Hopefully....

I hope our next little girl can live up to the standards that Aubrey has set. To be specific, she will have big shoes to fill in terms of Aubrey's....

She has set the bar high!

sugar and spice and everything nice....

That's what girls are made of! Let's get right to it, we found out last week that we're having another girl!!! This will be the first and LAST pregnancy picture I will post of myself. Things are just going to get ugly from here on out. Chipmunk cheek ugly. Anywho...besides dwelling on weight gain, I've spent the last week thinking about this new baby to be. I just had my first OB appointment of my pregnancy a week and a half ago (health insurance issues as in, I had none) and then the ultrasound shortly after where I saw her so it's just now all becoming real to me. We're having another baby! And another girl at that! For some reason I'm having a hard time imagining life with two girls-will they be friends, will they fight, will they look alike, act alike? I'm just 3 days short of officially being halfway through my pregnancy and will be welcoming her into the world in January. I feel her moving constantly and have for weeks so I'm getting a little worried that she's going to be a busy one like the notorious A-U-Bs. But we are so grateful that she's healthy and doing well. And you better believe I have a couple sewing projects in mind for her arrival! Keep your fingers crossed that Aubs is nice to her little sister!

Our girl is two!!!

Our "baby" turned TWO this past month. I'm knocking on wood as I write this, but so far, age two is agreeing with Aubs! Okay, so we're not that far into the terrible two age, but this is by far the easiest time we've had together. I could sit and watch her for hours. Actually, now that we don't have TV anymore (not because we're taking a moral stand against it, but because we can't afford it, oh how I miss DVR) many of our evenings we do sit and watch her for hours. She brings me such joy!

We had two little parties for her, one with Zach's family in Utah and one with my family here. They were very low key.  Actually, our parents were more the instigators both times, which I thought was sweet. Aubs is lucky to have some good grandparents. I've decided I will wait until she's old enough to remember her parties before I start making them more extravagant. I want the credit!

Some of her gifts, a watering can (from me) and a little tikes car (from my parents)

and some more Canada....

Mt. Rundle

Sorry for more travel pictures, but the scenery there! It was hard to pick just a few pictures to share (and by a few, a mean at least 8) out of the hundreds of pictures of many many spectacular lakes and mountains.
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If you go up to Banff, I would say this little day trip is a must! We started out at Lake Louise, which I hear on a Saturday, is worse then Disney World during spring break.

Lake LouiseIt's a major tourist attraction, so we went on a weekday before 8 am and only shared the view with 15 or so other people. But that was just the beginning, the very very beginning. We hiked around the lake and up some elevation to an area called the Plain of 6 Glaciers, it was perhaps 5 miles? Maybe a little less.

The Plain of Six Glaciers

But it wasn't just the glaciers that got us up there. Mostly it was the little teahut that you could relax at while taking in the view. The teahut was built around 1906 to provide hikers with refreshments. Today there is still no electricity and the staples are flown in once a year by helicopter and fresh items are hiked in weekly. The staff has to hike there just like us!

Plain of Six Glaciers Tea Hut We had cocoa truffle tea and scones and then begin the next 4 miles of our hike. This took us down and up again (because that's the only way to hike there, up and down!) to the top of an area called the Beehive, which gave us another view of Lake Louise, but this time from high above it. Then it was down again to Agnes Lake and Tea House number 2, same story and deal as the first tea house, located right on the edge of Lake Agnes and a waterfall.

Lake Agnes

Lake Agnes Tea HouseI enjoyed the food and more rustic ambiance at the first tea house way more, so if you only had time to hike to one, I would go there. Then we had about 4 miles to hike back to Floe Lake and give our aching feet a rest!

The rest of our time in Canada we stayed at the Samesun Hostel in Banff. It's right on Main Street and was a good deal for a private room. We had fun walking to the grocery store, movies, Thai food, and shops from our hostel and just enjoying the town of Banff. Well, we had fun limping those places, all of our hiking had taken a toll on everything from our knees to Achilles tendons! We also did a 9 mile hike or so one day to Stanley Glacier and drove to Moraine Lake, which was the most amazing shade of blue! And did a really short little hike to Marble Canyon, which was also gorgeous.

Moraine Lake

But all good things must come to and end and so we began our 15 hour road trip back to Utah, but knowing I had my Aubs to meet me back in Utah made me excited to get going! We owe Zach's parents BIG time for watching Aubs for a full week! Thank you thank you thank you! If you can't tell, I really enjoyed myself on this trip.More on Aubs later, as we may or may not have definitely missed her 2nd birthday while we were on our trip. But she's had a couple of parties to make up for it, and umm...yes I have pictures, lots of pictures to share from that!