There were 7895 hats hanging up on the walls and ceiling of the Toad River Lodge gas station when I drove from Calgary to Whitehorse in April 2011.  (For those of you that don’t know, Toad River accepts donations of ball caps and put them on the wall. They write the total number of hats on the whiteboard)

We took a trip down to the Tulum ruins today.  They are about 1.5 hours south down the coast from us.  We decided to take a bus, it was great deal, I think the tickets were 8 bucks each and kids ride free if they sit on your lap.  The bus was a Greyhound style tour bus with AC and a big tv.  The bus had assigned seating and we chose the front row, (I really like assigned seating, it means you don’t have to swarm the bus when it pulls up and we know we’ll be sitting together).  Owen loved looking out the big window and watching everything the bus driver was doing.

Tulum is situated in a pretty spectacular spot.  The ruins are right on a cliff overlooking the ocean and located at a break in the reef allowing some of the only access to shore for miles up and down the coast.  Tulum itself existed mostly as a lookout post for the Mayan people.

Here’s a few pictures from today:

Some of you may notice that my beard is now gone.  I had to shave it off last week to go snorkeling.  We’ve been doing a little snorkeling on the beach, but I could never get the mask to seal.  We went on a snorkel trip on Friday and I knew I wanted the mask to fit right, so off went the beard.  The snorkeling was amazing, hundreds of fish, colourful coral reef, and Kirsten swam over some turtles and barracudas.  It just happened to be a slow day so it was just the 4 us on the boat with the captain and the snorkel guide.  It was same boat we went out on for the sunset cruise.

I didn’t say where we were in the last post.  We are in Mexico in a town called Puerto Morelos, it’s about 20 minutes south of Cancun.  The town has a population of about 1000, and there is another part of the town with about 5000 people in it right across the highway.  More local people live on the other side of the highway, and that is where the better groceries and fresh fruit are.  We’ve been biking and/or taking the bus over to the stores every few days.  Not many people in the stores there speak english at all so we get to try out our spanish.  The people in the market are all quite nice and try to help us out. 

Here’s a few pictures from the last few days.

Lots of time has been spent in the hammocks:

We went on a sunset cruise.  There we only 8 people on the small boat, the tour was 2 hours, the kids loved being on a boat, and we learned about the town and the protected area around the reef.

We went to a small zoo to see the crocs and there ended up being snakes, deer, turtles, monkeys, and birds.  It was fun.  And Owen blew us away with how he wasn’t fazed by the animals at all.

Zookeeper “Do you want a kiss from a parrot?”         Owen “Yes!”

Zookeeper “Do you want to hold a crocodile?”         Owen “Yes!”

Zookeeper “Do you want to hold a snake?”         Owen “Yes!”

Zookeeper “Do you want to hold a branch and let the deer eat it?  And pet the deer?”         Owen “Yes and Yes!”

Zookeeper “Do you want to hold a carrot stick and let a kinda scary looking spider monkey named Jessica take it from you (while she has a baby hanging off her back)?”         Owen “Yes!”

It was really too bad that Owen got eaten by the garden gnome in the parking on the way out.

We did it all too but that’s not as exciting.  We had to ask the lady to take the snake from Kirsten before Noah put it is his mouth.  He grabbed the tail and started to play with it like any other toy.

What a week.  After packing for 2 vacations (one cold, one hot) we flew to Calgary, drove to Golden and had a great weekend with friends on the hill.  It was nice to be back on a big mountain again, we’ve only been on the little hill at home.  Kicking Horse has about 4 times more elevation to play on.  The snow was great, there was more in the village than we’ve ever seen and the hill was soft and fun.

 

Owen rode a snowboard for the first time.  The board had a leash so we could pull him up hills and around the village.  He did great.  He was comfortable facing both directions and even figured out how to turn a bit. 

 And then off to Mexico after a couple of days in Calgary.  The boys insisted on reading the safety cards before takeoff.

We played in the ocean on the first day.  Owen found a few toys to play with in the sand and water.  Noah played in the sand and went in an ocean for the first time.

And we did a little snorkeling.

We’ve never been to a place with white sandy beaches and clear blue water.  It’s pretty amazing.  I’m looking forward to getting out in the water as much as possible.

First things first, I knew Wendel Clark was going to be up here for the week.  I wore my Wendel jersey that I bought back in grade 9.  Kirsten’s dad got to play against him in the shinny game and afterwards he was signing some autographs and I asked if I could get a photo with the kids.  He was great and here’s the pic.

