Family Vacation to Banff

We took a family vacation to Banff National Park up in Alberta, Canada this year. It has somehow been 10 years since we last went to the most beautiful place on earth! Any way you turn is a postcard worthy picture of the most breathtaking landscape, rugged Canadian Rocky Mountains, and amazing wildlife. The people are nice too, eh?

Here are some of our snapshots and memories....

Hiking can be done with an attitude, especially if you are a teenager....

Fruit by the foot has multi purposes...start looking inside the car for "wildlife."

This is my favorite place on earth! Moraine Lake - yes those colors are real!

Mike was happy to see this by the roadside one morning. He will be looking for one just like it in October when he goes hunting.

Amazing wildlife!

Lots of picnics - we packed our lunches each day and found fun spots to eat. (Katie stayed in the car a couple of times because the mosquitoes thought she was the picnic!)

Yep, watch for bears.

We found this one - actually 2 on our last day!

We took some hikes...

We went horseback-riding.
Katie was thrilled about that!



We had some fun being silly, skipping rocks, giving piggyback rides...family stuff.



We can now refer to Andrew as an "International Long Boarder"
We somehow found room in the van for his long board and he was happy.


We rented canoes - but don't fall in that water. It comes from a glacier and is only 39 degrees.

We spent our vacation looking for the driver of this van. The kids would spot an appropriate looking character and say, "Mom, I found the driver of the hippy van."

We had a family Bingo sheet of things to find... I am ashamed at our sarcasm, but it is just too fun to search for a kid on a leash - Megan got that one. I got the twins. Katie found the Asian tourist complete with camera around his neck. She kept looking and had 7 on her list by day 3. Andrew found a leprachan (one of the hotel bell boys dressed in Alpine attire) and added it to the list. Mike was laughing so hard with that find. Andrew insisted on adding him to our list!

After 7 days with our kids....we may consider coming alone next time!

Short summers but these guys love flowers. They are everywhere and so beautiful!

We took our shoes off and went wading in every lake and stream.

We were surprised each time we fell in - like we never thought it would happen.

10 years ago we stayed in Cabin #2 at Baker Creek Cabins. We wrote in the cabin journal about our stay with a new baby, a toddler, 1 preschooler, and energetic little boy and a teenager. We asked at the office and sure enough, they keep all the journals in the library. We found ours and read our entry. A part of us in this beautiful place!

We had a fabulous time!

Banff 2008!