Stampede Weekend

One of the iconic things that takes place here in Calgary is the Stampede. It is almost 2 whole weeks of events all over the city. I missed most of it while I was in Utah. Jeff saw part of the parade one day and said it was like 3 or more hours long. The interesting thing is that all of the sudden the people here become cowboys and girls. I don't know where they all came from but I felt like I was drowning in a sea of cowboy hats. When people refer to the stampede they mostly refer to the fair type thing that takes place. It is really like a state fair on crack. It was HUGE. So many rides, food, concerts and live stock. Mostly soooo many people were there. We did go on a Saturday night so I guess that is to be expected (plus it was the last weekend it was open). Unfortunately we did ride any of the rides but we had fun anyway. 

The reality is that, like most fairs, it is all about the food. Not just any food. The deep fried and greasy kind. What more could you ask for. 

He insisted that he had to get a corn dog. Nasty but whatever :)

This is a waffle stick with chocolate and whipping cream. Pretty good.

Yes this is a deep fried Snickers. It was a little too much. I thought my arteries might explode after that one.

We did not get either of these but heard the pop tarts were good. What will they think of next. Jeff said he saw a sign that said last year they did deep fried Jelly Bellies. Not sure that would be so good. 

That weekend we also had a bbq for some people at Jeff's work. It was at this pretty park. Jeff participated in the some of the games. 

Sack Races. He didn't win :(

Check out that face. He was really concentrating on catching that water balloon.

Jane testing the water in the pond.

Oh so precious family pic. 

One last thing that we did that weekend was to grill a pizza. If you have never done this I would highly recommend it. I think that this is the only way Jeff will make pizza anymore. He loved it and I did too. It really is a lot easier to do than you would think. Try it. You won't be disappointed. 

Now that I have sufficiently overwhelmed everyone with pictures and such I will say good bye for now. 

I can't handle it

I was looking through these pics again. Why is Jane so freakin cute? I couldn't help but post some more.

Baby sophia is super cute too. She makes the pictures even more cute.

Vacation

Part of Jeff's contract when moving up here to Calgary is that his company would pay for us to fly home once. Well we have someone living in our home and so we decided it would be better to just go and visit family. We went over the 4th. Jeff stayed for 5 days and I stayed for 2 weeks. We were able to see some family and friends. Overall it was a really good trip. Here are some pics of the 4th.

Well actually the one in the left top corner is of the 2nd when we watched the stadium of fire fireworks with Shanna and Ron. Then we went up the canyon on the 4th with the Flints and Walkers. We also shot off fireworks with Rachel and her family. The fireworks were very exciting this year as ones that were illegal before were now legal. It made for good times with the kids. Here are some of the other people we saw while we were there.

We were able to see Camille and James our friends from Denver as they were in Utah too. I am so glad we got to see them. Well I guess that only I got to see them. I can't believe how big Jacob has gotten. I love that he was holding this string thing in his mouth for such a long time.
One of the main reasons that I went to Utah was for this little one.

My good friend Misty had a baby and I went to help her out for a while. Although I didn't feel like much help I got to hold the baby a lot and that was really fun. Jane was mostly kind of patting her hard but she had her moments with the baby. Like in these pics she was being so cute. It is hard to believe that Jane used to be that little too. Oh those were the days.
Although we had lots of fun we are glad to be back in our familiar surroundings. Thanks to everyone who put us up and put up with us.