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.

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.