10th Anniversary

It is hard to believe that I am old enough to say this, but Lance and I just celebrated our 10th anniversary.  He told me a while back to not open our credit card bill for a while, so I had a feeling he had something planned or had bought a gift of some sort, I just didn't know what it was.  The night of our anniversary, we went out to our favorite restaurant, Chops, and had a wonderful evening.  He carried a box in with him and had me open it in the restaurant.  He has a such a creative side to him, and came up with a fun way to tell me about our gift.   Inside the box was a booklet that he put together telling me that we were going to Banff, Canada...in less than 5 days! 

I have to be honest and say that I really didn't know much about Canada, so this was a big geography lesson for me.  He even arranged for my parents to come stay with the kids.  We took a million pictures and had a fantastic time, so I will try to keep this brief.
The night before we left, just before my parents pulled in our driveway, we found out that the airline cancelled our flight the next morning.  Lance immediately got on the phone and internet and was able to still get us out that same day.  They tried to make us go a day later, but thankfully he was savvy and calm enough to figure it out.  He had a few more surprises for me and I think he was mostly freaked out about having to reschedule everything that he had planned. 
To say that Canada is beautiful is a complete understatement.  There are truly no words to describe the scenery in Banff.  Lance was told by a few people that it was one of the most beautiful places in the world and I would have to agree.
We arrived and headed straight to our hotel.  It was really more like a condo and had an awesome view of the mountains.

After getting settled, we headed to a nearby restaurant.  I still can't get over the views -

We had amazing weather the entire week, with highs in the upper 60's/low 70's and lows in the 40's.  I was thinking that it would start to get cold around dinner time but since the sun didn't set until around 10:30 pm everyday, it stayed warm until late in the evening. 
The next morning, Lance surprised me with the best massage of my life at the Fairmont hotel.  The hotel itself was absolutely incredible and looked like a castle in the middle of the mountains.  It was built around 1880 and has a lot of history surrounding it.

There were two Fairmont hotels in the area and they did a great job of placing the hotels to where guests could just walk outside to an amazing view instead of having to hike to see it.

That afternoon we took a cruise on Lake Minnewanka, which Lance called Lake Willy Wonka...it really did sound like that was what they were calling it.  It was a great tour but unfortunately, the true colors of the water didn't really show up in my pictures.

This was our only real wildlife encounter, where we saw big horn sheep.  They came really close to us in the parking lot and they were hilarious b/c they would stand in the middle of the road, I think, just to annoy the cars trying to get by.

 

The next day we went to Lake Louise.  I got really sick the night before so I was nervous about the day, but thankfully I woke up feeling great.  I thought we might just walk around, but since I felt better, we ended up doing a 4.5 hour hike from Lake Louise to this tea house up in the mountains.  It was probably my favorite place on the trip.

The most amazing waterfall...the sound was incredible, you could see steam coming off the water that was coming down from the glacier and I just wanted to pause time and either lay down or do yoga.  

About half way to the tea house

 After a while we were beginning to think the tea house was a hoax.  At a certain point, we kept expecting it to pop up around the next corner, but it never did.  We finally made it!  We had a cup of tea and some fresh biscuits and then we had to head back for my final surprise.

There were a few spots with really steep drop-offs...yikes!

I was sad to have to leave the tea house so quickly, but once I found out what we were doing next, it put an extra pep in my step!

I thought I would be nervous, but it was so much fun!  What amazed me most was how vast the mountains are.  You can see them all around you when you drive around Banff, but from the ground, you just can't grasp how far the mountains go.

We got  to see a glacier and some amazing lakes.  The picture below shows how thick the ice was on the glacier and it had a blue hue to it.  Gorgeous.

We went and hiked through a canyon one day which was pretty but it was all paved, so not a true hike and far too many people!

On our final day, we went out to hike around Lake Morraine.  I had been hearing about how amazing this lake was throughout the trip, with its deep turquoise waters and again, there are no words to describe it.  I really had never seen anything like it.  

I was pretty nervous about this hike because it is illegal to go out in groups of less than four hikers because of the grizzly bears.  They track most of the bears in the area so they know where they are at all times and apparently there are more than 5 that call this place home.  We bought bear spray, but I was still pretty scared.  

Yikes!

 When we got to the trail, they had a person there making sure everyone was heading up with at least 4 people in their group.  I was nervous we would be with annoying people all day, but thankfully we lucked out.  We had a guy from Canada who hikes all the time and a family from Belgium who is used to hiking in the Alps, so we felt like at least they would know what to do!  This was our longest hike of the week. 

And this was about where my hiking stopped for the day.  Lance went to the top of Sentinnel Pass, which is the middle part on top of the mountain that is behind us in the picture above.  You have to cross over a narrow pass of ice and then it is switch backs across the face until you get to the top.  I got about half way over the pass with ice and had a panic attack since I didn't have my hiking boots on.  I told Lance to go to the top since we had made it that far, so I sat in a rocky area where I felt like bears wouldn't be  a threat and prayed the whole time that Lance wouldn't fall off the side of the cliff.

The end of my journey:

He made it!  You can see the lake we were sitting by behind Lance

The way back down - the lake looks a little more true to color here:

After the hike, we sat in a scenic viewing area and had a glass of wine.  We packed it with us that morning to have on top of the mountain, but since we had some serious hikers with us, we didn't want to break it out on the trip.  It was so nice to not have a time agenda all week and to just enjoy the days in whatever way we wanted.

 I can't believe how quickly 10 years have gone, 15, if you count our five years of dating.  Life sure has changed quite a bit from the beginning, but I'm so glad that I have such an amazing husband to go on this journey in life with.  I think I had expected a quick little trip to the beach as his surprise, but this was the perfect trip for us.  We used to hike a lot when we dated and first got married and it was fun to get to enjoy the things that started off our relationship.  I love you Lance and appreciate all that you do for me and our family!  Happy anniversary!!