Photo spew!

Well, since so many of you are here to see photos of the little one, I will start with those first!  

Cam has been doing amazing the past month!  He seems like he is getting bigger and stronger by the day;  He has recently learnt to roll over and is starting to lift his upper body off the grown by pushing against the ground with his arms.  He is also starting to reach for things (and then put them in his mouth) and has even licked a few carrots and some spaghetti squash - we're keeping him as a exclusively breast feed baby for as long as possible though!

So serious!  Tummy time is hard work.

Story time! So much lovin' from the tios!

Impromptu Family Day

Mom and Tommy had us over the other day for Breakfast and we ended up staying all day!  It was a great chance to visit and for the grandparents to get some baby time as well as something that hasn't happened in a long time!

Mom and Cam

I look unimpressed for some reason - but Cam is stoked to be playing with Dad!

Cameron sleeping away our family day

Visit with Emma!

A good friend of mine just had a baby of her own!  Emma is about 6 weeks younger then Cam and is such a sweetie!

Emma

The typical sleeping pose : The Spread Eagle

The little ones together!

 Baby Group!

All of the ladies from the Prenatal Baby group that I was attending finally got together for a Mexican themed pot luck to socialize and show off our babies.  All of our little ones were born in (or very close to) June, so they are all within a few weeks old of eachother.  There are 4 girls and 4 boys and all of them are adorable.

Baby group photo (one baby didn't make it)

Urban Chicken Farming

Our hens are doing awesome and are now laying eggs for us!  I would love to post all of our egg photos however, we seem to have misplaced the cameras battery charger and can not up load photos from the camera right now... As soon as we find it, I will post them up here, but for now, here are some silky chicken photos!

Nelson petting Thing 1

Christolla and Thing 2

Olympic Summit Hike

At the end of August Paul, my Dad (Randy), Tommy, Cam and me headed to Kananaskis Country for a (long) day hike.  Our objective was to hike the Centennial trail up past Olympic Summit and summit on Mt. Allen.  The Centennial Trail boasts being highest hiking trail in the Canadian Rockies.  With a elevation gain of 1400m, over 11km of horizontal travel, and a max elevation of 2819m  it wasn't going to be just another walk in the park! 

Tommy, Shy (Cameron) and Paul just a few meters of elevation gain to go before we hit tree line.

Water break

Ribbon Mountain

Randy and Olympic Summit (the grassy peak on the right)

Tommy

Visiting Canada from New York State, this hike was Tommy's first outdoorsey experience in the Canadian Rockies!  He told me when we were first planing a trip out that he wanted something challenging- well, I would have to guess he got more then he could of ever anticipated; An up close look at the (questionable) venue of the 1988 winter Olympics, a spectacular view of the Kananaskis, a unrelenting upwards grind - and the wind! Oh the wind!! Nakiska is known for having some of the highest wind readings, but to experience it first hand is pretty humbing;  There were several times were we all hit the deck as the wind threatend to blow us right off the ridge.

It has been a late summer and usually we would not find such an amazing show of alpine flowers this time of year, but what a show it was!

An alpine family photo

Lunch break at Olympic Summit

After munching down on lunch hiding in a spot protected from the gale force (literally) winds, we made the call to turn around and head back down the mountain.  The winds were not subsiding, but rather getting more and more forceful and even just standing upright was not possible on the Olympic Summit - the wind would actually push you off your feet.  Knowing we had another 400m of elevation gain to go, it was only bound to get more extreme the further up we went.  Unfortunately, this meant we did the hardest part of the hike only to turn around before the far easier and far more scenic section.  We'll have to go back one of these day and finish it off!

My hair hardly gives justice to how windy it really was up there.

 I just look pregnant gain with Cam bundled up against my chest!

Tommy and Paul looking down over Kananaskis Village

The view up Ribbon Creek

Rock bluffs

Tommy did great! Welcome to the Rockies Tommy!

Mi amor

Dad and I descending down the trail

The parking lot was deceptively calm and hot. 

Despite not reaching true summit, the day was a great success!  It was a wonderful day out in the Mountains, a great challenge (our first hard hike with Cam) and we had excellent company.  No matter how many times I visit Kananaskis, I am continually impressed by its beauty- We are so lucky to have the Rockies in our backyard! 

Olympic Summit is the rounded out peak at the very top of the ski runs.