Trip to the Canadian Rockies

The month of May was a busy time in the Anderson Household!!! We sold our house, bought a new one, and left for a 9 day trip to the Canadian Rockies to celebrate our 10 year anniversary...all in about 3 weeks! When we came back we finished up school, soccer season, and then launched right into swim team season. So, that might explain some why I have not had many new posts these days.

I hope to go back and label each one of these photos...but for now let me just give you an idea of where Evan and I went on our trip. We spent most of our time in Banff. When we arrived we found out there was one more day of skiing before the slopes closed for the season. Evan was thrilled....I was...well...a bit nervous. However, I did accompany him to the slopes. The views at the top were amazing...although each time I skied down...I was so nervous. I had a few wipe outs...but it was worth the experience!

We did lots of hiking, saw many beautiful lakes, waterfalls, amazing mountains, neat wildlife, lots of snow, and much much more! We took a beautiful drive to Jasper and stayed there for 2 nights and then made our way back to Banff and then to Calgary to fly back home. It was wonderful to enjoy each others company away from the kids. Quiet dinners had become so foreign to us!

We are so grateful to our parents who took wonderful care of all our kids while we were gone. They did not miss us in the least. Hope you enjoy viewing some of our pictures. They are such a wonderful testimony of the majestic hand of our Creator!

Our Little Bluebird Family

On Easter, we had a big egg hunt. During the search we happened to check our bluebird house for any hidden eggs. Must to our surprise we discovered 5 beautiful bluebird eggs. We had no idea the birds had even made the house their home. Last year we watched the male and female bluebird build their nest in stages. How exciting it was to have baby eggs again this spring. This time we have taken every precaution to make sure we do not lose our eggs to another sneaky raccoon!

After much waiting, about 2 weeks, we opened the house to discover 4 baby bluebirds. They must have just hatched as one egg remained in the nest.

Here are the babies just a few hours old and already hungry!

Here they are about a week old. My have they grown!

They already have little feathers on them.

This has become quite a family affair!

Here they are about 1 1/2 weeks old.

I see some eyes starting to open!

Here they are about 2 weeks old. They will stay in the nest for another week before they leave and fly out on their own!





Here they are about 2 1/2 weeks old.

It is hard to believe 5 baby birds all fit in there!

Well, these will probably be the last pictures we will get of our little bluebird family. We anticipate they will attempt to fly out of the nest within the next few days. Unfortunately, we will probably be out of town when this happens. Normally they fly to the feeder in front of our window with their parents. Then they each open their mouth as the mommy or daddy drops food into it. It is quite a site. Hopefully we can catch some pictures of this. Even if we don't, we are so grateful to have witnessed such a beautiful display of God's creation.

Well, I have one more sad thing to add to our bluebird family story. After finally completing the week by week history of our baby birds...and just days before they gained their independence...this morning I discovered the nest had been invaded! We don't know for sure who the predator was. However, we are pretty confident that it was a cat or a raccoon. It is hard to believe this could happen two times in our little bird house. The kids are disappointed but grateful to have seen them make it this far. We look forward to hosting another bluebird family next spring and will do everything we can to see those babies survive!