Revelstoke

On Thanksgiving Monday we headed to Revelstoke B.C. to enjoy a family mountain retreat.  It started out a little rough- after driving four hours we arrived at our cabin only to discover it hadn't been cleaned since the previous users.  Since the owner lived in Edmonton and the cleaner was most likely feasting on turkey, we took matters into our own hands...That meant rolling up our sleeves, grabbing the toilet brush and getting to work.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunny day.  We drove downtown to my most favourite cafe- The Modern Bakeshop & Cafe and drowned our frustrations from the previous night in yummy lattes and goodies.  All was good again.  We spent the whole rest of the day playing outside...

Casey, Liam and Daddy having a well deserved juice after their long bike ride.

{Time out for short nap} ...And to the beach.

Wake up cuddles...

Liam

Casey

What a fun filled day! To top it off we went to the Rec Centre for a swim in the evening.
The next day we went back to the cafe to get our last fill of goodies and then had some park play time and a short hike to get some energy out before the long drive home again.

Casey at the park

Daddy and Liam

Maple leaves!! We don't get these in Canmore!  So nice to see!

It was a great trip!

(The owner of the cabin offered us a full refund plus discount on our next stay for our troubles which was even above what we expected.  We're looking forward to hopefully another trip sometime this winter.)

Ontario Trip

So many photos, so little time.  I have just finally sorted through all my pictures of our trip to Ontario from the beginning of the month...it took me almost as long to unpack. It was a wonderful gathering of family and as per usual it went by too fast.  

Here is a mere glimpse of the fun we had...

The master BBQ-er...those were some damn good ribs! ...and chicken.

Ethan, Casey, Andrew, Makayla and Casey at the Lion Safari

African Lion Safari

Grandpa and Liam

On the train tour at the African Lion Safari

Casey, Andrew, Makayla, Liam and Ethan

Grandpa, Liam, Daddy and Casey

Makayla, Casey, Jack and Liam

Liam and Nana

Casey did a great job scrubbing Nana's car

Liam did a great job rinsing Nana's car

Brad and Angelina...I mean Nana and Poppa :)

Liam with his new favourite toy

Watering the garden...but what was more fun was watering his brother Casey!

The five Gemini's celebrating their birthdays together

Nana Casey and Nona

It was a great visit.

Mexico

After Rob and I got married last summer, we packed up our van with two 1-year olds and a bunch of camping gear and called it a honeymoon.  We had a lot of fun but still it wasn't the relaxing vacation we had in mind to celebrate our marriage.  We came up with the idea that someday we would go on a "real" honeymoon-somewhere with palms trees and beaches and marjarhitas...somewhere like Mexico!

And so we did!  We spent 7 days at Barcelo, (an all inclusive resort in Los Cabos, Mexico) with our friends Manny, Elaine and their little guy Cody.

It didn't take long to get used to living the life of luxury.  It was a sweet 7 days of swimming, soaking up the sun and drinking mudslides (and/or mojitos, margaritas, pina coladas...you get the picture).  The boys had so much fun...they were made for Mexico!  They could spend all day playing in the sand and never get bored.  Their only complaint was applying sunscreen.

On the balcony

Swimming with a little Liam on my back

Cool Dude Casey

Liam by the ocean

Cody and his truck

Having lunch and checkin' out the view

One day we ventured out of the resort and took a taxi to the near by city of Cabo San Lucas for a little sight seeing.  We shopped around a little while getting bombarded by locals trying to get us to buy something from their store, or go on their boat tour, or even take a picture with their donkey (yep, there was a real donkey tied up, just waiting for some tourist to take a picture with him...poor donkey.)

:)

Got a picture of this fake donkey instead.

But one thing we were sold on doing, was a glass bottom boat tour out to see the famous Cabo Arch.  After scoping things out, we picked our guy, bartered a price and hopped aboard the "Corona".  At first we were a little sceptical...there were no lifejackets (sorry mom!), you couldn't see anything through the glass on the bottom of the boat because it was so dirty and the engine was cutting out as we went in reverse...but there was no turning back now!

About to go aboard our glass bottom boat tour

It ended up being an awesome tour though.  We stopped to feed the fish, got a nice tour to the point where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez and then we made a stop off at Lovers Beach and the boys all played in the sand and explored the cool rocks.

Feeding the fish

View from the boat

At the beach

Liam exploring the rocks

Casey rolling in the sand

Our boat waiting for us while we stopped at the beach

It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for us.  There's never enough time to see and do it all though, I can't wait to go back someday.

If you'd like to see more pictures from our trip (because it's hard to fit it all into one blog post) you can click here to see a full slide show and click here to view the movie trailer version.