More fun up north

I am going to make a concerted effort to get caught up on our blog, if for no other reason than I don't want Teia to think we forgot to blog about her birthday (which was last Tuesday) or that we didn't blog about her birthday until November (when she is older and reads all of these b/c I am sure she will ;-). The task of commemorating her big day has been assigned to Daddy who has  been MIA from our blog for far too long. He likes to spend his 2 or 3 free minutes per day keeping up with what is going on in the world, whereas I tend to focus on the small details like blogging about the kids and uploading photos. Blame it on gender difference. But I'll get him on here soon enough....

The kids had alot of fun on our trip to Banff/Calgary. It is amazing to watch them have new experiences. It really reminds me how important little things are to little kids (and should be to all of us). Being able to toss things down from the loft in our vacation condo was a major highlight to Kai and I will never forget him saying to me urgently "I need underpants!" after being told firmly that he was not to throw anything that was big or heavy; underpants however, were acceptable projectiles. (Greg and I were just musing about where he picked up the term under-pants; we're pretty sure we don't use it!)

Like most little boys, Kai likes things that are mechanical and things that go. He is particularly enamored with the two sky trams we ride regularly in San Diego. So when he found out that Banff had a gondola that went all the way up a mountain, well he was keen to give it a try!

Both he and Teia made it to the very top of Sulphur Mountain under their own power. There was hike of many, many stairs leading to the top. Kai pretty much sprinted all the way. The altitude didn't slow that boy down! Teia was also amazing, walking all the way to the top and then pretty much jumping all the way down. Let's just say, it took awhile.

This is looking back at the gondola house from the top so you can see it was quite a walk for little people. Kai actually did the top portion twice, he got tired of waiting for the rest of us (my excuse is the roboboot).  On the ride down Greg and I got to see what it might be like to have 4 kids and we rode down with our 2 plus Allie and Emily. 

Once in Calgary Kai's choice of activity was the Calgary Tower. He was pretty stoked to ride a gondola and find a big tower on the same trip (two of his favorite things). I haven't been up the Calgary Tower since 1994 so it was a new experience for me too. That glass floor sure made me woozy. But not the kids, they couldn't get enough of it. 

While we were up there some folks were rappelling down the Tower. Standing there on that glass floor I couldn't think of anything I would rather do less than rappel down that Tower. Kai's comment: "that is a dwiffwent way to get down the Calgary Tower." 

Still kinda post-vacation bummin' so I 'm sure I'll be on here again to post some more photos and stories. It was a really great trip!