Hello everyone! Sorry its taken us so long to update you on our travels!

We have arrived in Calgary, Canada, safe and sound, although it took us a long time to get here! We left Quito, Ecuador to fly to Panama, then boarded a flight to LA and had a 9 hour wait in LAX, finally we boarded a flight to Calgary! It is so nice to stay with family for a while and have some home comforts and not have to worry about our backpacks or passports, Mark can even give his flip flops a rest!

For the first week after we arrived we decided to recharge and enjoy our new hostel free accommadation. The weather has been fantastic and even though its a little chilly and we still have to wrap up warm, the sun has always been shining and so far, we`ve had no new snowfall.

We have been lucky enough to go to two ice hockey games to watch the Calgary flames play! The games are played in the Saddledome stadium, downtown Calgary. We had amazing seats in the club section, we even had a waiter who served us beer and hotdogs! We were really close to the ice and saw all the action including all the fights!

Mark has also taken up a new hobbie while we`ve been here. My cousin Paul took him snowboarding, I think he needs a few lessons but he seemed to really enjoy it, apart from his bum hurting him the next day! He had some amazing views of the mountains and experienced some Canadian snow! Paul also took us on our first night out in Calgary. We had a really good time although we were reminded how expernsive drinking can be! The music was really good and the place reminded us of clubs at home, the flames had just had a game at home that night so the atmosphere was really good too.

We have managed to get downton a few times to explore the city. We took a stroll down 17th Avenue where we found a shop called Crave that sold the most delicious homemade cup cakes, Mark baught a chocolate sponge cake with blue vanilla icing and I chose a banana sponge cake with peanut butter icing. We also walked around the Eau Claire area of Calgary looking in the markets and in the British shop! That sold everything you could ever miss from home including milky bar and galaxy chocolate!

We will have lots more to add on our Canadian blog so keep checking for updates, we are in Canada for another few weeks.

We are approaching the end of our trip to Canada and heres a few updates about what we`ve been up to. We took a trip out to Banff and Lake Louise which was amazing. The weather was picture perfect just a little cold. Lake Louise was spectacular, the lake was still frozen over but the sight was still breathtaking. We walked around the Fairmont hotel at Lake Louise and also the hotel in Banff, which Mark tells me one day we will stay in!!

We took a stroll around Banff town and looked in a few shops, we even went to a fudge factory there and had home made white chocolate bear paws and I picked out a few homemade belgium chocolates because I have been looking for a place that sold them since we left England!

We also decided to take a trip to Calgary zoo and although we were the only people in the zoo who didnt have children we really enjoyed it. The zoo was set out as a journey around the world, you visit different parts of the world to see the different animals. We came across grizzly bears who were just waking up from hibernation, giraffes, tigers (my favourite), lions, hippos (Marks favourite) and lots more.

This weekend we took a road trip through the rockies to Vancouver to visit my cousin and keep him company on his way back to Calgary. The drive was really long but the scenery is well worth seeing. We passed through Banff and Lake Louise where you can see the rocky mountians for miles and miles, just as we approached Banff we saw an avalanche! We couldnt believe it, it was right ahead of us on the side of the mountain face, everyone pulled their cars over to take pictures you could see it in the distance just starting and as we got closer it was in free fall, its probably something we will never see again, amazing! As the journey goes on you pass through so much scenery that changes dramatically. You leave the rockies to enter desert like conditions because the land is so dry at this time of year, then you pass through the rockies again until you hit so much greenery as you near Vancouver. Mark and my uncle even stopped off for a game of golf on the way as the weather was good, Mark managed to beat my uncle by one point although im not quite sure how that happened!

In Vancouver we headed to the harbor to grab some fish and chips fresh from the sea. We sat by the docks and enjoyed the sunshine. We wondered around the docks looking at the fresh fish on sale. We drove over Fraiser river and had the most spectacular views of the city.