Canadian vay-cay

I'm still recovering from our trip up to Canada even though we've been back almost a week. We had so much fun, and I need to post lots of photos of our family reunion, but I use the term 'vay-cay' loosely because anytime we're without Isabel for more than 24hours it's not too restful, and we get too ambitious. We completely forget that we now have 2x2 and think our old shenanigans are still basically doable. We planned to visit beautiful Banff for a couple days with my cousin and her hubs and their three kids, and my brother and sister agreed to come along for support. It's about a 4-5hr. drive from Edmonton, and unbeknownst to us construction in the area would make it even longer. The trip nearly fell through at the last minute as we, I, (or was it Ian?) had the utterly loon-bin idea that we could borrow some gear and camp. Luckily just as she was about to confirm our camping reservation online, my cousin Jaima had a panic attack (a shadow of what was to come if we had actually done it, I'm sure) and we decided to get a hotel instead. I'm soooo glad we did that, the very thought of packing and unpacking all of our gear, setting up a tent, lighting a fire and getting my 2x2s to sleep in a sleeping bag in the rain (oh yes, it rained) makes me want to pass out into an unconscious stupor for the rest of the month.


We left at about 9am and got ourselves to Johnston's Canyon hiking trail entry sign at around 2:30, inexplicably. An unfortunate downfall of having potty-trained children is that roadtrips require an intolerable amount of interruptions, so we resorted to the old plastic bottle to ensure we got to Banff while the sun still shone. Oh yeah, we're very high class.
Just as we were unloading it started raining. I've lived in LA for so long that the only weather gear I think kids need are flip flops and am always shocked when I get rained on. Instead of exposing their children to rain a more sane family probably would have headed straight to the hotel, or pulled out the galoshes they picked up at Target several months prior in the appropriate 'future size'. Unfortunately, I am not sane. So as Jaima and Jeff's kids (and all the other kids on the trail) walked along completely waterproofed and their little baby rode comfortably in his mini tent-backpack, our kids got loaded in the Snap N Go carseat clip-on-frame stroller with a blankie over the top and pajama bottoms on their heads.

I felt like a circus, and judging on the amount of comments we got we looked like one too. Don't get me wrong, people were very helpful and kind, far more than I'm accustomed to, but we still sort of stuck out amongst the trimly dressed granolas, like my brother John. Luckily no one was snide, because they would have gotten an earful. And in fact, while nursing in the restaurant while waiting for my brother John, who accidentally hiked off with the key to our van, when the waitress in the tea house heard I had two sets of twins she gave me two teapots of delicious apple blossom tea.
Somehow we made it through the night at the hotel to hit Lake Louise the next day. We even canoed on the lake, something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It was all so very gorgeous, and I'm glad we went and didn't let the 2x2 situation stop us. But I can't say I really recommend making all the 'improvisations' we made. The one thing I'm glad we all brought along was a good sense of humour.
I do, however, wish someone had brought some baby Vicks because all the kids seem to be sick this week.
Or a baby rain coat.