Alison departed from her high school, so we were all gathered to clean out her classroom. She attended graduation because some of her students wanted her there. A brief tenure, but I think she probably made a big difference to the classes she taught.
The "fire truck" playground in Rosedale.
The kids made rocks for me for Father's Day, along with evidence of who threw which rock through the window.
I mentioned that Alan Tudyk was doing a play in Los Angeles, and suddenly Alison had got tickets. "Mysterious Circumstances" was the name, about a Sherlock Holmes fanboy collecting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle memorabilia. It was fantastic; at the Geffen Playhouse near UCLA.
We had a Gibbs gathering at Triple Beam Pizza.
My folks came in town for July 4th. It was the first time we've had Haley over since she came back from her mission.
The plan this time was to go up to a rented cabin in Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains. The boys enjoyed the bunk bed.
Eric and Krystal brought their kid, Koda.
In Big Bear there is a little alpine slide--not as huge as others, but the biggest one that John's ever seen.
John and his favorite uncle riding down to the bottom.
I failed to take a decent picture of the zip line thing that Haley and Dad rode. They said it was mediocre.
Rather than parking along the shoreline of Big Bear Lake for the entire day, Dad and I scouted out a location in a vacant lot just beyond the Von's. It was a "long walk" but it was well worth it.
Of course, ID4 was had.
With Haley's return, we had a "pofessional" photographer in our midst. John did not take to well to the sesh.
Eric intimidates the family with his best A-pose.
Summertime picnic in the mountains!
And I introduced the family to Dungeons and Dragons!
We had a great breakfast at The Grind & Grill, which was a short walk from our vacation rental.
Not pictured were the earthquakes that occurred on the 4th and 5th. Definitely the strongest shakings I've felt since moving to California, but fortunately, no damage to our cabin or to our home.
Tommy and Koda share a moment of near mutual biting.
We took the kids to see Toy Story 4. John melted down shortly after.
Begone, Koda.
The boys made a pillow fort after the family headed back home.
Despite the sad face, having 1st class to ourselves was a dream on our flight from LAX to YYC. Air Canada are winners, and we weren't even abandoned overnight after landing!
Our hotel was right in the terminal. We even brought in our luggage cart. Canada has it figured out, man.
Our view from our hotel room of a Dash 8 and other more boring airliners.
A huge park where we killed some time.
A smaller park in Canmore where we killed additional time, and finally met up with family.
The view from our dorm-like hotel in Canmore.
Our first Banff visit was to Lake Louise. A large hotel sits on the shore, into which we briefly jaunted.
The weather was rainy off and on, but otherwise very comfortable. My biggest struggle was being hot in my coat despite needing it for the rain.
We made a second trip to Lake Moraine, which was much less crowded and a little smaller. No less impressive with its turquoise color, which is cased by "rock flour," or finely ground rock from glacial melt, which feeds these lakes.
Canmore itself is a picturesque town, being just outside of the Banff park boundaries proper. Lots of people bike from Canmore to Banff. A&Ws are popular in Canada, and we had one near our hotel. We ate there twice.
The cousins got a lot of time to hang out at our adjoining "rooms."
My kind of catering.
The Gondola day! A fairly long gondola goes to the top of a peak near the town of Banff.
On top is a museum and several observation decks.
Cousins doing some faux camping in the museum.
I saw in the distance from the visitor's center a lookout point, and I decided to go there alone. Sulphur Mountain was a weather station, and for some time, a cosmic ray detector. That went down at the end of the Cold War.
The peak offered a nice view of town of Banff.
When I returned, I found these guys just hanging outside.
The following day we got up real early to make the 2 hour drive to the tip of Jasper National Park, where the Columbia Icefield awaited. John needed to make a pit stop on the way. I was getting range anxiety, as it did not seem that there was anywhere to refuel in the wilderness between Banff and Jasper. Turns out that there was, at this crossroads place.
John wasn't thrilled to be dressed so warmly. But we needed it, even in July. It was in the 40s.
First we took a bus from the visitor's center to the Ice Explorer staging area...
...which also seems a lot like a bus. Except this has huge tires and can drive up huge inclines.
The Athabasca glacier spills out a ways, close enough that the large vehicles can drive up and ferry Americans like ourselves to view it.
