Holiday Inn Express Red Deer, Ab

... kind of! After church, a group of newbies were going out for lunch with the 2 leaders of my small group, so I joined them for a Chinese hotpot. Basically, they put a campstove with a saucepan of broth on the table and you order whatever you want to put it in. Boil it up, fish it out and enjoy! It was good to meet some new people, and I went down to Coal Harbour and Stanley Park afterwards to soak up the autumn colours in the setting sunlight. Beautiful!

Ruth and Gorden's 50th was a great time with family and friends. <br>Boundry Ranch is beautiful.<br><br> We left Boundry Ranch in the PM and stopped in Calgary and had a short put sweet visit with Albert and Mieke. Then drove to Red Deer to overnight with Don and Lois

... There were about 100 people there, mostly former students or teachers as well as a fair few family.<br>Also in our time in Clive we went to the Ponoka Stampede (similar to the Calgary Stampede but far fewer crowds) which was great, as well as all the normal rodeo things we got to see the chuck wagon races which were absolutely crazy. They have a team of 4 horses pulling the chuck wagons and have to do a bit of a ...

In our quest for the library, we stumbled upon the most beautiful city gardens! What a find in a roundabout way! Since Senica has a broken toe we cannot walk all over the town. I love how we found the highlights just a few blocks from the bus station!

Well so much for the wonderful winter's day. Yesterday morning I awoke to temperatures hovering around -28C with snow falling and a nasty wind. The snow continued almost unabated all day. Last night the temperature dropped to -32C. This morning the snow is gone, the sky is blue and the sun is shining ...

... pantry are almost empty: no milk, no eggs, no bread, no cereal, no fruit or veggies... Wanting to show off my home on a such a beautiful day, I took my camera along on my shopping trip. I hope you enjoy.

Dec 20 - We leave Santiago, Chile at 9:21 pm (5:21pm at home) and land in Toronto at 6:45 am. Dec 21 - From Toronto, we leave at 8:30 am (6:30 at home) and land in Calgary at 10:50 am. Momma, I'm comin home "A journey is a person in itself, no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policies and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." - John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

... at Nana's house that both Jess and TJ's families came to. Auntie Julie made up trivia questions about Australia and New Zealand that we all tried to answer, it was a lot of fun! Last night Jess had a going away party at Tony Roma's with the AMA crew. It was really nice to say ...

... amazing just how much we had to do considering that we weren't even planning on being around. My mom and dad were such a big help to us running around like our personal assistants. By 4:00 we were off to meet up with Marc (Gerald's brother) and his wife Lise, and their two girls, Zoe and Anique. Every Easter, they head to Calgary to spend it with Lise's family and just by chance they were staying in Edmonton for the night. A couple of weeks ...

... a great photo shoot, leading to lots of the photos here. The other day I was with my housemate Karen (who is bilingual), and we were waiting in a line. I was listening to the people in front of us. I could almost grip what they were saying but not quite, and I was getting quite frustrated trying to figure out what language they were speaking. I though perhaps it was Piedmontese, the dialect of the place I used to live in Northern ...