesn't want to do something he doesn't. He's very opinionated and very stubborn. He knows all of our limits and he loves to play right on the edge of reason...he's a handful!
Reeve was quick to remind him that he'd be in his underwear for the pictures. He still didn't want to go in and get dressed so he decided he could hide the fact he was only wearing his undies...

He's 4 and he still sometimes thinks that if HE can't see it then nobody else can see it either. Here he is covering his eyes with the butterfly, so the rest of us can't see he's just in his undies.

He also had the idea to lean far forward, so that you can't see his lower half. He's such a goof. He hates these pictures by the way. He's seen me cut and crop other pictures and he couldn't understand why I wouldn't just cut and crop his body out. I told him I thought they were great pictures. Don't they just make you laugh?

The last one is of a monarch on our Black Eyed Susan... our only really successful flower group from my Mom and Dad. Next year though I'm hoping the Irises will also bloom.

Neighbor's Monarchs

Our neighbors went on vacation and brought over their Monarch chrysalises before they left. They have a milkweed patch in front of their house and they collected a ton of caterpillars! I don't even remember how many hatched out while they were gone, but it was around 10.
I picked out 10 of the best pictures that will be in this post and the next.
The first set is mainly a Reeve set.

In this next pic Reeve wasn't feeling too great. He had a fever of about 101.60F and we went to the Dr. shortly afterward. I thought for sure it was Lyme's again, but they couldn't test him again because it had been too soon since he had it in June. Ugh! Whatever it was it worked out of his system in a couple of days. I don't think I mentioned that Kyle had Lyme's again and he was still on his antibiotics, but feeling good. Poor kid had a fever off and on for a couple of days and a headache and limb pain...Ugh!

Here they are together...

and together again

They decided it would be pretty funny to see our cat Cosmo walking around with a couple of butterflies on his back. Cosmo is such a good cat, he didn't mind at all, but we didn't let them stay there for long.

Locked out at the air show

As we were getting our gear out of the minivan someone (he shall remain nameless) locked the keys in the van!! We decided to worry about it when we got back. At the airshow Tommy was able to find a coat hanger.

Luckily we had left the windows cracked. Tommy set to work breaking into the Toyota Previa with a coat hanger. Reeve couldn't believe it...

About 15 minutes later Tommy had succesfully unlocked the vehicle :-)
The kids were exhausted from the day and had a peaceful ride home.

More pics from Oshkosh

Reeve got to make a plane too, but wouldn't you know it BOTH planes are now broken...that didn't last long.




We saw a LOT of really neato looking planes, but they were really out of our price league. For example a couple of the ones we liked were around 500k!!!!! YIKES :-)

We briefly went to the actual air show, but it was EXTREMEMLY noisy. Reeve DID NOT like it at all.

We left after about an hour. As we were leaving it looked like bombs of billowing black smoke were added as special effects. It was nasty...we felt like we were leaving a war zone.

Experimental Aircraft Show in Oshkosh

Last weekend we went the the Experimental Aircraft Show in Oshkosh, WI (about 2hrs west of us). It was VERY hot, but the kids had a great time!
So did Tommy,

They had motorized mini planes on wires that you can fly around in a circle. The kids went first...here's Reeve

Then it was Kyle's turn

They get pretty dizzy spinning around in a circle

After that we went to the Kid Venture tent where the kids got to make their own wind up planes.

We learned about a pretty cool free website that is a flight simulator game. I can barely get Kyle away from the computer to eat. When he start he doesn't want to get off. I've limited his time to Friday afternoon and Saturday morning ONLY. Here is the link... if that doesn't work just google fms.

Visit with Friends

We had a very nice visit with our friends Mike and Elena and their children, Quinn, Riley, Sophie & Eli.




They live about an hour and a half south of us, but own property about 13 miles away. It's always a treat when they come to visit. Reeve and Kyle absoultely LOVE their kids. They all get along so well and have so much fun together. We went berry picking and took a walk through the woods.

PLEASE HELP!

I need to print out flyers with my black & white pic on them...which one do I choose??? Please help me out and vote in the poll. I need to know ASAP. Think who would you trust to get you the best rate for your mortgage, refinance, home equity line of credit, construction loan, etc...

A few pics from Mom's camera

Today Tommy gets to stay home with the kids while I go off to work. He starts his new 4 day work week this week. Yay!
I worked my last weekend at the gas station. It was tough to say goodbye to all the nice people I work with, but I am SO relieved I stopped working there.
My Mom sent me the pics that she took while she was here.
Here I am in my office at Affordable Mortgage:

and here I am on my way to work one day:

This is a really cool pic of Reeve caught "walking on water" as he was jumping off the diving board into the deep end...he's favorite part of swimming class.

Here's a pic of all of us at the Elroy pool:

and a pic of Kyle practicing his back float

Reeve walking Brenda's goat Dolly

and Reeve lost his 4th tooth...it was acciedently knocked out of his mouth while he and Kyle were playing. Kyle was the one to find it on the floor.