July 27- Heading out.

My brother, Thom, drove from Nelson on Thursday so that he could take Liam and Taylor back with him on Friday. William and I would go with the 2 girls and my mum, Uncle Ralph and Aunt Jacki were flying out on Sunday. We had breakfast at my mum's on Friday morning, scones made by Thom. It was a chance to see my mum's cousin Faye and her husband, who I barely talked to at all. Some of you may recall that I was worried they would not like Edmonton, but apparently they loved it. My mum had really talked it down (because that's what she does best) so I guess their expectations had nowhere to go but up. Vancouver, however, they were not fond of. It wasn't glitzy or glamourous enough. Funny, because it's probably a hundred times more glamourous than Edmonton.

Anyway, we had breakfast and headed out at about 11.45. Thom and the kids left about half an hour later. If it had just been William and I, or us and the 2 older ones, we could have done the 10 hour drive with just one stop for a meal and the bathroom, along with filling up with gas. With 2 little kids though, including one who refused to wear a nappy, we planned for many stops on the way. First up was an hour and 15 minutes in at Red Deer, where we stopped at the Wendy's in Gasoline Alley. We had decided not to take the main highway all the way to Calgary, but to turn off onto a secondary highway near Carstairs. The view is much nicer and it's not nearly as busy. This picture was taken soon after the mountains came into view, somewhere around Cochrane I think.


Saoirse was fantastic on the drive down- thank God for potable DVD players! We brought about 20 movies and she watched a grand total of 4 altogether (Cinderella once, Cinderella 3 once, Peter Pan a few times, and numerous viewings of Little Mermaid.) Sophie was, well, Sophie. Slept and cried. Lost her dummy and cried. Ate fruit snacks. Or so I thought until we took her out at one point and her car seat and shorts will all fruit snack sticky. We met up with Thom, Taylor and Liam in Banff, where we stopped at the Cows Ice Cream store and bought Saoirse a Lightning MooQueen tshirt and Sophie a Backcowdigans one. Too cute. This picture was taken in front of the Banff information centre. That's my brother on the right. And yes, I know Liam looks like a girl. Enough people point it out to me on a daily basis. But it's not my head of hair is it?


This picture was taken from Banff Avenue. At the bottom is a metal fence, the street was all torn up for construction work, so it was not visually appealing at all. Seems quite silly to do major construction on your main road during tourist season.


The next 6 pictures are from the Bow River, which was freezing. I sat on the bank with my feet and the water and had to take them out because they became so numb. This was our first indication of what Sophie would think of water in the week ahead...she hated it! Saoirse loved it though, once she got used to the cold.







After we waded in the Bow, we headed towards the BC border, and our destination for the night...Radium. Thom and the 2 older ones were camping, and we were staying in a motel. We arrived around 8, and Sophie did not fall asleep until 11.30. While I was trying to get her to sleep Thom, Taylor and Liam enjoyed the hot springs and William took Saoirse for a walk where she saw her first deer and a buck up close, just behind the motel. Thankfully, that was all they saw, Radium had had a few cougar sightings in the town earlier that week.


Later I will post about the rest of our drive to Nelson. Oh yes, aren't you lucky? I am going to do the full 10 days. I may lose readers by the end, but hey, I never go away.