The Week We Went To Canada

Half of you probably didn't even know we left for Canada. Bad on my part!! Well, to make a long story short, we did go to Canada and spent a week with Jessica & Chris. Justin had to stay home cause of work and Micah & Jenny stayed back to take care of the place for us. We drove all 34 hours, with Joanna, Dad and I being the drivers. We drove straight through on the way there. Left Sunday morning around 7:00 and got to Chris and Jessica's at 5:00 the next evening. 

First night the energy was running high, so we stopped at a rest area. 

:)

After everyone was ready to get back in the car we got back in the van for a long night ahead of us. We recently got a 15 passenger van, so we had enough seats to leave the middle one empty. That made it really nice for us drivers. We traded in and out all through the night and it worked really nice! 

Everyone woke up to a beautiful Montana sunrise! We were in the middle of no where on a road that seemed to go forever. But finally we came to a small town where we filled up with gas.

The Canadian border!! Yeah, finally here!!! We expected just to be passed right on through, but things didn't quite go that way. We had to leave our van and sit along the road and watch as a couple guys went through the entire van. They x-rayed our luggage and after putting everything back in as they thought they had gotten it out we were sent on our way.

We were all very happy to pass the Saskatchewan sign!! 

We finally made it to Jessica's and it was a happy reuniting time!! :)

We had a wonderful time there. We got to spend time with Jessica and Chris and others families that we have learned to know through the years. 

Kezia wasn't so sure about us all at first, but it didn't take her much time to warm up. 

Jubilee and Kezia helping to do the laundry.

 Jubilee was trying to put them back in as fast as Kezia was pulling them out.

Our little munchkin!!

Jessica made lots of good food for us while we were there!

Sitting down to a wonderful meal of homemade pizza!!

Two little sweeties. :)

Uncle Jared reading to Kezia.

Bro Paul (Chris's Dad), Chris and his little brother Aaron took the boys goose hunting. The boys had a ton of fun watching them bring down 14 geese.

The fields were just thick with geese!!

They also went and seen a dam.

Happily we got to bring Jessica and Kezia home with us. We took a total of three days on the way back, stopping for the nights.

In Colorado we stopped in for a short visit at Uncle Joel's, Mom's brother and his family. It had been around 6 years since we had seen them last, so it was fun to catch up on things.
Pronghorn were very plentiful. At first the boys were all excited when they saw one, but by the time we got home, Jesse said, "Pronghorn aren't so great any more!" :) On the way to Uncle Joel's we counted over 70 road kills withing 20 miles. We were thankful we weren't driving that road at night. We got to see a quick glance of a moose while we were still in Canada as we drove by. We later saw some elk and Jared spotted a bear. 

The mountains in Colorado still had snow on them and we stopped to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. We even had a small snow ball fight. 

sisters 

A cool looking mountain.

We decided to drop in on Grand Canyon on the way back. The road was endless!! You can see it stretched across the bottom of the valley.

On our way there we stopped at the bridge that goes over Colorado river.

It was such an amazing view. The height of the bridge made your stomach squirmy. 

616 feet is a long ways down!

Jubilee loved it! She just couldn't get enough of the view!

A quick family picture before heading off for Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon, an amazing, breath taking creation that God made!!

Us again... :)

Jubilee kept saying, "Big hole!"

Big brothers...

That was our last stop. We got home late that evening. It was good to see Jenny and Micah again! They did such an amazing job of taking care of everything for us. It was quite a change in weather. We got spoiled with the cool weather in Canada and weren't quite prepared for the Arizona heat. Though it may be hot it is still, HOME SWEET HOME!