What an exciting Halloween! Our neighbourhood was the perfect place for trick-or-treating! A combination of lots of houses that are close together makes a perfect place for little legs to go to get treats.
For the first year, in a while, Dougie was not Clifford. He didn’t express any opinion on what he should wear so it was perfect when Auntie Lou offered to loan us one of Molly’s old costumes. Dougie fell in love with it. He wanted to wear it to the grocery store in the middle of the month. He decided he was a bumble bee (“bungle bee”). Now, those entomologists in the reading audience may recognize this costume is not a bumble bee – but sometimes, those arguments are just not worth having.
Connie’s costume lends itself to less debate. She clearly is an elephant. Oh wait, no – a flower.
Dougie inspecting Connie before they leave
Okay, let’s go!
One more picture with Dad before heading out the door.
This year went really well for Dougie. He didn’t try to go into anyone’s house and he actually selected candies that he liked if he was given that option. He said thank you at almost everyone house too. It went perfectly until the second to last house. That house had someone who was trying to scare the kids as they came up. Clearly, not realizing that Dougie was 3, he jumped out and yelled as Dougie waited at the door. Scott said Dougie’s screamed so loudly that the neighbour came out to see what was wrong. The next house had some scary sounds and lights so Dougie decided they were done. In fact, they were so done that Scott had to carry him home.
Overall, a great day though and the kids both had a great time!
It’s a sunny weekend in Calgary, so you know we are off hiking. This weekend, we decided to tackle Jumping Pound Mountain. When we first started hiking around Calgary, we laughed at the idea of climbing a mountain. That was for people much more athletic. There were three mountains at the time that were brought to our attention that we said we would never climb. Prairie Mountain was the first, which we climbed on Father’s Day. Jumping Pound Mountain was the second.
It was a cold day for climbing. Fall is definitely here! We didn’t take a lot of pictures on the way up. It was mostly trees and forest so there wasn’t much to take a picture of. When we got to the top, it was SO windy! Dougie was cold and not in the mood for pictures so we just took a quick one to remember the summit and then moved on.
Scott and Dougie headed down from the summit
Dougie was pretty ready to head home at this point but we had planned to walk out along the ridge for a while. Fortunately, we saw a helicopter parked on the ridge. Dougie was so excited to see Harold the helicopter. We watched it for a while before it took off. That improved Dougie’s mood enough that we could continue.
Helicopter in front of Tiara Mountain
Fortunately, this mountain wasn’t too high and the ridge went right along the treeline so we decided to go back down so we could get out of the wind and have our lunch.
Dougie is happy again eating his “ham crackers”
Daddy and Connie post lunch
Only one more mountain to do on our “mountains we’ll never climb list.” Hopefully, we can hit Moose Mountain next summer.
Another weekend, another hike! You can tell that we’re trying to get as much outdoor time in as possible before the cold weather really sets in. This weekend, we decided on a rather long hike that went up Mt. St. Piran, one of the mountains that surrounded Lake Louise. By all accounts, it’s an exceptional time so we were very excited to go. Unfortunately, as is often the case, having the kids with us really slowed us down, so we had to change our plans.
Mt. St. Piran is the second peak from the right. It is almost a 10 hour walk there and back though so when it took almost 3 hours to do what should have only taken 1, we decided to climb Little Beehive instead (right most peak).
We decided to stop by the Lake Agnes Teahouse to eat our lunch. We had packed sandwiches so we just ate those by the lake rather than going in for tea. The lake was spectacular. We had passed mirror lake earlier which was a bit disappointing but this one made up for it.
From the teahouse we continued on up to the top of Little Beehive. The view from the top was fantastic.
Scott and Dougie looking down on Chateau Lake Louise.
Making the last bit of the climb
Coming back down
Back at the lake
We’re still hoping to make it up to the top of Mt. St. Piran, maybe next year – without the kids.
