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:)