John and Ryan spent much of the time trying to destroy every chunk of glacial ice.
After having lunch in the visitor's center, we took a bus out to this walkway. The final piece was a horseshoe shaped glass walkway that juts out of the mountain side.
It's a bit unnerving to set foot on what looks to be a thin window. The stuff is pretty darn stiff though; you couldn't pack enough people on it to break it. It does shift however, which makes for even more uneasiness.
Funny little fire truck outside of a bar near our hotel. It was imported from Japan, obviously.
I woke up the last morning to find all the cousins gathered together, hanging out with their thingamajigs.
Everyone else shipped out, leaving the Reese family on their own in Canada. We spent the morning in Banff.
A pretty town, really. We then checked out Johnston Canyon, which had a "stroller-friendly" trail. For the most part, this was true, but given the high traffic and the occasional huge rocks in the path, that designation may have been a bit oversold. Tommy had been asleep, but he woke up in the course of the bumping and rolling.
Our hotel in Calgary was smack in the middle of downtown in a large highrise. We were interested in visiting Calgary Tower, but it was closed on account of an elevator mishap during the "Stampede" the previous week which left people stranded for several hours while the fire department rescued them. The tower was closed for "maintenance" after that.
Poutine is a big thing in Canada. We checked out this local joint called "The Big Cheese Poutinerie." Did not disappoint; what's not to like about fries, gravy, cheese curds, and bacon?
We passed by the Lougheed House along the way, a Georgian manor. It was attached to a beautiful English garden.
I couldn't resist getting one of these, because it just seemed so funny that the brand drops the possessive in Canada.
A picture of the closed Calgary tower from our breakfast floor.
Tommy was ready for a day at the Calgary Zoo.
We were expecting rain from the forecast, but it was mostly sunny and warm all day...until around 3:30 PM. Hail poured from the sky in the most ferocious storm I've seen since Texas.
John was overtired, melting down, and misbehaving as we left the zoo. Naturally, he fell asleep as soon as we got into our rental car. Alison had looked up this "Pannenkoek Haus" earlier, but with two sleeping kids, we did not go inside. However, we could do takeout...
It was fabulous.
Our last day in the city, we visited old Fort Calgary, the original settlement for the city.
Alison has a picture of me in a Mountie uniform somewhere. I didn't take it. I don't know whether it looked alright, but I felt kind of cool.
We hit this chic breakfast spot before heading to the airport that everyone else had visited a couple of days before us. It also did not disappoint.
The flight on United was not nearly as happy as the Air Canada. I was separated into a middle seat. Alison tried to pawn off Tommy, which worked about as well as you'd expect, bugging my fellow passengers. So she had to keep both kids the whole way to San Francisco.
Fortunately, we were all sitting together on the last leg from SFO to LAX. Tommy was a wreck and did not want to be in a plane any more.
Fortunately, getting out of LAX is a piece of cake. From the time we landed to the time we were in our car, leaving, it was about 1.5h. I hate this airport so bad. I beelined it to the dang parking shuttle, and it passed me like 3 times before picking me up (it was almost midnight), and then I had to come back and pick up Alison and the kids and stuff, which took 45 minutes just to get through the dang loop. I hate this airport so bad. Even at like 1 AM the 105 was packed. I hate this airport so bad.
But you know what I don't hate? I don't hate the opening of the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
Tommy had his 2nd birthday, of which I took almost 0 photos. That's how it goes.
The Gold Line is creeping by our house.
We saw a very mediocre theater production about Apollo 11. The set was really cool though, in a pop-up tent outside of the Rose Bowl.
The ward EQ made everyone eat Korean tacos and burritos. Not a bad requirement, all said. Kimchi pairs surprisingly well with tortillas.
John now requires his church clothes to be chilled before donning them.
John started kindergarten, and he made a Forky. Because that's now required in this post Toy Story 4 world.
We took the kids to burn off some steam at Jump 'n' Jammin, where John had his birthday party. Tommy was already almost too tired by the time we got there, but I think everyone had a reasonably good time. Getting them out of the mall was a bit of a miracle though, given everyone's state.
We endured about 75% of stake conference before the kids went full China Syndrome on us. Not great, not terrible.
The Banff pictures are great!
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