I have been up in the Canadian Rockies for the last 4 days, enjoying a wonderful birthday weekend for Aime and Brittany. Aimes has "always" wanted to go to Banff, so for her birthday weekend, she headed up a trip. It ended up her, britt, cami, myself, and two of Aime's friends from Spokane- Laurie and Lisa. (who were wonderful!)

Friday was a long day of driving, we started out by 8am, and made just a couple quick stops along the way. We arrived at our wonderful hotel (Thank you Morrills!!) by 7:30pmish. Grocery shopping next. Then that night, I introduced the other girls to the addiction that is Heroes!!! The other two (Laurie and Lisa) arrived around 1:30am, said hello and we all went to bed.

Saturday morning it was beautiful. Which was perfect because this was our planned day hike! We all piled in and headed to Banff National Forest (we were staying about 45 minutes outside of Lake Louise and the Fairmont hotel). Upon arriving, we took many pictures (as you see) and started off on our hike. The beautiful day had drawn many like minded adventurists, and parking was difficult to find, but when we left, ours was one of a handful of cars still waiting. As we reached higher, we all noticed something falling from the trees...or not quite. It was snowing! Still beautiful weather, I hiked up in shorts and a long thermal, having stripped off the heavy layers.
It was a pretty steep climb (I thought), but gorgeous, and so much fun with the other girls!
When we reached the top, Lake Agnes, we lunched at the Tea House. A small little cabin with no running water or electricity, this little establishment is run by a small team that actually lives up there, in teh same conditions! Their supplies are brought in my helicopter (I believe they said once or twice a year!) I don't know why people choose to do that, I could see Krista enjoying it though. However, we were so grateful that they did- we enjoyed hot drinks and delicious sandwiches while the snow fell outside on the mountain top. An incredibe view was ours as well. Three of the girls decided to take an extra mile loop for a better view, while myself and two others headed BACK into the little Tea House for some french press, the pleasure of group body heat, and our books! An horu later the cabin was closing and we decided to head to the outlet from the loop the other girls took...only they weren't there. We walked down further, than started heading back up. At some point, we ran into Aime- turned out they had headed back on the loop to the Tea House, and arrived just minutes after we headed down. We all met up at Mirror lake about 800 km down the mountain and had a good laugh.

As soon as we walked into our room, we pulled out the swim suits and hustled to the hot tub....oh yes! delight! Later we watched a movie and all squished on the pullout and enjoyed a platter of food (veggies and dips and popcorn and kettle corn!).


Saturday morning we woke to snow! Lots of it infact! Friday- rain. Saturday- sun. Sunday- snow? yep. We slept in, and then all soaked and journaled and spent time with the Lord until mid afternoon, when we finally got ready and went to downtown Banff to wander the village. It was a blast! We all found a little something and really just enjoyed being together, coffees in hand as we wandered the wet little town.

For the final night we went out to a special birthday dinner for Aime and Brittney. The night before, in the hot tub, we'd got to talking to a local woman and her daughter. We asked them where they'd suggest for a nice dinner. They had the perfect suggestion- it was a little elegant and a little bit casual fun. We had such a wonderful night. The earliest reservations we could get were 9:15, and weren't seated till after 10...but they were so friendly and never made us feel rushed to leave...we closed the restaurant. :)

The next day we packed up early and headed out. Stopped for starbucks, then stopped at the Radium Hot Springs for a couple hours. Again, we stopped for lunch a few hours later. And lastly, for one more starbucks...then it was straight home. We made it to the Morrills abotu 10:30 last night, where a few folks were still waiting around after Family Time to say hello to us.