Parents & Ian's trip out: Part 3: Banff Day 3, and the last few days

Ok, so I'm gonna finish off my family vacation/visit in this post!

Banff - Day 3
Sunday, we decided to just do some driving around this day, not in Banff though. We took a gravel highway up behind Canmore that my parents found on their first trip here, they said it was really nice. It was the same road a pamphlet had recommended, and it led into another highways. It was all gravel, and it was apparently the highest road in the mountains (or gravel one anyways). Eventually, this road connected to Highway 40 through Kannanaskis country (and a BUNCH of provincial parks). All in all, it took us about 4 hours to get home to Calgary. But that's because we spent a lot of time driving down random side roads to do some exploring, and to stop for some good photo opps. And man, was there a lot to take pictures of!

We saw 4 moose, 4! Including a cow and her calf, who walked out from the bush and passed right in front of our car. They then stopped on the road to stare down a coyote that had wandered onto the same road, until momma decided it was safe and led her baby back into the bush. We also saw a young bull, and an older bull (although he wasn't huge, he still had bigger antlers then the little bull we saw). Here is the coyote...its very small, on the road near the top. This was as far as I could zoom in

Staring down the coyote

young bull

older bull

And, miracle of miracles, WE SAW A GRIZZLY BEAR. And the most amazing part was he was on top of a hill, on one side of a small bushy area that joined up with a parking lot on the other side. 100 meters on the other side of this little forest area were people in a parking lot, with kids and dogs, totally unaware of how close they were to a grizzly. And he just sat on top of the hill (I decided it was a boy), eating berries off of bushes. And we just sat and watched him in the safety of our van for about 20 minutes, taking tonnes of pictures. It was unbelievable. And relieving, because Stephan was fully prepared to drag me through the bush for the next 2, 3, 4 years until he found his bear. So thankfully he saw his bear without getting either of us killed. It was one of the most amazing experiences ever.wandering into danger (really, they never went past this spot! Its a joke on Stephan's dad)

Then it was back home for the night, where we stopped for dinner on the way. At home, we watched a movie all together before heading to bed. Oh, and did laundry. Fun.

On Monday, we went to the Olympic Park. We bought tickets to go up the ski jump, where there was a little museum of Olympic memorabilia, it was quite informative. We also got to observe people zip-lining down the ski-jump. We also took a look at the bobsled/luge/skeleton course, and then played a game of mini-golf. It sucked. It was an extremely difficult course (I didn't know this, although I've been wanting to do this course for awhile). It was beyond difficult, it was ridiculous. It wasn't much fun, and I quit on the 15th hole. I've never quit a game of mini-golf before, but I was just to frustrated and starting to get angry. Stephan, who is quite good at mini-golf, even had difficulty. My dad too.

Then we hit the road again, to go down to Fort MacLeod. Stephan had to go back to work. But first we planned to visit Heads Smashed In Buffalo Jump. Sadly, none of us were smart enough to check the hours of the museum online before we left, and it was closed by the time we got there. So we just went for dinner in Fort MacLeod, we found a nice little place called Johnny's. And then we spent sometime wandering around their little downtown, they have very old buildings there. Including a theater from 1912, with original seats and everything! I want to see a movie there sometime...

After we dropped Stephan off, we headed back home so my parents could finishing packing. It was back to work for me the next day, and my parents left Tuesday morning.

It was a wonderful time with my parents and brother, we did and saw a lot and made many wonderful memories. I'm really glad that they were out here and we got to spend some time with them. And I'm really glad that my Mom had such an awesome birthday...I know its one she will remember for a long time.

a little sunshine on a rainy day

So, I was all set to be mopey today.

Its raining outside and ready to thunder storm, and customers are exceptionally mean this week. My parents and brother have left, and Stephan is gone for work. He said he might have to work the weekend, which turned into just Saturday, but is now back to the full weekend again. Which means I won't see him until next Thursday.

I have to teach an hour piano lesson tonight, and I really didn't feel like it earlier at work today. I just wanted to mope at home and watch a chick-flick.

But then, I got home and there was a letter in the mail......from the Calgary Board of Education....and............I GOT ACCEPTED INTO THE BOARD!

Now, this doesn't mean a job. But it means I'm in the applicant pool to be called for interviews for potential jobs. WOOHOO!! Its one step closer! It really brightened my day, that's for sure!!

Parents & Ian's trip out: Part 2: Banff, Day 1 and 2

So I need to break Banff up. We spent three days there. I'll cover day 1 and 2 in this post.

Day 1
We decided on day 1 (Friday) to start off with a trip to the Columbia Icefields. Google said it was 2.5 hours from Calgary...turns out it was 2.5 hours from Banff. On the way, we saw the first of our wildlife:
The Icefields itself was really cool. They took you out on an ice explorer, down the steepest drive-able hill (only by these machines) in the world and onto the toe of the glacier. The area we were on made up only 2% of the entire icefield, which you couldn't seen beyond the top ridges. The part of the glacier we stood on was the deepest, and it was as deep as the Eiffel Tower is tall! They were also very concerned with the glacier, the tires were really soft rubber so it wouldn't damage the glacier, and they plowed a road out there through the snow. Every few years they moved the road so it wasn't in the same spot, so it wouldn't weaken the glacier. They also said the glacier receding was a natural process, and that it has been receding gradually forever. We also got to try the glacier water. All in all, it was a great experience. Oh, and we saw big-horned sheep on the way to the glacier (females and their babies).


On the way home from the icefields, we stopped to look at Peyto lake. Yet another pretty glacier lake in the mountains.


