Today the kids were up early even with the late night getting in from the airport, so we grabbed an early breakfast at the hotel. The hotel had a waterslide that was truly the perfect size for our kids. The older boys could make it go fast by going down on their knees, spinning around and being crazy :) Ainsley liked it just the way it was and even Whitaker would ride on my lap and giggle the whole way down!

After some pool and waterslide time we headed out to gather supplies for the rest of our trip. Lucky for us there was a Costco only 5 minutes away. Although our car was already full to the max with our luggage and backpacks we filled our cart with snacks and picnic food. Checkout got a little complicated when after doing a major self checkout order we discovered that they only take Mastercard at Costco in Canada and we only have Visa and AmEx!! Luckily, there is an ATM in the store, so after a brief panic attack,we were able to get some cash, and pay for a cartfull of supplies. It only took us about 10 minutes in the parking lot to figure out how to cram everything into the car in a semi-organized fashion. The final stop was at Cabela's for bear spray, which everyone says is a necessity in the National Parks!

Finally we were on our way to the mountains. It was nice to see them looming ahead of us for the entirity of the drive. Most of them are still quite snow covered this time of year. We stopped at Quarry Lake in Canmore to have a picnic right under a beautiful mountain peak. It was windy, but sunny and warm by Canda's standards. We had a delicious picnic lunch and then the older kids decided they wanted to see how cold the water really was! Liam's face as he stepped in was priceless! Even though it was cold all three kids walked around up to their knees for about 5 minutes before drying off and heading to Banff to do our first hike.

Banff was equally as beautiful as Canmore as we were driving in and the kids really thought it was cool to see the land bridges that were created to allow animals to cross the Trans-Canada highway safely. We arrived at our first hike, Tunnel Mountain around 4:30pm and it was sprinkling as we found our parking spot. We were nervous that the weather was going to get worse, so we all donned our rain jackets just in case. We were pleasantly surprised that the weather was quite beautiful. The hike started with some pretty steep switchbacks and Kevin was carrying Whit in the backpack giving me the side-eye for a while wondering what I signed him up for :) After a good climb the path was still going up but at a slightly lower grade and there was still a bit of complaining from the kids they did a good job of keeping the pace with some promises of snacks at the top! The views kept getting more and more beautiful. The hike allowed you to see 360 degree views around the town and the surrounding mountains. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the top, and by then the wind had started to pick up. We ate our snack and started our decent at quite a bit quicker pace than the way up!

After the hike it was already 7pm, so we knew if we were eating dinner it had to be now. We went to downtown Banff and ate at the Sushi House, which is known for serving their sushi on a train! The kids enjoyed it, they didn't have quite as much fun with it as they do at PC Junction in Door County, but it was entertaining and everyone left happy. When we checked into our hotel they were offering free smores at their outdoor fireplaces so after hauling all of our luggage upstairs we ran down for dessert!

Finally, it was 9:30 and yet another late night for the kids so we all went back to the room for some sleep. This was a normal hotel room but with two double beds...so we slept 3 and 3...so the kids likely slept a bit better than the parents did :)