June 24, Wednesday 2009 DAY 33

We all got some warm showers today!:) We found a place with nice warm showers.... It was nice since our hot water tank in the motorhome isn't big enough for the whole family, so some of us get cold showers. We all were thrilled except for Orin (8) and Eli (6) who said that they had, had showers three days ago, and Teyauna who loves baths, but screams the moment the shower goes on, even if she is still dry.

June 23, Tuesday 2009 DAY 32

Today we woke up to the sound of dad making a loud “HONK!” noise. Apparently, Teyauna, my one year old sister, was pressing her nose saying “beep bee beep” and was being replied by mom with her own beeps when dad decided to join in. His excuse is that he doesn't know how to do soft beep beeps, so he decided on a resounding “HONK!” that woke the whole family and scared Teyauna who quickly hid behind mom and wouldn't come out until she decided that it would be fun to do it again. Crawling back over to his side of the bed she did her “bee beep” thing which resulted in yet another foghorn wake up call........
At around 12:30, we arrived at what we thought was a little info center, but turned out to be a place that was all about whales. So, while waiting for our boat trip that dad had arranged about five minutes away, we had a picnic and learned about whales.
The people there were more than happy to tell us different facts and answer our questions. Despite the fact that we are still in Quebec and everyone speaks French, they were quite good with their English, so it wasn't hard to understand.
After spending almost an hour (lots of our time was taken by our lunch that we ate outside) we headed off to the “AML Cruises” place. The ride we took was supposed to be three hours, but we went a little overtime 'cause we saw more whales than we had expected. It was so amazing! There was a couple (mother and baby) that went right up to the boat! If I jumped overboard, I probably could have landed on one of them!
We weren't done with boats that day however, because we decided to take a one hour ferry that saved us three hours of driving.
When we finally made it to New Brunswick, Dad, as always, insisted on getting a photo in front of the welcome sign. We all now knew better than to complain, so we all got out.
I think that mosquitoes have just figured out that all they have to do is wait right by the welcome sign and eventually someone will come along for a picture, 'cause this is NOT the first time we have been eaten alive while dad tries to figure out how to set the camera to timer setting. Mom was quite amazing. She was running around crazy waving her arms so that the mosquitoes wouldn't bite her. We all were trying to slap them and bat at them, but somehow, we all ended up with a few itchy souvenirs.:rolleyes:

June 6, Saturday 2009 DAY 15

I Finally got a warm shower today!:) We stopped at an RV park, so we were able to plug in and get water and all that. We haven't been having warm showers lately 'cause one of the valves in the water pipes had been switched the wrong way, making it impossible for warm water to come out. But we fixed it! :D

Later

Marine Land was pretty fun, but more for 10 years old on down. But there were some good rides like the Sky Screamer, even if everything was quite spread out. The dolphin and sea otter show was really good! They had all kinds of things that they got them to do, like flips and singing for the dolphins and dancing as well as acting for the sea otters.

After Marine Land, we drove over to one of my dad's staff member's apartment. We stayed for dinner, but had to be quiet, as the people living underneath knocked on their ceiling at every small sound we made. Nevertheless, we had quite a nice evening, and didn't get to bed 'till late.

Eating the Dust

At 11:00am, we arrived at the historical site Fort Battleford. It was really neat 'cause we had a tour guide tell us the history of the Fort and the Royal Mounties as she showed us some replicas and some actual artifacts from that time and area. My brothers were really excited though about the gun display they did inside the actual fort and later the canon demonstration.
The youngest three boys all got to try on some Mountie costumes for a picture as well. Despite the fact that it was pretty cold weather outside, we really enjoyed the whole experience! It also helped that since mom had gone into the Motorhome early, we were able to enjoy a nice warm lunch of rice and curry.
After about two hours at the fort, we set out for the crooked trees. We were all pretty excited because these were supposed to be one of the seven wonders of Canada. When we got there, we were amazed! On one half of the little parking lot, all the trees were straight. On the other side however, they were growing every which way! Even the little trees just starting to grow were going all crazy!

We were all pretty exhausted after our long day, so most of the kids just settled down with a book while I continued tutoring Orin and Eli. We were cut short though when, suddenly our Motorhome was filled with a thick fog of dust! The road we were driving on was so dusty that it was all kicking up into the moterhome. When we noticed this, we quickly closed all the windows, but it made no difference.
When we finally stopped to see what was going on, we were horrified to discover that the floor near the back of the RV, coming through the door in the bathroom, was a brown layer of dust! We tried cleaning it up as best we could, but decided that, since we had quite a bit more driving on this dusty road, we would save the rest for later.
After finally coming to the end of the long road and finally finding a place to stop, we surveyed the situation. It was horrible! What got it the worst was the bathroom. Everything was covered in a centimeter of the brown dust.
So, mom and dad handed out the wet cloths. There was dust on the dashboard, dust in the blankets, dust in the play pen, dust on the walls, pretty much everywhere! We found that the dust had come through a hole that was made for the plumbing right under the back wheel! We'll have to get that fixed! It took us about four hours cleaning it out. We are going to have to find a vacuum tomorrow. We have all agreed on this one point though: No matter how amazing the attraction is, NO DUSTY ROADS!