We checked into our hotel in Canmore, which was brand new and actually was a condominium with a fully equipped kitchen. It was so awesome, we immediately booked for a 2nd night. It looked like this:
It also happened to be Mom's birthday (she turned 52), so we gave her her presents, and then took her out for dinner in Canmore. We came back to the hotel for a swim, and then went out to buy dinner to bbq for the 2nd night.

Day 2
We drove out to Lake Minnewanka (spelling?) on the way to see Lake Louise. By the lake, we saw another big horned sheep and did some exploring on a trail down the hill overlooking the lake. It was very pretty. Then we headed out to the Lake Louise Gondola, hoping to see some grizzly bears since it was a hotspot for them. We didn't see one, but there was one in the area and as a result we weren't even allowed to walk down the road to the interpretation centre, the gondola people drove us down. After the gondola, we took Ian to see Lake Louise. Sadly, it started raining so we didn't get many photo opps, nor did we get to explore with Ian around Lake Louise. So we headed off to Lake Moraine, my parents really wanted to see it and the rain let up for it! Mom and Dad liked it better than Lake Moraine, Ian too since he could climb up rocks with Stephan and do manly guy tough stuff.


We also saw another black bear, but he ran across the road too quickly to get a picture of.

We also made a stop in Banff to show Mom and Dad the Cascade Gardens. Since me and Stephan found it the first time I've been wanting to show them, I knew its something they would really love. And they did! Dad has quite a few pictures from the garden that he would like to turn into puzzles.
Then we headed back to our lodgings for the night and had a wonderful BBQ overlooking the mountains, and a swim in the pool. We finished the night off with a few drinks and a movie.

Parents & Ian's trip out: Part 1.

So I guess I'll start with the vacation recap at the beginning.

My parents and brother arrived on Monday. Stephan had the day off because it was a holiday Monday. Mom and Dad surprised me by bringing out all my remaining boxes of books, so now most of my stuff is here :) We had a nice dinner, and then Moms took us grocery shopping and bought us food (yay for Moms!!). I also gave my dad his belated Father's day present. Tuesday Stephan had to go back down south to work. I dropped him off in the morning, and I also had to work Tuesday and Wednesday. While I was working, my parents went to see the Calgary tower and did some shopping. On Thursday, it was time to pick Stephan up (since he had the day off, and the rest of the crew was still working). We made a day out of it.

We traveled to Okotoks to see the Big Rock, which is made out of the same rock as the mountains. It traveled here on top of a glacier, and then got left behind when the glacier receded. It was kinda neat. But apparently we weren't supposed to climb on it, someone got mad at us...I figured we did less damage then the teens who obviously party there by evidence of the broken bottles all around the rock.
Then we drove west towards Crowsnest Pass, through the foothills at the base of the mountains. We went to see Frank Slide, which is the site of Canada's most deadly landslide. An avalanche buried part of a town and killed about 70 people in the early 1900's. Turns out the mountain was unstable, and the Indians had tried to warn them that the mountain moves or "walks". They obviously didn't listen. You can't even see the houses anymore, they are buried under huge boulders and it stretches pretty far. It happened at 4 am, and in about 90 seconds so they didn't stand a chance.
Oh, and since we were close we drove over the B.C boarder. Just to say we were in B.C.

Then we picked up Stephan. Mom and Dad gave him his belated birthday present (which was in June): a coffee maker and coffee!! Instead of a coffee pot, it stores 6 cups INSIDE and keeps the coffee pretty hot. Stephan was pretty impressed and happy with the gift.
And that's the end of Part 1!

eerily quiet

Vacation with my parents was really nice. My parents and brother went back home today. Stephan is down south for work until Saturday. And the house is empty. I am all alone, all by myself. No boyfriend, no parents and brother. It kinda sucks. Its too quiet now, and I went from being surrounded by family and getting Stephan for more than 3 days to nothing.

And I got freaked out on by a psycho-lady at work who screamed "F**k you", storming out of the store over a misunderstanding when she said one thing but meant another. It kinda made for a crappy day.

So I decided to keep myself busy. I ran errands: returned movies, went to the bottle depot, bought some new running shoes. And I cleaned the apartment and vacuumed, made dinner. Now I figured I'll load some pics to facebook and hopefully get a blog done about this past week with my parents. I think I'll have to divide it up into several post, otherwise it will be endlessly long. And my posts tend to be long enough, since I like to talk.....

leaving for a bit...

hello everyone! I probably won't be on very much until next Wednesday...my parents and brother are here! They arrived Monday, and now I'm off of work for the next few days. We will be traveling around and doing a bunch of sight-seeing stuff. And my brother also hogs my computer. Hence why I won't be on much to blog. haha!

see you all in a week!

A little history lesson

On Saturday, because of the ominous thunderstorm looming (the one that didn't happen...), we decided to go to the Military Museum. We found out about it at the Stampede, and Stephan had really wanting to be go.

Admission was $10, and it was definitely worth it! We spent about 4 hours at the museum, but we could easily have stayed the day there if we had read every tiny piece of information posted. We were both really really impressed with the museum, we found the displays very well done (A LOT of time and money had been invested in this), and it was jam packed with info. Not to mention, the place is HUGE!I was also surprised, as I thought the museum was specific to the WWI and WWII, but it also covered the Korean War, peacekeeping stuff, Afghanistan, the Boer War and many others!

I strongly suggest seeing this place, it is well worth you time. You won't be disappointed!

One of the displays they build, it was quite impressive and detailed.


I found this one interesting. This young man died a P.O.W, at enemy hands. But he was also the only man to be awarded the Bavarian Cross of Military Merit for saving a young girl from drowning. The Bavarian cross is the one on the bottom left.

This is the very first Canadian flag EVER.

Aviation section

Navy section

Stephan with a German U-boat captain

I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist. Anyone notice the bottle is full? I drool at the thought....


Some of the tanks outside of the museum