Oh canada, oh canada

 Last year I planned a sick trip to Belize to take my friends and celebrate Erin beating cancer once again! Well as you all know that didn't happen. With in the week of purchasing these tickets to Belize, Erin had another set of scans showing the cancer had mutated and was once again fighting back. Obviously it didn't end well and no trip to Belize. I had around 800$ worth of delta money that needed to be spent in the next 12 months. I didn't know how I was going to spend the money... I have full time work and school and no dang time to travel. So I thought I could just use the money to fly down to stg a few times, but that's lame or I thought I would just have to end up eating the money which is also lame. I ended up taking a leave of absence from school and originally planned on the leave being all four months of summer. So I booked a girls trip with mom. I was thinking of a dreamy summer in Greece, but mom doesn't like long flights so we settled on Banff! Well come to find out my leave of absence was only allowed to be two months long, so ive had to make this trip work in the middle of a whole lotta stuff going on. Its been a hectic, stressful and exhausting week, but banff was pretty rad so lets start there...

Buckle up for a whole lotta pictures - flew into Calgary, got our rental car, ate at a place called Boston Pizza (honestly all their food in canada is pretty much just like America so don't come at us for eating at a place called Boston Pizza) then checked into our hotel for the first night. The stampede - a massive 10 day long rodeo was going on and I think we both wish we would've gotten tickets, but we watched it on TV. 

Then we spent the evening at the Calgary temple. They didn't rent clothes so we just did some initiatories and man was it something else haha. It's funny going to other small temples and seeing how they operate. I think most those temple workers would drown working at the St. George temple, but that's ok it was still a good way to spend our first night. This is the 32nd temple Ive done ordinances in and oddly enough Canada is the 32nd country Ive been to. Pretty rad. That evening we got a few little groceries had some janky rotisserie chicken tacos in our hotel room, but they were delicious. Then hit the hay for an early start time the next morning!

We drove about an hour and a half to banff Saturday morning. We parked our car at our hotel and met up with the tour that would be taking us to all the popular lakes in the national park. I would've been really nice to drive there ourselves and kinda do more what we want, but you actually can't access a lot of these lakes on your own. because of how busy they are, you have to come on a bus. So our first stop of the day was Lake Louise! 

Definitely one of those places where you can't put your camera down - it was so beautiful. I have way too many photos on my phone right now from this trip. 

this little guy ran over to us while mom was getting a granola bar out of her backpack - he just wanted some breakfast!

Next stop was Lake Moraine - figured it would be just like Lake Louise, nope it is even more pretty...

I mean come on! Insane! It was pretty gloomy the whole trip, but I can't believe how pretty it would be on a clear day. 

This is what all these tourist sites actually look like... So many people!

This was the view point from the other side of Lake Moraine. We spent about an hour at each of these lakes then headed to lunch. Me and mom got a chickle'n cheese sandwich. it was a grilled cheese with a chicken breast in it and technically a pickle but we just said no pickle. It was seriously delicious. This fueled us for our next spot... Johnston's Canyon. 

Our tour guide said that there is the lower falls and the upper falls, but that the hour we were stopped there wasnt enough time to get to the upper falls... Ben didn't realize he had the wells' on his bus and he also doesn't know that we mean business when we hike. So we did the upper falls and made it back with time to spare. Its really not that the hike was long - its more so that its a narrow path and sooo many slowww people on it that get in the way. but we aggressively passed people and got the job done. 

We definitely got sweaty from this hike, but worth it. The lower falls had this massive line to even get a picture of and the upper falls were pretty empty. 

The last stop of the day was bow falls - nothing too crazy. We also drove passed the famous Banff hotel and man, that place was massive! That's where mom and dad will stay when they decide to visit again. The next day was Sunday. We slept in a little and went to the little cabin across the street that was the LDS church. We couldn't believe we were so close it the church. Then we spent the afternoon going up Sulphur mountain on the gondola!

The view was incredible. You could see all the major mountains surrounding banff, the bow river and a bunch of lakes. 