June 3, Wednesday 2009 DAY 5

We woke at 6:45 this morning to the piercing sound of the gas alarm. If you have ever heard your fire alarm go off, you can compare the two, except for the fact that the gas alarm is ten times more loud.....and shrill. At first I thought it was the inverter. It tends to do that sometimes if you let it get below a certain number of watts. But this was WAY worse than any sound the inverter has dared make.
Needless to say, it didn't take long for us all to get up, if grudgingly. We couldn't smell gas anywhere though and didn't know how to stop the noise either. When it finally did stop, we went inside our friends' house where me, Jaeden and my mom where able to have showers and where everyone had breakfast. Soon we will be at West Edmonton Mall!

West Edmonton mall is huge! It seems as if there is every store on Vancouver Island packed into this mall.... and more! I truly wouldn't mind if they moved the whole thing to Victoria.
Since our gas detector is broken and our inverter that we plug our electronics into won't charge and a couple of other things, dad dropped us off at West Ed Mall and brought it somewhere to get fixed.
While we were waiting for Dad, we checked into the hotel that's in W.E.M and got our tickets that we could use for any of the attractions. It took a while for us to find the place though 'cause mom kept getting lost, and we had to ask a couple people where to go. While we were on our way to pick up the tickets, this lady calls out to mom. Before she, or any of us knew it she was sitting in a chair with someone trying to sell her a straightening iron and showing her how great it was by using it on mom's hair!
After eating, we met up with dad and went to the water park. It was so fun! After going on all the slides that were open, I decided that “Blue Bullet” was the best one of them all. The whole thing was a tube, one was so dark, you could have been blind and there wouldn't have been a difference and the other had thinner walls so that it was light the whole way down. I don't know if I was allowed or not, but I just crouch in a sort of ball so that I spun around as I went down. It made the slide seem even more fun!
The wave pool was amazing. It was set up like a beach so that when the horn sounded and the waves went on, it actually seemed like you were on a beach in Hawaii! The air was even heated in that area! All that could have been added was real sand.
At four thirty more slides opened up. The corkscrew, a tube slide wide enough for you to take a tube down. Sky Screamer, My new favorite, an extremely steep slide that is easier to go on if you don't look down. And Tropical Typhoon, My next favorite, a funnel slide that eventually dropped you into a deep pool.

It's true what everyone says about being wiped after going to the water park. After dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (and me nearly forgetting my purse there) we trudged up to our rooms. They were so cool! It was a western theme so the outside of the doors looked like horses in their stalls, and inside the wood was made to look like a log cabin. The bunk beds had a sign over them saying “County Jail” and bars were put up by the top bunk. There was also this huge Jacuzzi tub. The beds are a lot softer than the ones in the motorhome. This will be a comfy night!

June 2, Tuesday 2009 DAY 4

Despite the fact that we woke up nice and early, it took us a while to get going. My mom, wanted to just stay and visit family, but when Dad told us that we were going to go on a mechanical bull, that finally got us, and our cousins that we were visiting, to get a move on.
It was actually pretty fun! Jaeden, (age 13, one year younger than me) was pretty good at it, but finally got bucked off. Even dad got bucked off pretty fast. I was the only one in my family that didn't. We all got this cowboy hat to wear, so when Eli (age 6) was on the bull, the hat kept slipping over his eyes forcing him to only hold on with one hand!
After everyone had their turn of fun and laughs, we started our drive to Drumheller, where we visited the Royal Tyrell Museum. What we saw was far more than I had expected! There was amazing dinosaurs there. And there were also these fish who's origins dated back to over a million years ago and ones that walked and looked like miniature dinosaurs!
There was also this room for kids to shoot balls about two feet in the air with these little machines, however, this is not how the older cousins and uncles decided to use this room. Soon after we entered, an intense game of “hurl and dodge the ball” broke out. They were soft balls, so they didn't hurt...... to much. Some of the younger children banded up with the older ones against the uncles, but most tried to amuse themselves with the ball shooters. A couple from both groups ended up crying to their moms. Soon, it got to the point where all the moms said “enough” and we continued on our exploration of the museum.
Everyone was sad when the time came for goodbyes. We drove to some friends in Edmonton where we will stay until tomorrow when we go to West Edmonton Mall!

