Today, Nathan and I celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, along with almost 14 years of being together. As I celebrate being married to my favorite human ever, I wanted to share images from our little anniversary adventure to Canada earlier this month.

We stole a tiny pause in our usual summer madness to run away to see mountains and lakes and waterfalls and wilderness in our favorite place, Banff National Park in Canada. Our love affair with this park and its surrounding parks (Yoho, Jasper and Kootenay) started in 2007, when Nathan and I wanted to go somewhere new for Memorial Day. Scrolling through Google Earth, I landed on a bright splash of turquoise in southern Canada, and zoomed in. "Lake Louise." Hmm. I looked it up on Flickr. "Um, Nathan, I think we should go to Canada. This can't be real. Lookit!" I jabbed at my laptop screen. We gawked. No WAY was anything that turquoise.

So, of course, we went to investigate. We camped--my first camping trip ever. We hiked to turquoise lakes (indeed, actually that turquoise) and stared at mountains. The next year, we started an every-two-years tradition of going back. In 2010, Nathan asked me to marry him, standing way above Lake Louise on the Big Beehive trail. In 2012, we went back for our honeymoon. In 2014, we took a small posse of friends with us. This year, we took our dog, Ukee, for the first time.

It was beyond grand. We stayed at the Emerald Lake Lodge for a night--one of the most romantic and relaxing places I've ever been. We sipped scotch as old as our relationship, staring out at the sunset blasting the mountains with alpenglow. We hiked to Laughing Falls in the Yoho Valley, where rainbows danced in the mist. We camped in Kootenay at a quiet little campground, where squirrels mocked Ukee from the trees. We hiked along the exquisitely-clear, deep blue water of Bow Lake and through a dusty valley to Bow Glacier Falls, then got soaked in a crazy rainstorm on the way back. We stood at the shores of Lake Louise and Lake Moraine, and I told them I'd missed them so very much. We drove down the Icefields Parkway with the top off the Jeep (BLISS!). We devoured burgers at Eddie's in Banff, and met up with one of my darling 2012 wedding couples (Joshica) for dinner since they were miraculously roadtripping up there at the same time. We cuddled in front of the campfire, staring at the stars, and talking about everything and nothing. Ukee swam and hiked and woofed at wildlife. We drove through an epic hail/rainstorm at the border, getting hit by a waterfall cascading off the side of the border control building. We wanted to stay much, much longer. We'll definitely be back.

Here are some postcards from our anniversary adventure through Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks. Most were made with my Nikon D5, with help from my plucky little GoPro.