West Edmonton Mall

We hit the mall today. We arrived a little after they opened, at 10 am, and we were there most of the day. I have to say I am a little disappointed with this mall. It's REALLY big, and not easy to get around. It's like they built a regular mall, and then kept adding on. The anchor stores really suck. I was unsuccessful in my shopping. I came away with four books. That's it. I love the Mall of America so much more. It's a racetrack design, with the amusement park in the middle. It's really easy to get around. The stores are better too. WEM had some great stores: Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Old Navy, Gap, Apple Store, but I can shop at those stores anytime I want. I was looking for something a little more unique. They didn't even have a "made in Canada" type store. They have TONS of underwear/lingerie stores though, and they are getting a Victoria's Secret. They also have some "LOVE" stores, if you get my meaning-complete with opaque glass to keep young eyes out. Very interesting, but I don't know. I just was unimpressed. The amusement park area was fun, and the sea lion show was pretty good, and the aquarium was ok, but the shopping...not so much. Oh well, we are glad we came, and we got a lot of exercise, but next time, I'm going to the Mall of America.

Quinn, having a blast on the roller coaster.

The boys played mini golf, and had a good time.

The sea lion show was packed. We watched from up above.

Two boys and a moose. There are lemurs to Quinn's right.

We drove to downtown Edmonton, after dinner. We finally found a church with visible church bells, for the scavenger hunt! There were also pigeons-we need a picture with someone feeding pigeons. Kevin tried to feed the dumb birds some bread, but they just looked at him. They probably gobbled it all up as soon as we drove away.

All in all, we enjoyed Canada. It's really a great country. I would definitely come back to Calgary, and I wouldn't mind seeing Banff. We are headed toward home tomorrow. We'll make it to Montana. It will be great to be able to use our phones again.

For the rest of today's pictures, CLICK HERE.

Calgary, Gophers, and a Really Big Mall

Last morning in Calgary. We walked to Tim Horton's this morning, to have some yummy donuts-there was a HUGE line. It was longer than the Starbucks line. It went fast though, and we all enjoyed our donuts. We were also in search of two picture poses for the travel scavenger hunt. We were semi successful, and had a great walk before we headed to Edmonton.

We went to Olympic Plaza. We were looking for someone feeding pigeons for the scavenger hunt. We were unsuccessful, but we did find the Olympic torch from the 1988 Calgary Olympics!

Riley liked all of the Olympic rings on the fencing. I did too.

I liked this orange thing. I am not sure what it means, but I like it. Quinn is being Michael Jackson, in case you were wondering.

Look at THIS! This is the ceiling inside the Chinese Cultural Center in Calgary. Isn't it beautiful? I love the colors!

On the drive to Edmonton, we stopped in Torrington, at the world famous Gopher Hole Museum. It's a little museum, inside a house, in one room. There are all of these boxes (gopher holes) with scenes inside, with real dead, stuffed gophers. I loved this one the best. The hole town is all about gophers.

We got to Edmonton around 4:00 pm. We checked into the hotel, and then went to the West Edmonton Mall, to scope it out for tomorrow. We ate at the mall, at Jungle Jim's. I can't say it was the best meal of my life, but I had a really good blue pina colada type drink!

CLICK HERE if you want to see more Calgary, gophers, and the West Edmonton Mall.

Calgary Tower and Dinosaurs!

After checking the weather report for the next two days, we decided to do the Calgary Tower this morning, because it looks like it will rain tomorrow. It's raining right now, so we are pretty happy with that decision. We went up in the tower, then we headed to Drumheller, Alberta for the Royal Tyrrell Museum-a museum all about dinosaurs with dinosaur models and lots and lots of fossils. It was really very cool. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the museum. The whole town is decked out in dinosaur.

The Calgary Tower has a sky deck! Isn't this super cool? Riley would not even entertain the idea of walking out on it. Quinn wasn't sure he wanted to, but he did...

and he struck a disco pose!

It was a really clear day! This is downtown Calgary. I have more pictures from the tower. You can find a link to them at the end of this post.

Riley and Quinn and a dinosaur outside the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The city of Drumheller not only has the coolest museum, but they also have the world's largest dinosaur. Check this guy out! We could have paid $10 to walk up inside the dinosaur, but we opted out of that. It just seemed wrong. We liked the view from the bottom. The boys liked walking/climbing on his foot.

If you are in Calgary, that museum is worth the drive. It's really very interesting. If you want to see a whole bunch of pictures from the Calgary Tower and from the Royal Tyrrell Museum, CLICK HERE.

Montana to Calgary Day 4 Roadtrip

It was early to bed for all of us last night! We were completely wiped out from our day. I got a good 8 hours of sleep-I haven't done that in forever! We slept in just a little, but were still on the road by 8:30 am. We drove from Montana, to Calgary in Alberta, Canada. It was rainy and cold most of the way, with temps being in the 40's in some parts. We drove through the Lewis and Clark National Forest. It was beautiful, and we pretty much had the road all to ourselves-in Canada too! It was really very nice, and NO roadwork.

