Cooler Weather In Canadia...

As much as we love sweating our guts out...

We kind of love the mountains more :)

We took a trip to visit our fellow family of Canadians,

and loved the cooler weather that came with it.

Just to warn you...

the amount of pictures is directly proportional to the amount of fun we had...

thus there are a LOT of pictures.

We flew into Montana and made our way through Glacier National Park.

 It was beautiful!

 

Jon kept drooling over the people going white water rafting...

(see their little yellow raft?)

And more drooling was done over these rapids...

We followed the "Road to the Sun"...

And made it to the tippity-top.

 Jon's brother married a girl from Alberta, and we stayed at her family's cabin.

It was awesome!

No running water, no plumbing, no electricity- we finally felt like we were camping! 

We even used creek water to wash our hair...

Jon used the boogie board to help start the fire...

 We roasted mallows...

 Told stories...

 

And were stoked to wear our sweatshirts!

 

Oh yeah- we also shot guns...

 

And Jon was a good shot!

Everything about it was beautiful!

 The cabin is at the edge of Waterton Park

 (the Canadian side of Glacier National Park)

and it was gorgeous!

We did a bit of hiking...

 And saw some AMAZING views!

 We dipped our toes in water,

as we ate lunch by the lake.

  

 Jon and Jordan got some good rock skipping time in.

  

And even saw a MOOSE!

See him?

He's a little to the left and up from the orange kayak.

More hiking...

 

 A couple jumping pics for good measure...

BUT most importantly- we got to play Aunt and Uncle all weekend.

Pretty sure Jon takes the cake for favorite Uncle.

 How cute is this guy?

Love him!

 

 Cute little Lincoln

 Now that's manly ;)

 Stealing Lexi's flower during church?

 

 Pretty cute niece and nephews right?

Thanks Jord and Mandee for showing us around Canada!

We miss Southern Alberta already...

Your son Chico? Nemo!

Jon has never seen "Finding Nemo"! Isn't that a shame? 

After our adventures to the Houston Aquarium last night- we vowed we'd come home and watch it.

Then we remembered that we didn't have it... NOR was it on Netflix.

Oops.

Someday, someday.

We spent yesterday evening at the Downtown Aquarium...

they were having a two-for-one ticket day and since we knew we'd never pay full price to go- we jumped on the chance! 

 We saw the swamps of Louisiana...

 The coral reefs of Australia...

 Frenzied fish feedings... 

did you know that the worker fed them fish?

Fish eat fish?

Cannibals?

I never knew...

I thought fish eat those fish food flakes from Wal-Mart

:)

 My favorite...

He has polka-dots.

 This puffer fish has the creepiest and HUGEST eyes I've ever seen on a fish!

 Stare down with the Lion fish...

 Seahorse- so cute.

I want one as a pet.

 The petting zoo... for fish :)

 "C'mere little sting ray..."

 "Gotcha! You're a slimy little bugger, aren't ya?

And Jon found a new career path...

At the end of the aquarium tour were these tigers...

Asian tigers and tropical fish...

I fail to see any connection.

Maybe someone can help me out?

 AND we had some fun in the Gift Shop!

 Outside there were rides...

Our personal mantra,

"One is never too old to ride the Carousel."

 Love, love, love how he's the only big kid on this.

(Note- I DID ride this... once. I like to get sick on rides, bleh.)

 

And he's off!

Waiting in line...

On board the "shark train"...

we rode the train into the shark aquarium- pretty sweet.

 The Great White almost got us ;)

When we first moved here- we saw this Ferris wheel from the freeway and have always wanted to go on it.

Turns out, it's a part of the aquarium and our wish finally came true :)

 From one side you can see downtown...

 And the other side is the lovely freeway...

(on which we spotted the ferris wheel to begin with)

 We actually had a nice summer day in Houston yesterday!

It's been really rainy the past few days... which has cooled things off.

 It was overcast (but not raining) and a whopping 75 degrees...

oh yeah- and with a slight breeze.

How pleasant!

Kind of ridiculous how many pictures we took in three hours...
Oops!
The end.

My Cool Sister

My sweet little sister is in Africa.

I think the travel bug runs through our family's blood.

She's there serving the people of Uganda.

She's been gone since May...

 and I miss her.

 These gems popped up on Facebook today, and I couldn't help but smile.

With kids as cute as these- she may not ever want to come home!

America the Great!

America is so wonderful!

Even though political issues are tumultuous and sometimes frustrating- 

this country is amazing.

I get so emotional and grateful every fourth of July.

My little sister is in Africa right now and she wrote the cutest blog post, about how she's become much more grateful for things in America...

from apples to paved roads- we really do have it good here.

Our fourth of July celebration was hot, sticky, and humid- but rather blissful.

We got up early (who's idea was it to have a ward activity at 7:30?) and went to our ward breakfast.

The YW love to terrorize Jon ;)

We found out that the Houston Symphony was playing at (our favorite) Miller Outdoor Theatre for FREE on the fourth of July and KNEW we had to go.

Although it's free- they have covered seating that you can get free tickets for the day of the show. 

Caveat? You just hafta wait in line.

Normally if we get there early we can get seats no problem.

Well we showed up an HOUR AND A HALF before the box office opened and the line was wrapped all the way around the building and zigzagging through the theater.

It was nuts.

I guess the symphony is kind of a big deal and Houston is kind of a big city so there were kind of a lot of people there?

We came prepared though... with our camp chairs and deck of Skip-Bo cards.

Heck yeah.

Word to the wise- Jon is the Skip-Bo master.

Hands down.

Don't mess.

To eat up the rest of the day- we ate up delicious foods like this.

And when evening rolled around we went BACK to the park for the Houston Symphony concert.

 They of course played beautiful patriotic songs like the national anthem, various Sousa marches, and the great 1812 Overture.

When they played the tribute to all the different branches of the military, we got all teary-eyed.

We love America.

And afterwards, there were indeed fireworks.

(Like the port-a-potties in the background? Classy.)

God bless America!

Love this land.