I went on vacation for two weeks and recently got back. I had intended to blog while on vacation but yeah, that soooo didn’t end up happening lol It was a simple trip back to Alberta to visit my family and friends, you know, the ones I left behind when moving to BC. 😉
Instead of making multiple posts about the trip I’ll see if I can condense everything in to one post…or maybe two…
The cat came with me so instead of flying we had ourselves a 13 hour road trip through the lovely Canadian mountains then through the lovely Canadian prairies. Striker, the cat, spent the first 45 minutes of the drive loudly expressing his displeasure over his forced confinement in his carrier as well as being manhandled out to the suv. I took a book on cd (from the library) to listen to and he was so loud I had to turn the cd off because I couldn’t hear the narrator! He eventually stopped meowing at me and decided a better use of his time was to pout…for approx 12 hours…
This is what a pouting cat looks like.
When he wasn’t sitting on the floor under my legs he was sitting in his carrier with his face squashed against the mesh side ignoring me. Blatantly ignoring me.
I have two nephews and I like to take each one of them to hang out one-on-one.
My first day there I took the older nephew (he’s 14) horseback riding. He agreed to go but he wasn’t really feeling the whole riding horse thing, he’s such a trooper! 🙂
Giddy up!
After the trail ride we went to a movie (Fantastic 4) and dinner (food court). I tried to get him to go to a real restaurant but there is a pasta place in the mall he loves and I’d rather he eat something he really wanted than drag him somewhere he doesn’t like.
I went to a place called Freshii and had an amazing rice bowl called Pangoa…
Pangoa from Freshii
Imagine my surprise and horror when I got home and found the nutritional information online for this dish, it has 900 freakin calories!!! There is brown rice, grilled chicken, beans, various veggies and some bbq sauce but as you can see not a lot of any one ingredient so where all those calories came from I do not know. I do know that I won’t be ordering that ever again, even though it was tasty.
The next day I went for brunch with my mom, we went to Tutti Frutti and I had a lovely vegetarian omelette and one slice of Maple Crisp crunchy french toast. Yes you read that right, crunchy french toast! Mmm!
Crunchy French Toast
The omelette was a tad odd, IMO, because it was open not folded or rolled but it was tasty and really that is all that matters lol
Veggie omelette with potatoes on the side.
My mom got the Casa Blanca which is French toast topped with fresh fruit & coated with delicious English cream only she got the cream on the side so she could decide how much of it she ate. Smart lady! 🙂
French toast with lots of fruit!
Later that day I guest paddled with a dragon boat team called The Raunchy Rodents. They practice on the river and have a freakishly short training season because winter is a long and cold season there, can’t really practice on the river when it is frozen! lol I had a great time, they are a fun bunch! 🙂 They had about half of their team at that practice due to a variety of circumstances which kinda made me feel better about taking a spot on the boat, I would have hated to be an extra body if all their team showed for practice.
The Raunchy Rodents – well, about half of them lol
A view from the middle of the river
Some of us went out after practice for a drink and a nibble, we went to a local pub called Duggan’s Boundary Irish Pub and had a fun time. 🙂 The brunch I had earlier with my mom powered me for the whole day, though I did cave and get some Potato Pancakes cause uh hello, how could I not? lol
Potato Pancakes with sour cream
The next day was a big day, I took my younger nephew (he is 7 and will proudly tell anyone who asks! lol) to Drumheller to go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. It is basically the mecca for anyone in to dinosaurs and this little guy is most definitely in his dinosaur phase! It’s a three hour drive there and we spent the entire time talking about dinosaurs and life and music and playing pretend, it was a highly entertaining drive lol
Little hand, big footprint.
I was abandoned 20 minutes in to our arriving at the museum so he could participate in a Dino Dig, basically he got to go be a paleontologist for 90 minutes while I wandered around doing nothing of much interest because adults aren’t allowed on the expedition…well, minus the adults running the expedition that is lol He loved it! They went on a 2.5 km hike through the badlands, used real paleontology tools to excavate part of a fossil then learned how to cover it properly and transport it back to the museum. After the day was over he told me everyone should move to Drumheller because why would anyone want to live anywhere else? Oh, and we are all supposed to work at the museum…oh boy…lol
If you were thinking he fell asleep on the way home after a long and busy day you my friend are oh-so-wrong. We played pretend and chatted the entire three hour drive home, although I would have been ok with a bit of quiet time because I was tired lol
Let’s see, the next day I got to spend with my friend Nicole, we had plans but they fell through so I ended up going with her while she bought kitty supplies and then adopted two adorable kittens. Yay for kittens! She was going to get just one but the brother and sister were in a cage together and how can anyone be heartless enough to separate siblings?