June 1, Monday 2009 DAY 3

Last night, the place we stayed at was a historical site. Where the last spike was put on the Canada railroad. The only thing about this though, was that there were LOTS of loud trains passing and we were right by the highway, so the lighter sleepers (me and my mom) got to enjoy lots of noise in the night.
After filling the “Mo Ho” up with gas, we went somewhere called The Enchanted Forest. It was so cool! The first thing you saw was a big castle that had a dungeon and a look-out tower. It was really cool!
After that, it seemed like you had gone to a completely different land. A land of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. There were these little house that you could look at and explore and even go inside!
There were the houses from those belonging to the three little pigs and even the little old woman who lived in a shoe. There was all kinds of clay houses and tree houses. What made it so real though, was that you could walk in, among and around these masterpices. There were also the cute figurines scattered through the forest. One of my favorites was the pied piper and his rats, as well as the seven dwarves. There was not one nursery rhyme or fairy tale this magical place forgot.
Also, attached to this was a zipline park. So the two younger boys (Orin and Eli) were able to go on the kid “Skytrek Adventure” and they had a lot of fun. Eli made us laugh a few times though while he tried making his way through.
After this stop, we moved on to Banff and enjoyed wandering around this little town and in and out of shops. After about half an hour, we treated ourselves to some take out pizza that we ate on our way to Calgary where we are now going to stay the night at our relatives' to rest up for our day in Drumheller tomorrow. No more trains this time!

May 30, Saturday 2009 DAY 1

We've started our adventure! I have been really excited for this trip, researching places to see, packing up, and getting our home and other things ready for the people taking care of our house.
We stayed longer than we had hoped at the house, doing last minute things, saying goodbye to everyone and we had to rush over to the library and return some books on CD.
Yesterday this guy from A channel news came and interviewed us and got some footage of us packing. He even got some close ups on the “Follow our Family of 8 for 17,000 km at FamilyAdventuring.com” tshirts that I made and that we were all wearing for this thing. Luckily it was the one of my brother's and not mine! It's annoying though 'cause we weren't able to watch it. We are going to get it from some of our friends though and dad wants to put it on YouTube and link it up to his business website, so we will probably see it soon.
Tomorrow we will be in a town called Craigellachie. It's a small town, unlike it's long name.

When decided to go to mexico, we were very exited.:) We had been there once before, and had gone to a small orphanage called Casa Ogar Esperanza to visit with the children. When we asked them what we could bring to them the next time we came, Ester (the person who owns the orphnage) told us that they really needed shoes. They told us that a couple years back, some americans had brought them some shoes and they had lasted a lot longer than the cheap shoes they got there in mexico.
Now that we were here in mexico again, we decided to visit this orphanage once more. But his time we were able to come with more than just our selves, we came with a whole bunch of shoes, and some money that us kids had earned doing a play called Jack and the beanstalk that us and some other freinds put on together. Since it proved successful enough to get into the newspaper, and we performed at an elementary school as well for two different kindergarden classes, we were able to get more than our original goal.
When we finally got to the orphanage, we were welcomed as expected guests. When we produced the shoes, she was so grateful. There were only five children there at the time because the rest of them were at school and wouldn't be back 'till 3:00, but the children that were there quickly picked out the shoes that they though would fit them.
We went out to lunch before returning back to the orphanage to say our final good byes and take a couple pictures. All the kids were home by then, so we were able to get them all in the picture.:D They were SO excited to have their new shoes! There were enough shoes for all of them exept three. Two of them had feet that were too big for the size of shoes we got, and one just wasn't there in time. Many of them went up to my little sister Teyauna (only 10 months at the time) to play with her fingers or say something to her in spanish.
Just before we left, we asked if there was anything else she wanted us to bring. We were told that more shoes, and clothes would be welcome. The one girl that never got any shoes shyly told Ester (only when asked) that she would rather girl flats. Without them really noticing, we also put a stocking full of halloween candy under their Christmas tree.
It was so fun and fulfilling to do a small act of service for someone that was in need. For me, even though it was hard to realize that it was soon to be Christmas in such a sunny, hot place:cool:, a christmas spririt of giving came to me that day, knowing that through such a little act of service, you can go a long way.

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Taha'a is a beautiful island, but, more beautiful yet are the coral reefs that
surround it. Our family took a weekend trip to Raiatea (Ray-ah-Tay-ah). While there a guide took us on a day trip to the island called Taha'a. After learning about how pearls are formed, we went to the other side of the island and went snorkeling. I saw coral of blue, brown, orange, yellow, pink, purple, red and green. There were sea anemones, sea urchins and hermit crabs. The sky was blue and the ocean bluer than you could ever imagine without having been there yourself. Not only is the coral colorful but the fish as well. I even saw eels bigger than I have ever seen. Thanks to a local guidebook I was able to identify the sealife.

Not only did I like the snorkeling, but the people as well. After snorkeling we went on a tour of the island. My Mom and Dad wanted to buy some vanilla beans, so they asked the person driving the Jeep to stop somewhere where they could buy some. He did. When we went into the little shop, we were greeted with flower leis that they had made. Mom bought two packets of vanilla and the old lady in the shop added one more. We then bought a handmade necklace and the lady added two more necklaces. We tried to pay for them but only succeeded in buying them for half price as well as adding four more packets of vanilla. The island, fish, coral reefs, and people realy made Taha'a the beautiful place it was.