A Day in Our Lives: A WILDLY spectacular Father's Day

Here's a funny story:

A week ago, early on a Sunday morning I woke the kids up early. We decorated the living room, prepared a spectacular breakfast for John and surprised him with as many gifts as possible. (Not as many as he deserved, but we tried our best;) It was a super fun morning and by 9:00 am I felt certain that John knew exactly how much he meant to me and the kids. Around 11:30 that morning, we walked by the calendar and discovered that IT WASN'T FATHER'S DAY AT ALL!!!!!

WHAT THE HECK?

I have no idea how I managed to assume that Sunday was Father's Day, but nobody else in my family (including John) seemed to question this. So there we were, all done and celebrated before Father's Day even actually began.

Funny, right?

I didn't think so. In fact, by the time Father's Day did role around (yesterday) I wasn't sure we had any more celebratory ideas left.

Nate had thankfully constructed a "Happy Father's Day" banner made out of Lego, and we did manage to take a photo of John with the kids, but that was pretty much it for excitement. Luckily, after a giant Turkey Dinner, Jessica pulled through with a great idea - A Father's Day drive to Waterton!!

Um..hello could there be a better way to celebrate Father's Day?

I think not!

So, we quickly loaded up and headed out for an evening visit to our favorite park in the world. Despite the fact that we were going to be able to take in a bit of the annual Wildflower Festival, I did not have much hope that we would actually see anything excited. I felt certain that the Wildfire last fall would have prevented any wildlife from frequenting the area. Boy were we wrong!

Before we'd even reached the park gate, just as we were passing by the lookout over the maskinonge, we noticed a flurry of activity to the left of us. We pulled into the lookout and watched a coyote as it studied some swans and we scanned the shoreline in search of the bear we'd thought we'd seen. Imagine our surprise to discover that it wasn't a bear we had noticed out of the corner of our eyes, but rather a cougar. A COUGAR!

We were in awe. IN AWE! Seeing a cougar within Waterton is a rare opportunity (in fact we never have) and we all just sat back and stared at it for as long as we could.

Spooked by a nearby kayak, this cougar gracefully glided from our side of the lake, clear across to the other side and disappeared into the trees that I am assuming lead to the wishbone trail.

We were still reeling with excitement at seeing a cougar as we talked with some tourists and enjoyed the beautiful view of the parks entrance. As I turned to look at the north side of the park I noticed a giant black blob against the distance trees and based on the size of it, I knew it could only be a moose. A MOOSE too!

You better believe we threw ourselves into the van and hauled it over to the park gate. Sure enough, just off the road was a mama moose. How did we know it was a mama? Well, I'm sure biologists and anyone with more smarts than me, could tell you just by looking at it.

I however knew it was a mama because of the darling little CALF that came loping up to stand beside her. We all laughed when (on the way) the calf suddenly tripped and disappeared into a splashy mess of marsh water, only to pop back up in a second and continue on to it's mother.

The pictures are lousy, but the real live story was adorable!!

We created quite a little Moose jam as people joined us to see what we were looking at. One of the families that pulled told us of a mama bear and her three cubs that they had just finished watching over by the stables. It seemed to be too good to be true but John and I obviously had the same thought as we both headed for the van and John took off in the direction of the town site.

Imagine our surprise (and elation) when we parked just in time to watch a mama cub and her three teeny cubs make their way right towards us!

And when I say right towards us, I really do mean right.towards.us!

They crossed the road just in front of our parked van and proceeded to dig in the ground/fight each other just ten feet away from where we were cautiously watching in delight. The kids LOVED watching two little cubs wrestle and we could hear the most incredible yelping/chortling from them as they did so. At one point the mom stepped in to break up the rowdiness which was an impressive sight to see as well.

It was a truly spectacular moment to get to witness!

After that, you would think there would not be much else to see, yet I still managed to make the family pull over and wait for me with every new flower spotted.