Meet Solar and Lou.
If I remember correctly the girl is on the left, she is Solar, the boy is on the right and is named Lou. I don’t have a great picture of the two of them because they are super fast and oddly enough don’t much care for staying still…go figure lol We had so much fun playing games with them we basically spent hours playing games and just watching them be silly lol
Sunday (the day after the Day of Kittens!) there was a family brunch where I ate pretty much everything lol I don’t have any group pictures from that day, I do have a bunch of individual pictures but that’s too many to be putting on here. Later that day I went to hang with a friend, Jasmine, and her family which consists of a husband, three kids and a dog. Her brother came over as did her parents, all of which I have known for a loooong time. Her youngest is my Goddaughter and all three kids think of me as an Aunt. They are great, the whole lot of em. 🙂 That evening involved a decent amount of alcohol, lots of reminiscing and my camera being dropped in to a glass of water by the middle child.
sigh.
Yup, there went my camera. 😦 We fished it out immediately and put it in to a bag of rice to dry it out but the camera didn’t recover fully. It could take a picture but the flash was dead and the picture quality was not good after it went swimming. Sadness.
I spent Monday working in my parent’s basement sorting out all the stuff I have stored there lol My parents got the basement renovated and my mom wanted me to go through all my stuff and sort it in to things I am bringing back with me, things I am keeping stored in my parent’s basement and things I am getting rid of. I got rid of quite a bit, brought back a chunk and left the rest in rubbermaid containers on shelves out of my parents way. Aren’t I such a good daughter? 😉
Tuesday was a day of awesome, well, sort of. I went to Calgary to ride the Olympic bobsled track and ride the zip line they have. Calgary hosted the 1988 Olympics and now the Olympic Park is a tourist place as well as where current and future Olympians train, for only $99/month I too could have a gym membership there lol
Decked out and ready to bobsled!
Ready for zip lining!
I have gone zip lining many times but this type of harness was new to me. When I was hooked to the line it is like sitting in the most comfortable hammock ever lol It is supposed to be the fastest/longest zip line in North America (if I remember correctly) and there was a parachute I had to deploy to get me slowed down in time for the stop but it wasn’t so fast or long that it was scary, sigh. I think I am done zip lining since it no longer brings out any nervousness or fear. The bobsledding was interesting, there are 14 turns in that track and it was fun but not “oh my god I’m so scared and nervous and can’t wait for the adrenaline rush” type of fun, which was what I was hoping for, shrug.
On the way home from Calgary I stopped at Peters’ Drive In and ordered heaven, seriously, their food is sooooo good! If I lived in Calgary I’d be a thousand pounds because I would always be at Pete’s lol
The most amazing of all amazing burgers and mouth watering onion rings.
The thing about Peter’s is that they have the best milkshakes you will ever find! You choose your flavour and can combine up to three flavours to make your own custom milkshake.
All the flavours available.
The rest of the trip was filled with dinner with friends, hanging with other friends, hanging with my parents, helping out with stuff around my parent’s place, basically just enjoying being there. Oh, and shopping! There was some super impressive shopping! I got boots, and flats, and a blazer (so grown up of me don’t ya think?), Christmas presents for various people, random things that I wanted to buy there because there is only 5% tax vs the ridiculously high tax where I live, stupid tax *grumble*
I had a great, fun filled, always doing something, type of trip and I’m really glad I went. 🙂
The drive back went much better, the cat decided I wasn’t subjecting him to some random form of torture and he spent most of the drive sitting on various objects so he had a better view out of the window. The only time he got vocal was when I had to swerve to avoid a deer and the cat did not appreciate that, I’m pretty sure he would have hated the experience of hitting the deer more though so I wasn’t too worried about his bruised feelings lol. 😛
This is what I woke up to my first morning at my parent’s place.
That adorable picture is the site I woke up to my first morning of vacation, there was a head board on the bed I slept in and the cat figured out he can watch me from above…scareeeeeeee! lol 😉
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Tags: bobsledding, brunch, Calgary, dragon boating, Drumheller AB, Duggans Boundary Irish Pub, family time, food, Freshii, guest paddler, hidden calories, horse back riding, kittens, milkshake, Olympic Park, Peter's Drive In, road trip, Royal Tyrrell Museum, shopping, The Raunchy Rodents, Tutti Frutti, vacation, wem, zip lining
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 