So much to blog about!

I have been looking at my list of things to do and seeing "blog" on there for a few weeks! Today it's rainy and my tennis lesson got cancelled so I thought it would be the perfect time to dig in and get going on this!

3 weeks ago, my brother, Amanda and their kiddos flew up here for the week! We were counting down the days for a month and my kids were so excited about them coming. Max and Mya got out to the car 5 minutes quicker than usual because they knew their cousins would be waiting for them! Over the next 6 days, I took around 300 pictures so I'm going to do my best to blog about what we did in a condensed version!

On June 4th, we celebrated Brian's birthday. The kids are always happy to celebrate anyone's birthday because they know it means cake for them! The girls helped with the prep and we got about half the cupcakes than usual because of all the batter eaters:) We fed the kids dinner, did the cupcake thing and then enjoyed a nice adult dinner after the kids were settled in for a movie or asleep!

Friday morning we got up bright and early and got all packed up and headed to the mountains! We stayed for 2 nights and did about as much as humanly possible with 6 kids in tow! The hotel had a great pool with a super fast slide and the weather cooperated perfectly for us. When we got to town, our hotel wasn't quite ready so we headed into Banff and enjoyed some ice cream and took in the view at Bow Falls and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. Afterwards, we headed to the hotel to swim and ordered some pizza before calling it a night!

Saturday we got up and drove to Johnston Canyon. We enjoyed the hike to the lower falls with all the kids. Chris and Max went to the Upper Falls alone while the rest of us had a little picnic back at the bottom. The highlight of this trip was on our way to the Canyon, we saw a black bear on the side of the road! It was the first bear I've seen outside of captivity and it was 5 feet away from me. We slowed down and the kids got to see it as well.

After Johnston Canyon we went to Lake Louise and battled the major crowds and tired/napping kiddos. It was such a beautiful day so it was totally worth it. The kids loved playing on the rocks and touching the cold, cold water! Grace woke up and joined in a little later. We had one whole group pic while we were there and right before the pic, I accidentally bonked Grace on the head with my cell phone so that's why she's not looking in the picture.

After Lake Louise we headed down the mountain and across the road to the Lake Louise ski area. We got some treats, watched the "watch out for bears" video, threw away our treats and headed up the gondola! There was still snow up there and the kids were able to play a bit and get some good pics and take in the view of the lake. We were all pretty wiped and headed back to town for some ice cream, a quick stop at the grocery store and back to the hotel for swimming and bed!

Sunday morning we woke up, swam, cleaned up, got lunch and headed up to Mount Norquay to eat it and headed back home. The trip home was a little louder than I was anticipating, but we made it and then spent the next few hours unpacking and filling up the washing machine!

Monday,my kids went to school. It ended up working out fine because we picked them up for lunch and went to a park and then after I took Olivia, Grace and Ivy to the gymnastics club for open gym. They loved it and basically we got home and went to pick up the kids from school. Monday night Chris and Brian golfed and we ate dinner, went for a walk and got the kids to bed at a decent time. Tuesday morning they packed up and left and had an uneventful trip home, thank goodness! It was an awesome trip and we are so thankful/blessed that they made the trip to come and see us! We can't wait to get home this summer and spend some more time with them!