Our Sunday dinner was at The Elk and Oarsman - a local restaurant recommended to us for having the best poutine. It didn't disappoint - actually the best meal I had while we were there. 

Buffalo chicken sandwich (so dang good), mashed potatoes and elk poutine. Ive had more extravagant meat like this before, but have never liked it. They did it right here though. Poutine is a dish with fries covered in gravy and cheese curds and then this one had elk too. Delicious. 

And ending most nights here at our hotel's fancy hot tub. Banff was first a tourist spot because of the sulphur hot springs found on sulphur mountain. But fun fact they had to close a few of those hot springs down because they were home to an endangered specie of snails. 

This is what our Monday looked like... It was the rainiest day of our trip and we had a via ferratta booked that day. Well - we still conquered the mountain. 

Obviously the clouds blocked our view of literally anything - but I think the rain and wind made it even more crazy than it normally would've been. 

You would think some butt puckering was happening... but really I think the clouds made us feel like we weren't even that high off the ground. When in reality we were on an 8000 foot high mountain. 

Us at the top. The way up was fun - we actually had to shed some underneath layers because we were hot while climbing up. Going down was a whole other story - the winds and rain picked up and were way bad at the top. It was honestly quite miserable being cold and sopping wet, but memories. I would definitely do it again. Also our tour guide, Katsu, was really impressed with how fast we were haha. He said with most people he would've turned back early due to weather, but he knew we were cruising and could handle it. 

last full day in beautiful Banff - sad

BeaverTails and hot coco for breakfast on our last morning. My mouth is watering looking at my beavertail. yummm. I only have a video of mom, no photo but she got the classic cinnamon sugar one and it's obvious why they are called beavertails. 

The coziest little town - Im ready to go back. 

An easy 2.5 hour flight back to Vegas and then our drive to stg and we were home around 9pm that night. Returning to reality is never fun - especially when I have a full week of work, clinical and school starting with a wake up call at 5 am the next morning. Wednesday morning I drove up to Spanish Fork where my clinical is and put in 9 hours of time seeing some patients. That night  stayed with Karee. A. she lives in provo so it's a lot closer to the clinic (I had to go back the next day) and B. she is the sweetest person in the whole entire world and remembered what July 16th was. The week before, the day we dropped jack off at the MTC to be exact, I get a text from Karee asking me what my plans were for next Wednesday, July 16th. I told her I had clinical and she responded "What about in the evening? I think it is a day we need to celebrate a little" I immediately started crying! July 16th is Erin's birthday. I still have no clue how she knew it was her birthday, but it meant a lot that she knew and actually wanted to do something for me. The whole thing really impressed me. I talk about it a lot on here, but grief is interesting. Im still grieving and going through the death of my friend that happened over 6 months ago. A lot of third party people notice the grief when the event happens, they acknowledge it, say they're "sorry for your loss", and then never really think about it again. Whereas Karee, a third party person, continues to think about me and what I might be going through when to everyone else its over and done with. It is seriously so impressive and Im so grateful for her selflessness. I know she couldve been doing a lot of other things with her time that night, but Im so grateful she chose to spend it with me. 

We got dinner and Dutch bros chocolate milk. What better way to spend my best friends birthday. I know for Karee it was something small, but it meant a lot to me. I miss Erin every day. She was my person and right now I kinda need a person. Happy birthday bestie. I would say I miss you more than you know, but Im sure you're watching me cry while writing this haha. The rest of the week was trying to catch up in school, more clinical time and a few days of work. Before I left for Canada, work was pretty chill, but I came back to a full floor of a lot of heavy patients. It's one thing to be full, but it makes it 10x harder when the patients on the floor are just tough patients. Either really sick or heavy on the call light, but we got through it. Well, that's my week. A pretty good one, but definitely a busy one and it's only supposed to get busier it seems. After this week - graduation can't come soon enough. ok bye

I literally couldn't stay awake while charting on Saturday.