Nothin Much

My mom told me that I needed to post something on our blog. She said that she keeps coming here and there is nothing new. I realized that it has been a while since I did post anything. I guess I haven't because our life hasn't been too eventful lately. We have spent a lot of our time lately planning our trip to Hawaii. But also trying to figure out our holiday plans. Las Vegas for Christmas and possibly Utah for Thanksgiving (it is still in the works).
I was thinking this morning about what I could post about that might be interesting. Then I was thinking about the song that I woke up singing this morning. Sometimes I am really quite surprised at what songs will be in my head. I assume that would have heard them somewhere but often they are so random that I can't remember hearing them in years. Like this morning, the 'that's what friends are for song'. I don't know if that is the actual title but I don't think I have heard it in forever. Maybe it is a sign because I was thinking that I should write about some of the friends we have made since being here. You know it is amazing the difference it can make to have friends or not. We didn't for most of our time being here but lately have been hanging out with some people and it makes a difference in how we feel about being here.
Well about a month ago we went to the Zoo with the Cartwrights (Amy, Brennan and Hyrum). They are a family that moved here from Provo and so are also strangers here in this strange land. We can commiserate together about the things we don't like about Canada. It is fun.

Even though he doesn't look super happy here, Hyrum is quiet the cutie. Jane loves climbing all over him. It is probably a good thing that he isn't too mobile yet as he might really get back at her for all the times of her hitting and pushing him.

Jeff and the bear coordinated their outfits.

Jane was more fascinated by the trees than most of the animals. Maybe next year it will be more exciting for her.

Why do we even buy Jane toys when trash is just as fun to play with. Overall the zoo was a little disappointing. The biggest part was Canadian wildlife and we can go into Banff to see those animals. Plus zoos do make me feel a little sad. I mean it is a little fun to see the different animals but sad that they have to be in cages so that we can say that we have seen a giraffe.
Over this last weekend we went on a hike with the Harkers. Amy and I visit teach Jacqui and learned that we have lots in common. They have 3 super cute little kids. Two of them are in nursery with me. We hiked up to a place called Troll Falls. I didn't really understand why they called it that because the falls were really pretty.

There was also this crazy girl getting her picture taken in a wedding dress. She was in the water with it. I hope that it wasn't her actual dress. After the hike we went to the Harkers for dinner and ate salad out of super delicious lettuce and tomatoes from their garden. I have to say that I have a bit of garden envy. Theirs was pretty amazing and I hope that I can have a good garden like that some day.
So as our time winds down here in Calgary (only three weeks, but whose counting) we find ourselves being a bit sad to leave. We didn't think that we would feel sad at all but meeting such great people changed our minds. Don't get me wrong, there are other good things about Calgary and are grateful for our time here.
So now we are just waiting for my mom to get here for a visit. Also there is a big milestone coming up for Jane. More on that later.

The Provincial Bird

There is a joke here that the mosquitos are actually the provincial bird because they are so many and so big. We decided to experience them first hand by going camping in Banff. We put on our mosquito spray and hoped for the best. We hoped for this campsite near a lake but it was all full by the time we got there. The site we go was nice as well but had a lousy excuse for a fire pit. We made it work though. Jane loved sitting in the dirt and playing with the rocks and pine needles.

Our tin foil dinners. They were hard to cook in the little fire pit but they came out alright.

Jane had her food to and got it all over.

Did anyone notice how awesome Jane's outfit is? Yeah I just put on a sweater over her pjs in the morning. Who cares what we look like while we are camping, right? After breakfast, we packed up our site and took a long time to decide if we wanted to see more of Banff (we have already seen most of the park that is close). We chose to go on a hike to a water fall. It was an easy hike, which was good since we were both tired. 

Our first experience camping as a family and overall it was a success. None of us slept that great but we don't sleep that great at home either :) Oh and we did pretty well about not getting too many mosquito bites. Jane had one on her head and I had some on my feet. Jeff came out unscathed. Luckily, they mostly going away as the summer is winding down.

It's always fun when Grandma (and Grandpa) comes

So a few weeks ago, my parents came up to visit.  I had a 3 day weekend so we took some time to visit banff and other sights in the Canadian Rockies.  When Mom and Dad first arrived, they took some time to relax from their long trip up here.  It is about 16 hours from Salt Lake to Calgary - we are pretty far north.  We headed up to Banff on Friday morning and decided to drive to the Columbia Ice Fields.  I had no idea what all the hype was about, just that there were glaciers - but it turned out to be really cool. Here is a picture of the glacier.

 So after we got there, we found out that you can actually catch a bus that drives you up into the middle of the glacier.  But it's not just any bus, it's a $1.2 million 4WD bus driven by a teenager over the steepest grade dirt road I have ever been on.  Here is the bus.

Here is Mom and Dad and the Southern side of the glacier as viewed from the bus drop off.

 And of course, Kim, Jane and me with the western slope of the Athabasca glacier

 They say that the water from the glacier is the best tasting water you might ever taste.  I had to have a taste and I think it just tastes good because it's really cold.

 We stayed in Banff at a hotel and got some dinner and set off the next morning to go to Lake Moraine.  We heard it gets crowded there so we tried to get there by 9 or 9:30.  This is Lake Moraine.

 The light blue color of the lake is supposed to be finely ground rock powder mixed in the water that refracts the right kind of light to give it the light blue color.

Here is Mom and Dad in front of Lake Moraine after we finished hiking halfway around the lake.

And of course, a picture of Kim in front of the lake from the front moraine (a moraine is a mound of dirt pushed up in front of the glacier and then just becomes a small hill after the glacier recedes).  As we were leaving, the cars were lined up and parked nearly a mile along the road on the way out of the parking lot.  We were glad we arrived early.  When we got to the bottom of the road, we noticed that somebody was there letting cars in - 1 car in for every car that leaves.

Here is also a video of Grandma getting some big laughs out of Jane.

We really enjoyed having my parents here to visit us and Jane obviously loved it, too.  We look forward to Christmas when Jane can see Grandma and Grandpa Miner again.  That is all for now.

lightning and popcorn

A couple of weeks ago there was a thunderstorm in Calgary. We stood outside and watched as it hailed.

About an hour or so later we started smelling smoke. I looked out onto the golf course and there was quite a bit of smoke out there. Jeff went out to investigate. He came back and said one of the buildings was on fire. Our fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. This is what it looked like. 

We left the apartment for a couple of hours. When we came back the flame were gone but they were still spraying water on the fire. A cop said that there was a natural gas problem that they were still trying to extinguish. After being home for a while the power went out and we were told we had to leave again. We packed up some stuff (unsure when we could get back in) and went to a hotel.  Oh I forgot to mention that it was lightning that started the fire. Crazy.

There used to be a roof there. The firemen were still spraying water on it when this pictures were taken. This is about 4 hrs after the video was taken. Luckily we got back into the apartment the next day.

On a lighter note. Jane love, love, loves to be sung to. If she is upset and you start singing, she will usually calm down. One of her favorites is the popcorn song. I noticed something the other day when I was singing it to her. For those of you who know the actions to this song, you can appreciate this. 

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.