Banff: And oh how we hiked

Hi!! We are back from another mountain weekend. We take every opportunity to run away to the mountains. we're pretty darn blessed, not gonna deny it. (ok,we've been back for a couple of days)

We took off Friday on our way to Bliss ville (a.k.a. Banff/Canmore) driving our first adventure in Terry's 110 Land rover Defender.~picture time~

We drove in this loud smelly truck (sorry Bear, but you know it's a bit smelly) in some kind of surprising comfort. How very unexpected!
We had some company though...a mascot!
Cute bobble head bear...oh, and his dash toy too!

So we stopped in Canmore before hitting Banff for some pre weekend hiking,hiking. We strolled up up up to Grassy Lakes to see the water falls:
We also checked out some fellow hikers and their dog in a back pack!?
Weird!

I then stood on a bench with thoughts of my good friend Michel.
(although I realize it's not Monday)
We finally made it to the beautiful, mesmerizing lake on top.

*a whole week end and most of our pictures are from the first day*

Check out this guy I found up by the climbing rocks.
We had a great hike that Friday but we did head off to Banff pretty quick to get to our hotel. We just love it here. We each get a perma grin for our whole stay, as a bonus offer I assume.

The next day we headed off to lake Louise where we we hiked up to Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House.

It was so hard at the end but worth the lack of breath to enjoy the tea and home made soup after 2115 feet in just 2 kms. Phew. But noooo, we weren't done yet! "Let's go check out the Lake Agnes Tea House now" he says. Well, since I had got my breath back by then and I knew we had to head 1 km back down to hit the trail, I was in.

Inukshuk moment.

Well, we hiked. It rained. Then it didn't. Then we were sweaty. Then it rained. Then it didn't. Then we were sweaty. repeat.

Words that later haunt me in a leg pained dreams filled with hurt "Hey" Terry says almost too cheery " I have always wanted to go check out Big Bee Hive but no one has ever wanted to go with me. Want to check it out?"
Needless to say, I horked my first loogy that day...no pictures please. We went straight up what turned out to be the back side of Big Beehive. What an amazing sight it was but we couldn't breath a lot so I took no photos on the way up.

We found a friend on top who liked my camera bag:

And this relaxing view point of where we once started mere hours before:

Ok well, that is all there is for pictures from our weekend even though there was another day and a half of fun in Banff.

We hiked 7 hours total that day and could barely manage to take the steps up into the truck when we finally returned to it. We ended up at the Keg having a DANG fantastic dinner thanks to Ma and Pa Gamble for a 1st anniversary gift. So so very good food. We basically just stared at each other the whole time. ~That's love baby~

We walked the tourist filled streets of Banff and the equally tourist filled streets of Canmore where we lunched and hiked just a wee bit more, only this time through the town's trails lined with houses of our dreams.

Nice of you to stick around to the end.

That's it. All done. Back to reality...(which happens to be not too shabby)

Please excuse me...

...while I jump into my time machine and scootch on back to last night before I go to bed.

I have to go back and put a sticky note on my closet door as a reminder to my future self to button up my pants before I leave the house for work.

Have some things on my mind maybe? I think so.

Seriously, it's a darn good thing for belts because my shirt is not long enough today to fully cover my 'clothing malfunction'.

I only noticed when I went to the washroom a couple of hours into my work day. Did anyone else notice?! Sweet baby Jesus I hope not.

I have on a pair of casual dress pants with a wide waist band that includes two inner buttons then three hooks...none of them were done up. I obviously went straight for the belt but somehow managed to remember to do up the zipper.

Thank goodness I am heading to Banff a.k.a. my happy place, with Terry tomorrow.

Corn Maze Picture Time

We enjoyed a rare slow paced, no work, relaxing family day at the corn maze yesterday minus one family member. I guess we are just going to have to get used to missing one or two more and more often.

We had a fun day together anyway. See below for some of our corny (hee hee) antics.

Random People on our wagon ride. :o)

My boys striking a pose.


