Norskadalen Art Class & 1st Soccer Pics

Friday the kids and I went to Coon Valley, WI with our home-schooling group. We all took a Nature Sketch art class at the Norskadalen Nature Center. I thought I had my camera in the car, but I accidently left it at home :-(. It was a beautiful day, and we all enjoyed learning how to sketch in nature. Reeve really loved it. The teacher told him that he drew better than a lot of 8th grade work she's seen. Kyle did really well, especially since the class was geared toward 4th - 8th graders.

In a couple of days I'll upload my recent soccer pics, but this pic below was from Reeve's very first soccer practice. There are about 30-40 kids in his age group for soccer.

The Fall soccer session is more laid back than the Spring session. Tom is helping to coach both Reeve and Kyle's teams. He's never coached before, so he's learning a lot, but having a lot of fun too!
Kyle loves it and can't wait to get right in there and kick the ball.

Hustler Fest Pig Wrestle

I'm behind in posting...as usual. Every year our little town of Hustler has their 3 day Hustler Fest. We usually ride our bikes down to walk around, see neighbors, watch a tractor pull, etc... This year Reeve rode his own bike to Hustler. It's about 4 miles to get to the bike trail, and then about 1.5 miles on the trail to get to Hustler. We walked our bikes down the huge hill. Reeve did great! We were all pretty proud of him. Kyle took it easy in the Burley bike trailer.

New this year to Hustler Fest was the pig wrestle. It was hilarious. There was a team of 3-4 people and they had 1 minute to catch a pig and put it in a bucket.

I think some of the people just wanted to get real muddy...totally gross.

One group of high school boys decided they were going to really go for it and wore their football helmets.

Those little pigs were fast!

Last of the Canada Pictures

I apologize for not posting in a week and leaving the gross post up for so long. We've had a busy week with work, home school, and soccer. I'll post soccer pics this week...or next :-). We have a busy week ahead with Tom's 39th birthday on Thursday :-). Some friends are coming up from Madison to ride the bike trail. Laura has a conference in Wausau on Wednesday and the kids have a field trip to the Norskadalen Nature Center on Friday (www.norskadalen.org).

On our way out of Banff we stopped at the Icefields.



To break up the trip to Prince George, B.C. we stopped at little scenic areas. On one stop Reeve had enough time to make a dam...


On our way out of Prince George we saw our first bear. It was a black bear just eating along the roadside. We were in the minivan and didn't really come to a complete stop, so this is the only picture that was clear.

not feeling well

I'm probably going to take a few days off before I post the last of our trip...I'm going to the doctor today, but I'm about 90% sure that Kyle and I are now exhibiting symptoms of giardia...caused from little protozoa (animals!) living in water that we must have consumed on our trip.

Did anyone else that went on this trip get it too?

Has anyone reading this blog ever had it before? I know that doc will prescribe something, but I've read the medications can have worse side effects than what the giardia's doing and that they might not be 100% effective.

I'd appreciate anyone's knowledge of a natural cure.

Thanks!

Sulphur Mountain near Banff, Alberta, Canada

(pic taken from Sulphur Mtn...view of Tunnel Mtn. & Banff)
After hiking all the way up to the Tea House at Lake Louise we decided to take it easy the next day. Auntie Mary Lea and Uncle Rye treated us all to a luxury Gondola ride up the side of Sulphur Mountain to the top. We'd heard stories from Gord about the difficult hike up Sulphur Mountain...many switch-backs and instead of taking 3 hours to get the top it would probably take us 6 hours.

I must admit I was nervous to ride in the Gondola and the ride probably could have been more enjoyable if I had kept certain comments to myself, so I apologize for being grim on the way up. I didn't time it, but it was a long ride up. The Gondolas were very safe and I don't know why I was in such a funk.

I couldn't believe how many mountains we could see when we got up there! The view was astonishing. We visited one of the oldest weather observation stations. In 1903 the currator of the Banff Museum, Norman Sanson, was also a meterologist. He would climb to the peak (now named Sanson Peak) every 2 weeks or so to record his weather observations. He would make this trek even in winter storms, and sometimes the journey would take him 9-10 hours one way. He had a little kitchen and bunk bed in his observation station. In 1931 he made his 1000th trek up and in 1945, at age 83, he went to the peak to observe a solar eclipse. This is the view from Sanson Peak.

We soaked in the scenery and actually saw a couple of mountain goats.


Next we soaked in the Sulphur Mountain Hot Springs. Basically it was a really HOT pool. We had fun heating our worked muscles in the 104F water, then after awhile we'd take a cold shower and then go back in the pool for more heat. I think it would be a really neat thing to do in the winter after a day of skiing. These hot springs were really responsible for the creation of Banff as Canada's first national park. The natives there had told 2 fur hunters, Willard Younge and Benjamin Pease, about the springs and in 1875 they were the first non-natives to visit the site.

Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

Lake Louise is a stunning turquoise-colored glacier-fed lake. It's an extremely cold lake, but it's beauty more than makes up for that.




We started out wanting to take a leisurely stroll around 1/2 of the lake. We read that it was a 5.2km (about 3 miles) hike to the Tea House. We had just hiked the HooDoos the day before and this trail was better, so we decided to go for it.


We saw many rock climbers around the lake...here's Austin showing us he can climb rocks with no gear...GO AUSTIN :-).


Kyle and Reeve did an awesome job keeping up with everyone. A couple of times Kyle had a shoulder ride, and a lot of the time he wanted to go back, but overall he did excellent for being 4.


We just didn't know what to expect when we set out. Initially you think oh 3 miles that's easy we can do that, but when you're hiking over a mile up in elevation 3 miles can seem like FOREVER. Many times on the trail we thought surely we've hiked 3 miles...it can't be much farther. Well some in the group made it up to the Tea House in a cool 2-2.5hrs and the talkers (Auntie & Me had fun talking) made it up in about 3 hours.

It was an incredible accomplishment for my Aunt, because she has asthma. She was awesome though and not once did she say she wanted to turn around.

Our reward for the long journey was lunch at the Tea House. We had delicious sandwhiches, soup, fruit drinks (no tea for us) and their famous home made chocolate cake.



We felt really good after lunch and we were looking forward to the easier hike DOWN to the lake.

You can kind of see how high we went in this picture...Lake Louise is in the background and we are very near the top where the Tea House was located.

Hiking the HooDoos Trail in Banff, Alberta, Canada

Our first expedition as a big group was a short hike (2-3km) down the road from our campspot. We went to the HooDoos...tall columns of dirt (sand & rock) that are slowly eroding away.

It seemed the trail itself was eroding away. It was the most dangerous trail we went on during our visit to Banff. There was lots of gravely rocks to slip on, going down very steep slippery inclines, nothing secure to hold...Auntie MaryLea and I decided to stop once we arrived at the HooDoos.

It was a beautiful day, and we were really enjoying the view of the crystal clear Bow River and the Banff Springs Hotel in the distance. We could see Sulphur Mountain, Tunnel Mountain, and others...

We watched as Tommy bravely guided Reeve and Kyle down the trail following Austin, Elena, and Gord. Austin, Elena, and Gord all walked over to this little grassy sand island...you can see Gord in this picture.

We had a lot of fun talking and enjoying each other's company.

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.