We stayed with my parents' friend from Slovakia, George and his wife Ruth who live in Edmonton. They are such a warm, loving couple and they treated us as if we were a part of their family. We spent a few days in Edmonton with them and after that we went to the mountains. George and Ruth joined us which was so nice because they know all the good places to stop at so we had our own tour guides. The bummer was it rained almost the whole time so there were places we didn't stop at but even so we saw a lot and almost every time we would stop at a place the rain would stop so we were able to walk around without getting soaking wet. We didn't do any longer hikes but I don't know if we would be able to anyway because we were all pretty pooped after each day. When we first got to the mountains the rain was coming down pretty good so we decided to go to the Hot Springs pools by Jasper. It was a great experience, the pools there are very hot and they have a couple very cold pools which people go in and out of. I didn't try the coldest one but the cold pool I went to was enough and I was barely able to go in up to my neck. But since all our kids and everyone else did it I had to try. :)
Our second night in the mountains we were supposed to stay in Canmore which is very close to Banff but just as we got to Banff that evening, the flooding in the southern Alberta was getting bad. Canmore was pretty much cut off from every road so we had to find a hotel in Banff. It is a beautiful town and I was bummed it rained the whole time we were there. As we were watching the news that night, the situation was getting worse and there were almost 100,000 people evacuated in Calgary. Which, of course, was going to be our next stop and we planned to visit some other friends from Slovakia that lived there. By the morning there was no way we could have gone to Calgary or any other way for that matter. Roads in all directions were closed because of flooding for the next 2-3 days except one road going West. That meant going way west and crossing the US border in Idaho. So, it meant a lot longer drive home, but I was excited to see the Glacier park in Montana. However, since driving through the mountains was hard on our van as it was and our breaks weren't in the best shape, we decided to go the lower road, so we didn't get to see the scenic route I wanted to see. But, we were already tired and had many hours of driving ahead of us so even if we saw some cool places we wouldn't have time to stop. But even though we tried to avoid the mountains, we got a whole day's worth of driving through beautiful mountain peaks, being only a mile away from the Yellowstone park's entrance at one point. Every time we thought we're about to leave the mountain area, we would see more snowy peaks around us pop up. They just go on forever it seems like and now I really want to go back to Montana to be able to hike some there and for sure we want to go back to Jasper and Banff area. Ehren and I are already thinking it would be the best 15th anniversary trip next year :) but we'll see.
Overall, it was a very fun trip. We met a lot of wonderful people and saw such beautiful places. Ehren and I are glad we were able to do that with my parents too, it was a great time no matter the weather. Kids loved it too, even though Kason and Anika were more excited to see a big playground than the mountains. Kade loved everything though and he wished we would do more hikes so I think when they're all a bit older they will appreciate that part more. We saw some wild life too, even though most of the animals were hiding because of the rain. A black bear crossed the road in front of us, we got very close to a few elk, and saw a couple mountain goats. Kade was very excited about that and was wishing we could see more wild life but that's ok.
And now here are some pictures for you. Between the 3 cameras we have a ton of pictures so it's hard to pick just a few to put on here. I can't wait to play around with some of them and see what they look like printed.
In Edmonton:
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| our anniversary dinner |
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| one of the many great dinners with their family |
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| Edmonton mall |
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| Edmonton mall |
Around Jasper
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| the guys |
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| mom and dad in the rain :) |
Saying good bye to our friends
On the way home
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| all 4 girls |
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| park in the mountains |
we took a ferryboat across the lake
