The Badlands of Alberta

Last Monday we took a little day trip to Drumheller to visit The Royal Tyrrell Museum. It is the only museum in Canada devoted exclusively to palaeontology and has one of the largest collections of dinosaur skeletons in the world.

The Canadian Badlands covers a broad swath of southern and eastern Alberta.

We are almost to Drumheller. The landscape is beginning to change.

Eons of compressed sea deposits have been carved by glaciation and subsequent erosion. That process is what made the Badlands. The dark layer you can see is coal. Besides dinosaurs, the town also had a large coal mine. Further down you will see other pictures of what else the Badlands have to offer.

I took this picture of the gas station to show you the dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are everywhere in the town of Drumheller. I even saw a blue Longneck with painted daisy's on it at a bus stop.

This is the visitors center. That was one huge Dino! It's the largest Dino in the world and stands 86 feet tall. If you paid you could walk up inside of it.

Here is the museum. Interesting how they built it into the landscape.

Kelly and Seth on our way in to the museum.

Seth! Open your eyes! Oh, well.

We were trying to make it look like T-Rex was eating Seth's head. We will have to try that little trick another time.

Here I am sitting in front of a Longneck. Remember those dinosaurs from the movie The Land Before Time? My kids loved that movie and so did I!

Here is a Stegasauras.

And here is a Mammoth. Crazy tusks eh? Look at that little dinosaur ready to jump on it's back.

Outside of the museum we took a walk around to see where some of these dinosaurs were unearthed.

Look at Kelly walking along......ahead of everyone. She was really motoring.

We left the museum and headed to another area of the Badlands. The next 3 pictures are of the Hoodoos which were also formed from erosion and took millions of years!

Now aren't those the neatest things you have ever seen? They are a site to see!

And here is Kelly and Seth zonked out on the drive back home. They don't even know that this picture exists. Ha!

24 on the 24th

Tomorrow is Sean's birthday! I learned last year that when the age you are turning is the same number as the day you were born it's called your Golden Birthday. So this year is Sean's Golden Birthday.

Sean was an easy and fun baby. He came right on his due date, he slept thru the night at 2 months, he found his hand for the first time on the way home from church (he held it up in front of his face and was just staring at it like he had discovered something...I can still see that moment in my mind), and the first color he learned was the color blue in a friends backyard and I remember being so proud.
Sean has always had a happy dispostion and still does. He tends to be a positive person and up for just about anything. He is talented, patient, clever, witty and thoughtful.

Here's a snap shot of Sean through the last 24 years. Some of the pictures are pretty small but it's the best I could do.

Pictou, Nova Scotia

Westville, Nova Scotia
Sean was very intrigued with the lobsters that we were just about to cook and eat! He wanted us to take the rubber bands off of their claws. He had on my favorite Ernie slippers.

Fishing in Montana.

First hunt in Saskatchewan.

At a friends farm and that chicken is just about to take it's last breath!

Grade 10 picture. I love this picture of him!

One of Sean's favorite past times. Paintballing.

Victoria, British Columbia

Sean built this fort/tree house with scrap wood in Tofino, B.C..

Here is Sean and his girlfriend overlooking a beach in Tofino. Isn't this a great shot?

I love you Sean!
Happy Birthday!