Riding bikes and hiking in spring 2025

Walter's birthday party, Breathe parkour, First Calaway of the season, Slush Cup, bikes, and hiking.

Singing happy 8th birthday to Walter

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Walter with his new clothes for his birthday.

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New T shirt that Henry picked out in Edmonton for Walter.

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Riding at Buffalo Bean with Rhys and Grayson.

We bought Walter a new Garmin watch, and he's figuring out he can run the house and get more 'steps'

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Henry found a bunch of tumbleweeds at Buffalo Bean and he thought they were cool.

Walter's birthday party

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We hosted Walter's birthday party at SLS Centre and had a fun open gym time.

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Playing dodgeball with all the boys from Walter's class. Apparently I was a bit 'aggressive' with
my dodgeball play and managed to make a kid cry. Nice work Dad.

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Natalia had her whistle out and was keeping these kids in line.

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Pizza and cupcakes please!

Walter made a set of dominos in the bouncer area

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Walter riding a plasma car with a tunnel on his head.

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Walter's friends with cupcakes.

Walter riding his new bike

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Mother's Day brunch for Natalia - California Eggs Benny.

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Natalia and Henry in a field of buffalo beans on Mother's Day on Sister Moon trail.

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The boys sitting on a giant bear at Canadian Tire.

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Walter with his bed full of stuffies. Natalia says his bed is 90% stuffies and 10% Walter.

Breathe Parkour

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Walter and Niko having a milkshake at Peter's Drive in, enroute to the parkour studio.

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Henry showing that he achieved his yellow level on day 1 at the gym.

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Walter and Niko climbing on the big blocks.

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Walter jumping onto the mats.

Niko jumping onto mats

Niko rolling onto mats

Walter and Niko jumping onto the rolling wheels

Henry running up the wall

Family bike ride outing

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We went for a family bike ride to get the monkeys out of the house. Here we are locked up outside the video game store.

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Having ice cream at MacKay's in Cochrane. I had Kulfi, which was good, but different.

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Riding down the gravel road back to Sunset.

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Climbing up Sunset Trail 4.

First session of Calaway for the year

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We decided to hit up the last few hours of day 1 of Calaway Park's season. Here are the boys showing
how much they've grown already and how many rides they can each do.

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On the swings with a 2 minute wait. The secret is going to Calaway when the weather isn't awesome.

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A spinny fun ride.

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Best new photo from the roller coaster with Walter looking like a gangster. For posterity, I recorded
us going ~40 km/hour, but it feels a lot faster!

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On a ride with a Calaway photo bomber.

Going up to Sunshine for Slush Cup

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When your son says he wants to go skiing, it's an easy yes in my world. Note the
complete lack of snow at the bottom of the gondola.

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And then starting to have snow as we get up past Goat's Eye.

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Henry and his friend Evan, who rocked a fun octopus costume. This was the reason Henry wanted
to ski was that Evan and her family were skiing on the monday of the May long weekend.

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So, Dean (Evan's dad) convinced me (or we convinced each other) that it would be a good idea
to try to ski the Slush Cup, where you ski across a ~100 foot lake and try not to eat it. Yeah...
I told the boys I had a 1% chance of staying dry, but they thought it would be cool.

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Dean and I out for a ski with our Slush Cup pinnies on.

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It actually snowed on this day, so it wasn't quite spring ski weather, but the kids had a
blast skiing in May.

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Crushing lunch at the cafeteria.

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Playing with the clay that Evan brought in her ski jacket.

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Making a glove out of it.

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Putting clay on her face.

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Henry, Walter, Evan, and her brother Charlie at Sunshine Village enjoying skiing on May long weekend.

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The kids crushing ice cream sandwiches at the Georgetown Inn in Canmore.

Video of Dean's run

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Dean's launch

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Dean's crash

Video of my run

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My launch

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Getting through the lake

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So stoked to be dry!

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My scores

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A cool bench on Cloudline in Canmore that I got to ride with my friend Andy.

Planting trees in Cochrane

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Natalia signed us up to plant trees at Mitford Pond this year. Here's Walter putting a tree in the ground.

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The planting spot behind the pond.

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Natalia getting more dirt.

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The boys filling with mulch.

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Natalia digging a hole for a tree using a Travis tool.

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Grayson and Alf out for a ride at Buffalo Bean. This was the first time Grayson had successfully
made it to the top of Ryan's Dream.

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Walter and I waiting for Grayson to climb up here.

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A rogue jump built on site.

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Not bad construction, but it will have to come down.

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The start of a cool line.

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Having Cheetos.

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A Cheetos smile.

Mount Hoffmann hike

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We took the boys and their friends Jackson and Gracie out for a gentle hike up Mount Hoffmann.
As usual, the secret to getting Walter moving is to ask him Minecraft questions.

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I brought Walter's ski poles, which he quite liked for hiking.

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A couple of hours and no problem, the kids had a cool view.

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Walter found shooting stars on our hike.

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And crocuses too.

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We brought Jackson and Izzy up a hike in the Sheep called Mount Hoffmann. Here are the kids on the summit.

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Crazy photos on top of Mount Hoffmann.

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I'm not sure what Walter is doing here but it's funny.

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Hiking down the mountain from the top of the ridge.

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Having snacks is always the highlight of a hike.

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Jackson and Henry crushing frozen juice boxes (nice work Natalia in freezing them first!)

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Playing with binoculars.

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Hiking home.

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Back along the trail home. This is the big Sheep River trail and it's pretty wide here.

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We popped into Black Diamond for ice cream and Walter was stoked.

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Walter wanted me to capture a shot of his homemade lemonade (powder + raspberries) for posterity. He said
"Daddy, take this for my 2025 book!"

Red Deer Mountain Bike Lungbuster Enduro

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Some cool goggle straps that Good Day Optics made.

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Race meeting.

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Henry jumping in the bike park on stage 1.

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I'm more than 2 inches off the ground here I swear.

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Justin ripping through here too.

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Walter and Henry after pre-ride.

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This dude had a Baseline shirt. I don't get it.

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Henry says the pre-riding was fun!

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Justin and I got to race too, which was fun.

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Henry starting stage 1.

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Great signs for the race.

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Great sticker on a kid's helmet.

Volunteer yelling "Are you Ready to Smash Skulls!"

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Justin exiting stage 2 after a bit of a mishap. It turns out that trees don't like to be hit
with your handle bars and they tend to toss you for it. You can see Justin's sunglasses in his
hand missing one arm, but he did find the arm and popped it right back on!

Justin finishing stage 3