We explored the hotel, went on a boat tour of Lake Minnewanka, went shopping and ate ourselves into larger pants. Lucky for you we took pictures of almost the entire weekend!

I wish this was the car we drove in but it was the car parked next to our dirty old van.

We went on a boat tour of Lake Minnewanka with the kids. It was a lot of fun to be on a super fast boat barreling through the water while gorgeous views whiz past.

A bald eagle in one of the trees near the shore.

Jocey fell asleep while the boat rocked and slept through the entire boat tour!

After being on the water we played in the hills near the water. The kids love hiking as deep as they can into the trees.

After playing on the water and then running through the mountains we needed to relax in the hotel pool. There’s an indoor pool and an outdoor pool so we took turns between both of them.

My beautiful kids in the elevator to the pool.

The girls and I are in our white fluffy robes ready to hit the spa for pedicures. It didn’t turn out the way we thought though.

Laurelyn crawled into Daddy’s arms and promptly fell asleep so deeply that I couldn’t wake her so Jocelyn and I had our pedicures without her.

On our last day we played a bunch of lawn games and had a good time with badminton, ladder ball, crochet and bocce ball.

We ended our weekend with dinner at Nourish, a vegetarian place that Chuck and I love. The kids scarfed down some vegetarian nachos, king kong noodles, a burrito and some delicious mushroom raviolis. YUM!

It was one of our best vacations ever and now I’m home and exhausted. I’m going to bed!

Jason threw himself on there so many times and so hard that he bruised his chest muscles! Ouch!

It’s a very musical weekend for us. Yesterday was Jason’s guitar concert and today is was Jocelyn and David’s piano recital. We left right after church so we were all dolled up in our Sunday best. David and Jocelyn played first. It was so cute to see my little man climb up on the piano bench and play his heart out. I think only half of the notes he played were correct but he smiled all the way through and had a great time!

Jocelyn was not only beautiful but very well prepared. She practiced every day and felt only mildly nervous to play her two recital pieces.

The whole thing was beautiful and I’m so proud of my kids. I remember disliking the forced music lessons but now that I have my own kids I understand why they’re so important. The kids feel so good about themselves when they’ve practiced and achieved something.

Can you tell that he had a great time! He was so nervous but his guitar teacher explained to him that being nervous is a good thing. Fear is bad because it’s not productive but nervousness is really just excitement and playing in front of an audience is worth getting excited over. That made a lot of sense to my boy. He practiced hard and then played his heart out. He loved seeing that he wasn’t the newest kid and he certainly wasn’t the most nervous one. He did a great job and we were so proud of him that Chuck took him out for a movie. They were due for some man-to-man time!

Jason’s First Song

Jason’s Second Song

When the concert was finished we let the kids play at the park to blow off some energy.

It may have been raining but we had a blast inside. The plates were huge and the food was delicious. It’s definitely a place we’ll be going to again.