Our first day there, we drove out to Waterton. It had been a couple of years since we'd climbed Bear's Hump and I really wanted us to do that again. After some initial grumbling and whining, (except for Shae - hers was more extended - but I'm starting to accept that as a constant state of affairs with teenagers) it went really well and the kids were really proud of themselves for their accomplishment when they reached the top (which is exactly what I wanted to have happen). When we reached the top, Hudson exclaimed, "You should buy me hiking poles for my birthday because I'm a really good mountain climber!" Besides the amazing view, the refreshing breeze, and the sense of accomplishment, they also really enjoyed the chubby, well-fed squirrels who brazenly approached us to try and take some of our trail mix. One fat little squirrel even climbed right up onto Connor's leg.
Here's what Bear's Hump looks like from the ground:
And here's the view from the top:
We ate lunch with the family (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins). This is a grumpy James with Spencer - James had a cold this weekend so he wasn't very smiley.
Jess went on a photography excursion in the evening and took some photos of the park. This is a particularly lovely shot of Cameron Falls.
Back in Raymond, we had a hot dog roast in the backyard and dragged the kids off too bed far too early for their liking.
The next day, we drove into Lethbridge to Henderson Lake for a Schindler family reunion. Jess brought out the fishing gear and was soon surrounded by nieces and nephews who wanted to help fish. The lake was full of large fish, you could even see them leisurely swimming along the surface with their fins poking out of the water, the way a shark swims, no more than ten or twenty feet away from the edge of the water, but no one ever caught anything more than a hook full of weeds.
Even so, it was the first time fishing for many of the kids there so even weeds were pretty exciting.
With some not so subtle encouragement from me, Maira hit it off with her cousin Avery and they had a great time playing together.
The theme was science and Avery's mom, Adrienne, is a scientist, and she bravely agreed to run a science demo for the kids (there had to be at least a couple dozen kids under the age of ten).
The next day was Ron's birthday as well as Paul's homecoming talk at church. Of course, we ate homegrown watermelon at the family dinner to celebrate (watermelon is Ron's favourite food and something he's very good at growing). Here he is with a 26-pound watermelon baby.
Jess took this picture on the front step of his parents' house on the day we said good-bye to Paul two years ago so we re-created the photo two years later. Except we made sure we could see Shae's face this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment