Gathering Stones / Canada Day Fun

We spent last week at a reunion for Matt's side of the family. We spent the first half of the week in Waterton National Park. It was beautiful. My mother-in-law rented the Northland Lodge and we all stayed there. It really was ideal for us. Each family had their own space and there was a room for the teenage boys, teenage girls and the younger princess girls too. The management left so we had the whole place to ourselves. It is located just a few houses down from Cameron Falls, so we were able to take several walks down there with the kids. We had a blast.
It was great for the kids to get to know the cousins they had either never met, or rarely get to see.

We went to Red Rock Canyon and had a picnic there. The water was really high and much too swift to hike down the river bed like we did the last time we were there. Ooh, a bear crossed the road just in front of our SUV on our drive back to the Lodge after our picnic. It was fun for the kids (and me too!) to see. 

We had yummy S'mores. Q fell and scraped up his knee on the rocks. I only thought about taking a picture after he was all bandaged up.

Here he is with his cute cousin tossing rocks in the water. He loved watching the splash, didn't like it so much when he was splashed with icy cold mountain water.

All the kids liked playing on the rocky beaches.

The kids liked watching daddy skip rocks. I like watching him too... Yowza!

 

Matt and I went to fly kites with his sister and her husband on a grassy area next to the Prince of Whales hotel. We didn't bring the kids since, the hotel is on the side of a cliff. It was fun to steer the kite off the edge of the cliff, so that your kite was below your body.  If there's one thing that's constant in southern Alberta, it's wind. As we drove to Waterton, we passed through wind farms. The huge turbines are really amazing!

Here we are in front of Cameron Falls.

Later in the week we went to the tiny town of Raymond to watch the Canada Day parade. As the parade floats drove by they tossed candy and the kids raced to pick it up. We still have way too much candy left from that parade...

Matt's family lives all over the place, so we don't see each other very often. Two of Matt's 5 sisters and their families weren't able to make it. I hope that next time we will all be able to get together. That would have made it perfect!