Friday morning we went for a skate and the stanley cup was the main attraction.  There were a few hundred people out on the ice playing with their kids, pretty impressive for a 7 am to 9am skate. We were allowed to take sticks and pucks, and the cup was off on the little kids training ice and we could skate over and get some photos with it.

And Noah got to sit in the Stanley Cup! Fun.

Here’s Kirsten’s dad after the shinny game.  It was a mix of pro players and local’s that were helping run the events.  Denny’s team had Ron MacLean, Kelly Hrudey, Lanny MacDonald, Trevor Linden and others.

Lanny:

Kirsten was in a 2 hour on-ice clinic with the same pros and a few women pros including Danielle Goyette (team canada’s leading scorer for women).  Here Kirsten is getting some shooting pointers from Brad May:

For the last few minutes of the scrimmage the ladies played 30 players vs 30 players.

Noah meeting Mark Napier.

Owen on the outdoor ice while the CBC braodcast goes on behind him.

The camera guy following Owen.  This shot ended up being used in the montage on CBC at the end of the broadcast.

Harvey the Hound was up here, he grabbed Owen and took him for a skate.

And Peter Puck was here too:

Owen made it into two of the closing montages for CBC Hockey Day.

The first one was at 3pm our time when they said bye from the games centre and took a break to show the news.  Owen is stick handling in his red snowsuit and black hockey pants.  If you pause it when you can see all of Owen, you can see Kirsten in her burgundy vest holding Noah in his blue camo bear suit off to the right of Owen.  Click here to see it:  http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/hockeydayincanada/    Then click on Watch Part 2.  Owen appears at the 1 hour, 15 minute and 27 second mark. (01:15:27)   Just slide the bar over to the end of the video if you don’t want to watch the whole show.

And the second one is the closing montage for the whole day.  They showed this one right at the end of the broadcast at 10pm our time.  Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwjifdf2qo   Owen appears at the one minute and 11 second mark.

It was a pretty fun few days.

We took a trip to Ontario in the summer to visit family.  Owen loved picking blueberries:

We all loved riding the lawn tractor:

My dad and I had an afternoon of taking pictures of the birds in their backyard:

Owen and Grandma made blueberry muffins:

Owen got to sit on Grandpa’s motorbike.  He loved it:

Family Photo:

Grandpa and the boys in their Leafs gear.  My dad bought the little shirt for Owen when he was a month old, Noah got to wear it this year:

Shortly after getting back home we visited the Palin store in Skagway.  Funny stuff, lots of funny shirts and we couldn’t believe how many books are written about her.

A couple of CF-18’s landed in town in August.  Owen was blown away how loud the fighter jets were when taking off.  It’s pretty cool up here when interesting planes land at the airport, they park right beside the road behind a fence.  Very easy to get the kids close to see them and take some pics.

The fish ladder is a fun place to visit.  The salmon need to swim up a small canal (fish ladder) to get around the hydro-electric dam.  They are all counted as they gather in this tank, then the gate is opened each morning to let them continue their travels upstream.

Lots of sitting around the fire on the deck:

Camping weekend at Million Dollar Falls at the BC-Yukon border:

Owen was excited for his first day of pre-school:

First snow of the year in September (it melted away but was back for good in mid October):

The boys:

Happy little guy:

Sleepy little guy:

Northern lights in October.  This was taken from the deck at our front door:

Salmon fishing in Haines.  It was pretty rainy this year, just like last year:

Halloween.  Owen was the Snow Leopard again, Noah was the Elephant.

We were talking with Wrigs the other day and decided that we need to try to post every once in a while just to let people know what we’re up to.  This week it’s minus 40, i think it was -39 this morning, so we’ve been occupying ourselves with indoor activities.

There have been no photos of Noah here yet, so I’ll start to work my way through the year and get caught up a bit.  Here’s a bunch of photos from this past summer, mostly from July.

Here’s Noah at a month old:

We took pictures of the boys feet:

Hanging out at home:

Chris, Melissa, and Kai came up to visit:

3 boys in the bassinet my dad built when Owen was born:

Chris and I rode in the 24 Hour Mountain bike race.  We rode a lap at midnight, with no lights of course (it’s the only rule), then took a big nap and rode a few more in the morning.  Chris is first on his red bike, then me on my black bike.

Lots of time was spent outside, the boys liked sitting with each other in the chariot.

Owen figured out riding his bike quite early in the summer.  He probably rode it every day we were home.

Some of the wildlife right downtown.  The first is an Arctic Tern.

The Bald Eagle that we watched all summer.  They had 2 chicks this summer and we watched them learn how to fish.  It was great to see them every time we went into downtown.

