Baby Kellan

Meet Kellan.

Presley

In the states I had the oppertunity to meet one of David's friends, Joel, and take pictures of his dog. This dog was crazy, but very beautiful! :D Treats were the key to getting Presley to sit still for at least one shot.

Locals are My Favourite

We went to visit some friends on our trip. These friends opened my eyes to a number of things that I will carry with me for a number of years, if not my whole life. Food, guns, mountain, truck, gear shifting, 30% incline, 14km, dog that got sprayed by a skunk, snowball fight, God, sunsets, and good company are these few days in a nutshell.

This was at the highest highway mountain pass in Ontario

My sister was the first to start our snowball fight in July.

That's fight, folks! Leena shot a gun! Not in this picture.. this was before I tried to hit the target. You can tell because I am definitely NOT holding it correctly.

Cowboys

He was my favourite. :)

Calgary Stampede 2010

What an adventure. I felt like I had finally arrived to the place I can always call 'home.' Cows, horses, hats, boots, skirts, dogs, sheep, and families. The day was not ended well, but we definitely left with a list of memories. These men are CRAZY. Buckin' broncos has a whole new meaning to me now. :) The culture and atmosphere shown to my family by the 'Calgarians' truly made an imprint on our hearts.

Day Three and Four

The mountains seem to be getting more and more beautiful as the time goes by. The fresh air is absolutely relieving from all the polution back in London. I am starting to see why people love it here so much that they do not want to go home!

I have met a lot of very interesting people. A lot of people here speak french, which is one of my favourite parts! I like eavesdropping on their conversations.. hehe. Our waiter at the Old Spaghetti Factory was from Montreal and he was just lovely, French accent and all. We chatted a bit about the difference here and there, and even though Montreal is his home, he said that the mountains called him to stay a while before returning to Quebec.

After a 6km hike up Tunnel mountain we headed to the street for some shopping then up to Sulfur Mountain for a dip in the hot springs. Talk about beautiful: hot springs, mountains, sunsets, surprise visiting with friends from London, family, and conversation.

Today we hiked a 12km trail around Spray River. We saw a young grizzly bear about 30m away! My dad and I were actually very intrigued, while my mom and sister were quite worried that there would be another further along the trek. Mr. Grizzly seemed to be quite pleasant eating away at the camp site tho. It was a hard trek, but we made it! We are quite sore.

We just got back from horseback riding through the Rockies. Wow. What an experience. Doing that has actually been on my Bucket List for quite a while, and I was NOT disappointed. The sun was slowly setting onto the mountains, so our view was outstanding. This was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Day Two: Lake Louise and Moraine Lake

The meaning of "being in awe" continues to grow as I go through life. At one years old I was in awe of people who could read, as a kid I was in awe when I watched adults laughing, swimming, talking, crying. As a teen I have been in awe with younger kids succeeding at something I never had imagined them doing before, such as a very intriguing public speech, but I have also been in awe when I am flying around the world; providing me with a newfound sense of how big, and beautiful the earth truly is. Today mountains were added to my list of "things that increase my own meaning of "being in awe."

Pictures cannot capture the craggy mountains we are seeing here every minutes. They seemed to be getting bigger every further kilometre we got into the Rockies. Our car windows were filled to the degree that we had to completely change our body position in order to see the top of these beauties.

We hiked up to Agnes Lake, a total of 3.4km uphill. It was raining the entire time, but when we arrived at the Teahouse, we were greeted with the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. The warm drinks gave us the energy to go right back down the mountain. We all slept on the ride back home. :P

(Above) These pictures are of Moraine Lake. There are ten peaks in view at this particular park, including glaciers. The water was very blue, and the rocks very slippery after the rain!

These pictures are from Lake Louise. We were disappointed to see that the clouds and rain would not allow us to take good pictures, but by the time we came back from our hike the clouds cleared enough to provide these two photos.