Banff

We just got back last night from our first little road trip here in Canada! The mountains were one of the selling points on moving to Edmonton. I love the mountains in the summer and Chris loves the mountains in the winter so we thought it would be perfect to live close by for a few years! (Chris likes them in the summer too:) We were planning to go to Jasper National Park (which is a little bit closer for us than Banff) but we couldn't find a hotel room last minute so we decided to go to Banff! We didn't have a hotel room there, but with Calgary being only an hour away we figured we could always drive to Calgary and stay there. Luckily, we found a hotel in Canmore (10 min from Banff). The trip took us just under 4 hours. It went fast on the way there because around 2 1/2 hours we could start to see the mountains in the distance. I hope the pictures do this place justice. It was the most beautiful place I've seen in my life.

The kids did great. We decided very early on in the trip that we couldn't make the kids appreciate scenery so we weren't going to force them. It was hard at times when they were asking for the iPad or to watch a movie while we were driving up or down a mountain, but for the most part we just let them do what they wanted and enjoyed it ourselves.

We hit up downtown Banff (a city with a population of 8,000 but has 4 million visitors each year) went to Lake Louise, took the gondola up on Lake Louise Mountain and hiked around a bit, drove up Mount Norquay, and had a picnic on Sulpher Mountain. Next time we'd like to do a little more hiking and hit up the hot springs! We brought Chloe with us and it worked out really well. She did some of the stuff with us and stayed in the car for others. We asked if she could go on the gondola and they said no because if a bear saw her, she would get chased! I didn't argue:)

My crew at Lake Louise




Max and Mya loved exploring around the mountain when we would stop. They were a little scared of bears because we had to watch a bear safety video. Unfortunately we didn't see much for wildlife. A couple deer were pretty much it. (but they weren't a big deal to the kids...the deer sleep in their grandparents backyard for crying out loud:)










Mya will do a cartwheel anywhere...including on top of a mountain.


While you're driving into Banff they have fences up alongside the road to protect the wildlife from getting hit by cars. Then every once in awhile you'll see these wildlife crossings where the animals can cross the road safely.




The kids wanted ice cream in downtown Banff even though it was really chilly Saturday night. (50 degrees)




I'll end this post with a little baby butt crack at Lake Louise:)

Our trip home!

I have been trying to figure out how to write this post without making it massive so here's my best shot! We had a wonderful trip home. We left on July 24th and came back on August 11th so it was almost 3 weeks. We got to see lots of family and friends, but definitely missed a few key ones as well. Hopefully the next trip at Christmas time we can catch the others. There just weren't enough hours in the day to fit it all in!

Highlights: (in no particular order although the first one was pretty much top highlight for me!)

1. Meeting baby Quinn! I feel so lucky that we only had to wait 3 weeks to meet this precious baby girl. I can't believe how it all worked out...Quinn got her passport in 2 weeks, Tony was able to take a leave, they found flights that worked, etc. Pretty sure my sis was made to be a mom. She has a confidence that I didn't have until Max was 6 months old, I swear. I'm so proud of her for everything she has done on her own this past year and am so happy she gets to spend a few extra weeks at home with my parents while Tony is out of town.



2. Baptism. Since everyone (except Chris and Tony's sister Erin and fam) would be there on Sunday July 27th, Tara and Tony decided to get Quinn baptized. It was a great service at Tony's church in Burr Oak by the same Pastor that married them just over a year ago. We had a lovely brunch at Rubiyat afterwards as well!



2. Cousin time! My kiddos always love cousin time and this trip was no different. We did lots of fun things with Livi, Grace and Grady. Mya especially was very fond of Grady this trip because he is not quite as breakable as Quinn so she enjoyed picking him up and playing with him.





3. Family Fun Day. There was one day on our trip to Decorah that the entire family would be around at the same time! For as long as we were there, it was crazy how it worked out that we were always missing one person! So we took full advantage of our day and had such a great time playing games, eating, getting some alone time with adults, and an awesome surprise dinner that my parents did for us (complete with hiring a babysitter for all of the kiddos so we could eat in peace!)



4. Dubuque friends! We spent a few days in Dubuque seeing some of our favorite neighbors and friends. We stayed the first night at our next door neighbors and it was pretty cute how giddy the kids were as we were pulling into our neighborhood. Although I'm glad the house sold, it was kind of sad to see the sign on our yard! Mya asked if we could play on the swing set (we gave it away) and Ivy asked for a purple popsicle from our house! It was hard for me to see them wanting to go back to our house. Other highlights were spending an afternoon on the Mississippi, Max got to go on a bike trip with his buddies Sam and Owen, we surprised some friends at a play date, a huge park play date, getting to swim at the new pool at the country club and having conversations with friends who could pick up right where we left off! For staying at 3 different houses, the kiddos did amazing with being flexible and understanding of everything we did!