Two cute boys somewhere in Montana. This is the scenic overlook above Sluice Boxes State Park. Far back, in the background is the Lewis and Clark National Forest.

Just over the Canadian border, we stopped at a visitor's center. This big guy was there. What luck! Look at that big face! Look at those sharp teeth! All THREE boys were in dinosaur heaven.

What are these humans doing to this poor T-Rex? He's really cute, but those arms are just useless. See? He couldn't use them to get those humans off of him!

The Calgary Tower. We didn't go up to the top yet. It's right near our hotel. We got to Calgary by about 6:15 pm. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant-Juan's. It was ok. The sauce was super spicy on the burritos. Poor Riley's mouth was on fire. He learned a lesson about authentic Mexican food though-it can be spicy, it's not like Chipotle. Actually, I think my lips finally stopped burning as well.

This is the view from our hotel room. We are on the 14th floor of the Hyatt. This place was cheap because it's the weekend. They do most of their business during the work week. The internet is WAY expensive. $14 (Canadian) PER device, PER day. When Kevin voiced his concern over this, the nice lady downstairs let us have two devices for the one day price. Kevin said if we hurry and use it tomorrow, before about 8:30 pm, we won't have to pay the 2nd day. Ha ha ha. We'll see. Could be an early post tomorrow.

We are heading to a dinosaur museum tomorrow, which is outside Calgary. If you want to view the rest of my pictures from today, CLICK HERE.

Yellowstone National Park-Day 3 Roadtrip

We spent the entire day in Yellowstone National Park. We drove all over the place. It was lots of fun! Here are some highlights, and then stay tuned, because this post is a double-wide.

Old Faithful! It was awesome, because we arrived and Old Faithful was set to erupt in about 10 minutes. We stood around with thousands of our closest friends. It was worth the 15 or so minutes we had to wait, as opposed to the 74 plus minutes we could have waited.

The gift shop in the lodge, near Old Faithful, was celebrating the 4th of July. Look! A lemonade stand! This is something we needed to find for our travel scavenger hunt, and we found one! We never thought we would! Awesome!

I just love how clean and clear these hot springs are-and HOT too! Some were around 170 degrees!

A pretty waterfall in the "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone."

The Roosevelt Gate. This gate is the North entrance into the park, and it's located in Gardiner, MT. We stayed two nights here. We had the yummiest huckleberry ice cream, down the street from our hotel.

Read on...doublewide post below, and a link to the rest of our pictures.

Wild Life!

On our way into Yellowstone this morning, we were all hopeful that we'd see some wild life. Our day was in no way disappointing...

We saw elk right away, grazing on grass.

Pretty soon, we stumbled upon one bison. We were thrilled. This guy was crossing the road, right behind my car!

Imagine our excitement when we saw THIS sight this morning! HUNDREDS of bison. Look closely, you can see baby bison too! This was an incredible sight, and the bison did not seem bothered by the tourists stopping to take pictures. Wildlife is dangerous. Do not approach. We kept our distance, but they were RIGHT there!!

So we're driving along saying how we want to see a bear. We get stuck in a bunch of strange traffic-A BEAR!! Not just any bear either-I believe this is a grizzly bear, and it's a MOM!

Here are her cubs! So cute! We couldn't drive anywhere for all of the tourists blocking the road, so Kevin jumped out and took pictures and the boys and I watched them from the car. Later on in our day we saw two more bears-black bears.

If you get the chance to get to Yellowstone, I would highly recommend it! It was AWESOME! If you want to look at a whole lot more of our pictures, CLICK HERE.

Yellowstone Bear World-Day 2 Roadtrip

The four of us were up early, and out of Nevada, by 8:45 am! We drove and drove and drove through Idaho. It was rather pretty. Lots of farms and rolling hills, and cool plateaus. We stopped at Yellowstone Bear World, which is near Rexburg, Idaho. Kevin and I had taken Riley there before, about 10 years ago, when we drove to Montana for a wedding. It's a really cool place. You drive your car through and the bears and other wildlife roam "free," nothing separating us from the bears. Awesome.

Quinn looking terrified of the bear.

This guy was walking down the road. We were told not to stop AT ALL in the bear paddock. I had to back up to let this guy pass us. He's so cute and fluffy!

Quinn got to pet a moose! So did Kevin and I! Riley didn't want to. Those antlers felt as fuzzy as they look. This is as close as most will ever get to a moose. His name is Stiltz.

We went through twice! Isn't this guy fuzzy and cute?

Near the gift shop they have snow cones, rides, ice cream, a photo building, a petting zoo, and bear cubs. There were 6 of them, and they were so cute and playful. I zoomed in on this guy. We could have fed them too, for $35 a person. No thanks, I'll just watch others feed them.

We drove through Yellowstone Park on our way to our hotel for tonight. We'll explore the park tomorrow. We are here, in Gardiner, MT for two nights. If you want to see the rest of our pictures, GO HERE.

Oh, and we had to stop 3 times today, for roadwork (the single lane thing again). It's rather annoying.