{ahh!}

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I haven't downloaded my pictures yet so I borrowed this one from the Internet. Medicine Lake, Alberta. One of my favorite spots where we went this past couple of days. (Click the picture!) Canadian Rocky Mountains is the most amazing, beautiful place to go to. It is magical there. One or two days there is the same as if you've been on vacation for a week or two. So relaxing and refreshing. So breathtakingly beautiful. I love the mountains!!!!! This spot was a favorite of mine this time. This picture doesn't do justice to the beauty of this spot. I hope my pictures will turn out great. The water in all the lakes is crystal clear, often turqoise in color. Some lakes seem to be multicolored: turqoise/green/dark blue/light blue. We saw more animals than we could see in the Edmonton Zoo (which is not that hard to accomplish I should admit). We saw deer, big horn sheep, a black bear mommy + two cubs (!!!!!), caribou, tiny squirrels, woodpecker birds, mountain goats, huge spiders, neon blue dragonflies (mating season, there were tons of them by a lake we visited)......... One of the mountain sheep (or goat, I can never remember which is which) came right to our van and tried to eat some kind of crumbs on the steps of the van. He was like RIGHT THERE. It's actually sad that the animals aren't scared of us humans. They are supposed to. I'm sure some tourists feed them. It's not good for the animals. But they do come right next to you and it was amazing to see the fuzzy soft antlers on the caribou right up close. We stayed in the van for the bears of course ;). I think that was my favorite animal to see. The mama bear was not that big. The cubs were so tiny and so playful and cute. I totally fell in love with them. They were right beside the road so we got to enjoy them for quite a bit.

Beautiful flowers everywhere too. Valkovuokkoja!!!! Isoina rykelmina ja tosi isoja. Ah! My favorites were the Indian paintbrush flowers. It's always amazing to me to see the same flora that is found in Finland.

My sister and her daughter went horse back riding and while we were waiting for them I took Sienna for a pony ride. I was imagining a tiny little pony of course and was very surprised when the pony turned out to be a quite big horselike pony. He was very old though and we had no problem with him. Sienna loved riding. She kept saying "I can't believe I'm riding a pony!" Probably because that's what I kept saying. :) She seemed like such a big girl once again. They grow up so fast...

On our way home yesterday we were going to stop at Annette lake for about 10-15 minutes so that Sienna could throw some rocks in the lake before the long drive home. We ended up staying there for almost two hours. Sienna played in the sand and ended up going swimming with her cousin. Annette Lake is were the locals go to swim when it gets hot. Hard sandy beach and once again a crystal clear lake. Mountains all around you. Breathtaking. Amazing experience. Jay and I will have to go back there with Sienna many times.

I have a book about the trails in the mountains and that helped us so much. It was easy to choose places where to go. It's easy to miss things if you don't know where to find them. There is so much to see though. Always new places to see and explore. I once again vowed to myself that I would make more of an effort to go to the mountains more often.

Speaking of which... We are leaving for Canmore/Banff/Waterton/Writing-on-wall soon. Yey! :) Gotta love nature! The work of THE BEST artist ever!!!!!

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It has been so wonderful to have my sister here!! It's kind of an two-edged sword though. It's almost painful to have her here as I'm already treading the day they leave. At times I totally tear up as it's so painful to have her here. It's just too nice and the thought that we only get to see each other so rarely makes your heart hurt. Sienna has enjoyed these guys so much as well and I think she'll be crushed when they go. I'm trying to convince them to move to Canada. *sigh*

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