We love to play.....play in the water, ooh hoo.

Last year we were excited to go up to Canada and to play on the beautiful new playground. This year we were met with an even better addition: The Splash Area. Who cares that it is 60 degrees out? Who cares that the water is glacier water? Not my kids! We all had a blast (including my dad and brothers who had a little too much fun).

For Your Viewing Pleasure...

I feel a little overwhelmed with how much I have to blog, so I thought I would do a post-lite. Here are some pictures from Canada that just make me smile (and out right laugh). Baby deer are so cute, and we see them all over the park playing, eating, pooping (Ethan's favorite) and laying by cabins. What I had never seen is a baby deer actually sleeping. Until now: Everyone say "Ahhhh." Can it get any cuter. Yes. Another baby deer came over and was nuzzling the sleeping deer until he woke up, and they proceeded to kiss. Yes Eric, I am sure there is a technical term and reason for this, but I choose to believe that they are kissing, stop trying to ruin this for me.

We loved this sign that is new to one of the trails. It is suppose to show you that deer will attack when provoked, but to all of us it looked like the man and deer were boogieing down to some awesome tunes.

This last pictures needs a little background. There are a couple of cabins across the road from us that are all owned by a big extended family. They have LOTS of little kids running around with no supervision, and by "running around" I mean "scary Lord of the Flies running wild." It provided us hours of entertainment just watching the shenanigans of this little clan. We saw kids go off a homemade bike ramp, an improvised game of darts with sharpened sticks were kids had to run by as they were thrown (I think to weed out the weaker ones), and even a child scale a basketball hoop to climb OVER a trampoline enclosure and do a flip down off of the hoop onto the trampoline.
Then one morning the piece-de-resistance: Yes, that is a child in a lion costume riding a bicycle. It was better than the circus!

At least the helmets are styling!

Nothing says safety like putting the chin strap in your mouth! My Dad always has some project going on. He is either cutting gems, putting on a family "Amazing Race," planning a creperie, designing the most amazing spook alley, or researching some cool activity. This trip to Waterton was no exception. Before we got there Dad had spent a LOT of time researching the best type of motorized vehicle for entertainment in the park. It was narrowed down between gas and electric scooters. After flying into Calgary Mom and Dad picked up the final product: Awesome Electric Scooters!!!!
One problem, only one of them was assembled. It took 5 people to get all the pieces together in the right configuration, but eventually they did it! James was nice and took my kids on rides (over, and over, and over, and over again). Here are Ethan and James making muscle man poses (okay, James is. Ethan's is more of a wet noodle pose). Everyone thought they were great. We could zip over to the docks to deliver left behind diapers, take a nice cruise up to Cameron Falls, or even drive through the camp ground by the cabins (Ella's favorite because the road was so bumpy). All in all we loved them and can't wait to ride them all over the park next year!

ARRRHHHGGGGHHYYYYAAA, or almost back from Zombieland

So we've been off the radar for over a month, and there is so much to do I feel a little overwhelmed. We were lucky enough to spend 3 glorious weeks in Waterton Canada at my parents cabin, and then a week at Aspen Grove in Utah for our family reunion. Before you get mad we didn't call or stop by (or in Justin's case, move into his basement) we spent most of the week in Utah throwing up all over the place (and some of the ride home too!) so you weren't missing much.
I'm not really sure were to start in making you jealous in how awesome our vacation was (although mentioning vomit is sure to start your envy going) so I will start with something SUPER fun we got to do: Red Rock Canyon.

For those of you unfamiliar with Red Rock, shame on you. It is so much fun, and beautiful. It's like a hiking obstacle course up a canyon with a river/stream running through the whole thing. The three younger married couples all went together while my parents were nice enough to watch all the kids (running theme for the whole trip). I love this picture. You can tell how long each couple has been married by the embrace they each use in the pose (Good thing Julia and McKay weren't there! j/k we really missed them, but Julia was having too much fun being a celebrity in China to be bothered with visiting with all of us). It's fun how you have to rely on everyone to make it up the canyon. Most of the way up you end up getting very wet, (Yes, you do, Mom) but James was determined to stay dry the whole way up. Look how well that worked out:James and I surveying this awesome waterfall area. I almost smacked him right off on accident, but luckily he has the footing of a mountain goat. There was this amazing area that looks like a dam where I am sure most people turn around and go back, but not us. We found a hole and climbed up, but that meant we had to climb back down. It wasn't hard, but it was sure intimidating. We (I) made Eric and James go down first to help us from below while Andrew helped us from above. I love how Eric stuck his head in at the last moment and we got this awesomely random shot.In the first video James, Andrew, myself, and Eric decide to try one of the waterfalls. Andrew was nice enough to check the bottom for any sharp objects that may kill us before we went down. It became a running theme "Andrew, go check the bottom." As always he was a very good sport. The other videos are just us having fun jumping in pools of water and sliding down rocks.