Victoria Day Weekend

We welcomed the unofficial start to summer with some fun times over the Victoria Day weekend.  We put a screen door on our front door (while Nana & Howie babysat) on Saturday and on Sunday we drove out to Canmore for a picnic.

Gwen picnics walking around - which is much more interesting than sitting and eating.  She loved the fresh mountain air!

Cara picnics properly and keeps an eye out for ants and announces each one with "an ant! now it's a picnic!!" then she offers the ant some fruit.

A gorgeous day!

So nice we kept driving until we found some woods to walk in.  Cara requested that our adventure included walking in the woods.  We found a trail easily.

Only hitch was that the trail was all uphill.  Cara did well but got tired...so Daddy carried both girls for awhile!

Cara was keeping an eye out for Totoro (click to find out what/who Totoro is).  She was pointing to tags in the woods and knocked over trees as signs that Totoro has been there leaving her clues.  Well, just after this picture was taken we were looking in the woods behind us for any clues and that is when Mummy spotted something moving in the brush!  To grown ups it appeared to be a black bear!!! And all of the hikers started talking loudly and warning each other of the bear just off the trail.  We had started back down the hill anyway so we continued on our way.  Well, Cara had it all figured out.  She knew that it was really her friend Totoro that we saw it just looked like a bear to the grown ups but she saw Totoro.  It was a pretty magical walk in the woods!

Before we left Canmore we stopped at the candy store and Cara got a bag of treats - including a gummy tarantula!

Gwen was totally jealous!

Monday we went to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary for a Bug Hunt for Cara and a Bird Hunt for everyone else.

Gwen really likes riding in the backpack on Daddy's back!

Cara found lots of bugs including this big spider on the path!  

She also loved using the binoculars!

Gwen walked some of the way around the path and really liked going across this bridge.

One of the many birds we saw.  This chickadee was so close we could have reached out and touched it.  We also saw deer within a few feet of us!

Daddy and Gwen looking for more birds!

Cara liked this tree a lot with its exposed roots.  She requested that her picture be taken beside it.