A white wedding in Canada

I wrote this post over a week ago... how time gets past!

I am currently sitting in the car with my family in the Rockies of Canada as we drive from Banff towards Jasper. All around me there are big pine trees, the snow is falling and all you can see is white. It almost looks like we are living in a black and white world right now. 

Driving towards the Rockies

I flew over here to Canada over a week ago for my brother Aarons’ wedding. He lives in a little country town area near Ponoka in the state of Alberta. The first 4 days while we were here the landscape was all brown and dry and dusty but on the 5^th day of being here it snowed overnight and totally transformed the place. This resulted in his wedding day being in a snowy winter wonderland. Complete opposite to Ilana’s wedding 10 months ago at the beach.

The wedding itself went well without too many hiccups which was good, the bridal party wasn’t too stressed even though when we arrived at the church to get dressed we had been locked out (hiccup number one) and then when we went to the reception area to have photos taken, we were not only locked out (again), but the photographer also got lost delaying us for about for about 30-40 minutes. 

It was a pretty big bridal party with 4 bridesmaids and groomsmen either side. Baukje’s (known as Bee) dad drives a school bus so that was used as a wedding car to transport us all so we were driving around in that.  Aaron has always had a dream apparently that he would drive his bride off on his dirt-bike, so that happened just after the wedding too!  They put some cardboard over the back of the bike covering up the muffler and exhaust system that was puffing out some pretty dirty looking fumes, she bunched her dress all up and off they drove across the snow out of the gates of the church!

When we were getting our photos taken it was freezing!!! Being essentially winter, the bridesmaids didn’t actually have any coats or anything so the boys generously gave up their jackets for a little bit of the outside photography session which probably lasted close to an hour standing and walking through snow and ice! By the time we got back onto the bus to defrost, the girls all had pretty cold toes! Aaron picked Bee up at one stage for photographs and then slipped himself so they both ended up in the snow at one point!

This week post-wedding we have been doing all the running around dropping off suits and linen and bits of pieces that had been hired, catching up with family and friends. My cousin Nick and his wife Mim had come over from Australia so we got to spend some time with them. Also, some family friends from Zambia days the Schlais’s had come up for the wedding so we got to spend time catching up with them.

Since we had the week to spend family time together, we decided to spend a couple of days down in the rockies, which brings me to where I am currently. We drove down here on Tuesday and now on Thursday we are heading back ‘home’. Well, technically I drove. I’ve been doing a lot of the driving while we have been in Canada, which is cool getting some experience driving on the wrong side of the road. Now that I am 25, old and responsible (apparently) I am covered under the car insurance easily so I’ve been allowed to drive. J

Freezing on the top of Mt Sulphur

frozen waterfall

Its been freezing cold the entire time, but progressively getting colder and less sunshine.  On Tuesday it was bright and great views of the scenery. In Banff we went to Sulfur Mountain and caught a gondola up to the top to get incredible views of the surrounding mountains. Yesterday the clouds started rolling in so there wasn’t quite as much sunshine, we went on a walk alongside a river to some waterfalls that were frozen over. Mum and Dad were down here a week ago when it had first begun to snow and there was only small amounts of ice and snow around so they had noticed a huge change to this week where Lake Louise was almost completely ice and the creek was almost completely frozen across. The water is so so clear and looks very cold. I wasn’t tempted in any way to try and feel it!

Family reunion at Lake Louise

A couple of photos from the wedding:

the remnants of snow...