Lots of days at the beach:

Trip to the Caribou Crossing museum.  Note the stuffed mountain lion attacking the stuffed bison in the background.

Camping at Kusawa Lake:

Boys and fireweed 2010:

Summer smiles:

And oh yeah…. Ryan Leech was in Whitehorse for a week hosting a clinic.  I didn’t get to meet him but he put on a show in front of the local bike shop.  Thought Linds might want to see this one.

Let’s get this blog fired up again with the photos most of you really want to see - Kirsten’s Belly!

Just like the last time Kirsten looks beautiful and she’s done great throughout the whole pregnancy.  A couple of colds and flus through the winter made things harder this time around (the majority of the last pregnancy was in the summer months), but hopefully we are rewarded with good weather to play outside with the kids this summer.

We took a bunch of photos on Mother’s Day and then some more a few days ago.  Owen was a trooper and he even got to take a bunch of these using the remote trigger.

Owen still loves the little lego motorbikes.  They had to make an apperance in the photos:

Kirsten had a great idea to use the shadows on the floor.

We took the next round of photos on our deck.

There will be lots of hands around to help out with the new baby.

Owen and Kirsten were looking for planes while I was setting up the close up shots of the belly and hands.  I thought this was a cute one.

And I love that this tradition is still alive.  Gindl took our first family photos when Owen was only a couple of days old.  After getting lots of great shots she started acting like Austin Powers and got us to do lots of poses.  The Tiger Pose has stuck around and we always try to get one when we take family photos.  Owen just started roaring this time without telling us what he was doing.  It was grrrrrrrrreat!

From Dawson we drove back down south about 50 kms and then an hour into the mountains.  We camped one night there at the territiorial park.  The area is definitely up there as one of the best places we’ve ever camped.  The campground sits where 3 valleys converge, giving great views in all directions.  It’s about as good as it gets for being so close to a road.

We started the day with a hike up the Goldensides trail.  It’s great for kids, it’s only a 3 km drive from the camp, we start above the treeline so the views are great right from the first step. and it’s not too steep.  We hiked up for about an hour and had some snacks and played with some snow.

A little artsy shot using Doug as a prop:

In the afternoon Kirsten, Sarah and the kids went for a hike down the river.  The headwaters still had quite a bit of ice.

We took advantage of the extra cameras being around and tried to get family pictures whenever we could.

Kirsten and I took pictures of each other taking pictures.

I’ve noticed a lot of pictures of people taking pictures while going through the last couple of weeks.  Like this one I took of Kirsten taking a picture of Sarah taking a picture of Ben while Spence takes pictures of his own.

I took a few photos with the idea of creating a panorama, once we got home I stitched them together with photoshop.  Click on the photo to see the high res version.

What a great visit with the Millers.  It was fun to have kids around all the time for Owen to play with and it was fun to have Doug and Sarah here for us to hang out with.  The 2 weeks flew by but we also made sure to fit in some days to chill out and enjoy the day without driving all over the place.

First post is Dawson City.  It takes about 6 hours to drive up there, we arrived in the late afternoon, camped one night in town, watched a can-can show, drank the toe, explored the town the next day and then left in the evening to go camping in the Tombstone mountains.

Kirsten and Sarah went to the early show at Gerties to see tyhe can-can dancers.  Doug and I heard that maybe we should wait and see the late show because it might be a little more daring.  Nope.  We saw a freakin 50’s dance show.  Same singers and dancers as the early shows but the music was Rock Around the Clock and stuff like that.  Booooooo!

We toured around town the next day, took some photos, saw a little play put on by Parks Canada, and checked out the shops.  We decided not to pay to go gold panning.

We took a quick tour of town in a horse drawn wagon.  Spence and Paige rode up front, the rest of us rode in the wagon.  And Caveman Bill hopped on to tell us a few stories.  Bill has lived in a cave across the river from town for a few years.  He’s highly educated and likes that caves retain more heat in the winter than cabins.

We checked out the visitor centre.

We were walking up to the local First Nation cultural centre and they just happened to be having a teddy bear picnic for the pre-school/daycare kids.  They invited us to join and it was great.  The kids listened to stories of bears and ravens, talked about the lessons learned and then had water melon and bannock.

And here’s the toe!  Doug and I were the only ones there (it was Monday night) and I went first.  Of course I threw the whole thing in and drank the shot around it.  Then I dropped it into Doug’s drink and he did the same.  Good times.  I don’t have a picture of Doug yet.  When I do I’ll add it to this post.