A week in the mountains!

Recently my husband and I took a mini trip to the mountains... we stayed at the Jasper Park Lodge  - with the Groupon Getaway deal that I purchased in December.  If you ever get a chance to stay at the Park Lodge, I would totally recommend it.  The hotel is a bit dated, but the service is top notch & the views are spectacular.  We stayed in a Fairmont room in the main lodge and had a huge balcony/deck outside (lots of room for my daughter to run around in?) - btw, morning coffee on the patio deck before the rest of the family awoke was superb!

Why did we go?  In lieu of purchasing gifts/celebrating our birthdays - my husband's in December, mine is in January & our daughter's in February... I thought it would be nice to go away for a week.  Luckily my husband agreed & I began planning for this trip last December... btw, I LOVE the mountains!  Below is a picture of my daughter & I at Athabasca Falls, AB.

Got to say that we felt spoiled by the hotel.  We arrived at 4pm, which was check in time.  Our room wasn't quite ready for us (it was family day long weekend) so the front desk comped us a couple of beverages from their lounge... I ordered a paralyser & my husband had one of their malt beers... let me tell you, after a long road trip those beverages tasted so good!

Also since we're staying in the main lodge, we had valet parking & the bell person helped us with our luggage... something that I'm not quite used to.  It totally felt odd that I didn't have to lug up all our bags... this is the view from our room:

Sorry for the bad quality pic - it was taken from my cell phone.  But gorgeous view huh?  Travelling with a two year old isn't the easiest.  We were pretty much on her schedule... right down to the afternoon naps & being in bed at 9pm... sigh.  But the fun part was that we spent lots of time in that outdoor pool!  So cool to be outside in a warm pool when everyone walking around has winter coats on.  This is a picture of my husband and our daughter.

As mentioned earlier we were there during the family day long weekend (or President's day for those of you  Americans) the hotel put on a Madagascar themed weekend with loads of activities - all geared towards kids!  Imagine our surprise.  They brought in a bouncy house, had activities for the little ones, face painting, nightly movies with popcorn, professional photography to take family pictures, plus the best part was that all of their staff wore safari gear (front desk) & goofy wigs for their "afternoon of wigging out" ~ my daughter loved it!  This was the family picture that we were given to commemorate our stay:

Overall it was a much needed break from our regular lives - We all returned more relaxed & ready to resume our daily routines again.