5. Canoeing. Two of our old neighbors came up to Decorah on Saturday Aug. 2nd and we had our 2nd annual canoe trip on the Upper Iowa River! Since Chris wasn't around during our Dubuque time, it was great for him to see his buddies too. We had a beautiful day on the river and had a nice dinner in Decorah that night! Can't wait for the 3rd annual float next year;)



6. Cabin! We ended our trip with a few days at the cabin in Minnesota with Chris's parents and Uncle Jeff! It was the perfect way to end the trip because we just stayed put for a few days and got to relax. It was filled with eating good cabin food, drinking lots of coffee, playing in the lake, playing bean bags, making s'mores more than once, starting up the old fishing boat and cruising around a little bit, playing on the beach, reading, doing lots and lots of swimming, and playing cards.





Special thanks to everyone who helped us with lots throughout this trip with logistics, childcare, lodging, etc. We are already looking at the calendar and figuring out our next trip home!

July one-photo-a-day

I'm way behind on blogging! Just got back last night from an almost 3 week trip back home so there's lots to catch up on! This was the easiest one so here goes....



Day 182: Welcome to the world Quinn Rosen Brown! We were eagerly awaiting her arrival on this day...which also happened to be Canada Day. The kiddos thought that was pretty neat:)
Day 183: I put gas in our Acadia for the first time and was shocked at the price. The $1.19 per liter made me think it was going to be cheaper, but it was quite the opposite. I'm going to have Chris fill up next time.
Day 184: I love that my kids can get their own water, but I hate the constant mess this creates! Ice cubes melted on the floor and a constant drip down the refrigerator! Such problems I have:)
Day 185: Our neighbors behind us invited us over for a bbq on the 4th of July...I was hoping they would be okay with us dressing up in our stars and stripes! They were:) Can you tell Ivy is really into getting her picture taken??!?



Day 186: Managed to get a shot of everyone in the air! The kids love when we get in the trampoline with them, but my turns are few and far between. I get dizzy just looking at the trampoline let alone jumping.
Day 187: On this day we took down the crib and put baby Ivy in the toddler bed:( She loves it and is even staying in her bed now after ending up on the floor most nights the first few weeks.
Day 188: The parks near us have these cool merry-go-rounds. Ivy seems to think she should be up on top. The other moms look at me like I need to be getting her down, but there's no stopping this girl. She's not afraid of anything.
Day 189: Decided to drink my coffee out of my Okinawa Starbucks mug this day because they were having a major typhoon on the island and we were saying extra prayers that our three favorite Okinawans (is that a word?) were okay!




Day 190: Chris stopped by the park on his way home from work to see how crazy Ivy was for himself.
Day 191: My first missed Bunco. Glad I got to facetime in for it and enjoy a glass of wine "with" them:)
Day 192: A lazy morning watching Wild Kratts. All three of my kids prefer to sleep without shirts on and then in the mornings are all cuddled up with blankets because they are cold!
Day 193: We've gotten our $30 out of this Sam's Club pool a hundred times over. We had a nice relaxing Saturday on the deck listening to music and watching the kids play in the yard.



Day 194: Ivy decided she would put herself to sleep on this day. I was holding my breath the whole time because she didn't have a pull-up on!
Day 195: There is still one kid left (sometimes two) who runs to daddy when he comes home from work!
Day 196: Painting day!
Day 197: My first haircut in Canada! Thank goodness it worked out better than my first haircut in Spain! I was really worried about the price because Chris's first haircut was nearly $60! Thankfully mine wasn't outrageous and Chris is now switching to my lady:)


Day 198: Chris, Max and Mya doing the ropes course at Galaxyland for Mya's birthday party.
Day 199: Happy 6th Birthday Mya Pat!
Day 200: We went to K-Days and Mya got to dress up in full hockey gear. Pretty much the cutest hockey player I've ever seen!
Day 201: Max's favorite books are the Puppy Place books by Ellen Miles. He wrote to her at the beginning of the summer and asked if she would write a book about Chloe and she wrote back! She didn't say anything about writing a book about her, but said the picture Max sent was adorable and encouraged him to keep reading.


Day 202: If I can't find Mya at the park I first look at the monkey bars and then these swings.
Day 203: Fresh haircuts for these three before heading home!
Day 204: Three clean kiddos watching some iPad show before bed.
Day 205: We made it to Minnesota! We walked to the park and Ivy did great, but she was too exhausted to walk home so she hitched a ride with Grandma!


Day 206: All is right in the world...I finally got to hold my sweet new niece Quinn!
Day 207: Got some Nordic Dancing in while I was in Decorah. (I'm in yellow) Always fun to dance on Saturday night during the alumni part of the evening.
Day 208: Beautiful Day for a baptism! So glad it worked out that we were home for Quinn's big day.
Day 209: We headed to Dubuque and spent this day on the Mississippi! We pretty much had the river to ourselves and the kids loved playing on the beach with old friends.


Day 210: Dinner with my two favorite dentists around:)
Day 211: These little iPad junkies had fun "joining worlds" or whatever it is they do!
Day 212: Back in Decorah enjoying some time at the pool jumping off of the high dive!