Finding our way through the maze.

The corn maze is not the corn we smother in butter and devour, this corn is used for feed.




Cat and mouse hay bails.


Too cute.


In the 'not-so-haunted' haunted house.





Poor Nathan was just starting a bad cold that day.


Nathan grabbed this picture of Terry and Daniel playing a giant game of chess while I waited in the food line up for 45 minutes...for real.


With our tummies finally full we continued on to the corn canon.

The target, it's a pumpkin.

Nathan's turn.

aaannnddd fire!

Next they got to pan for...er..marbles. Yup, and other hidden 'gems' in the sand. Still fun.

And that concludes our corn maze adventures,we plan to head back in Oct. for the pumpkin festival as well we can go at night and try to make our way through the maze in the dark with flash lights. Not to sure I am up for that.

3 days

3 wonderful days off dangle in front of us like a tasty fresh carrot....mere minutes to go...is it possible the clocks ticking has slowed?

We will start this blissful break away from the grind with a nice relaxing back yard bon fire. Maybe roast a marshmallow or two, throw back a beer.
We have renos waiting for us and a 5 acre corn maze calling our names, I think we will answer that call with a "we'll be right there" and go get a little corny.

3 days....ahhhhhhh

I may just have some pictures to share after wards....yaaay long weekend.

What's in a name?

This subject is deeper than I have the energy for today (ok, most days) today I just wanted to say how surprised I am at how excruciatingly long it's taking for my new last name to be fully integrated in my life.

I have been through this name change thing before, twice actually, but I wasn't involved in first one.

It has been over a year since I took the name of my one true love ~*heart aflutter*~ and stuck it next to mine permanently, but getting rid of that old clunker is harder than I thought it would be.
Apparently I am a lot more involved in my life in my (late) 30's than I was in my (early) 20's.
Every time I turn around the shadow of the *X's name appears next to mine. With quick reflex I attempt to make right what was once so wrong only to find that past records have a lot of sticky to them and are not so easily manipulated....

I am on a mission, I will remove that old band-aid even if it has to be a slow, hairs pulling out with it process, it's coming off.

*I am aware that my children have the last name that I am so desperate to shed...I am ok with that of course. That is their name....always will be. This is about me, not them.

photo walk

This Saturday Terry and I took part in a photo walk in a partially abandoned parkade in down down Edmonton.

It was really cool, like we were in a different city.

We looked at the grunge of our city through our camera lenses.

I still have allot to learn but it was fun trying different settings to see what comes out the other side.

Meh, I didn't do so well this time around, no real creative or phenomenal shots. I am real glad for the excuse to pick up my camera again. Inspiring to walk with others with the same purposeful intention to stretch our creative muscles.

We saw a rainbow on our drive home. Perfection.

An Idea

We were walking in the park one lunch hour this past week,taking advantage of some rare warm weather.
A woman jogs by us in the opposite direction up the path followed closely behind by a man whom we assumed to be with her.
They were near enough to each other with out looking awkward is how we came up with this theory.
The thing that stood out to us was that they were together but both wearing head phones listening to music. Jogging separately together.

This brought to light an idea...We were walking in a very secluded wooded area. A trail obviously used by many walkers and joggers but also full of hidden areas for creepies to hide. It made me think how easy it would be for some one to stay tucked away waiting for the right moment when a lone female jogger would happen by and BAM-O...attack!
I know, my thoughts were a little dark but it is a reality that happens far to often.
Those 'separately together' joggers gave me the idea of a rental jogger-guard.

An on line company that would screen people, most likely runners between marathons and possibly jobs, do the back ground checks and so forth. People..woman...who are single or just like to jog alone but are well aware of the dangers that exist could contact this company and rent a jogger-guard who would come along with you 'separately together' so that you can jog with out worry of the sneak attack from crazy people hiding in bushes.

Hey! It could work.

Some one can go ahead and run with this idea if you want, it seems like a lot of effort and time commitment to get going. I would only need say...60% of the profits.

Happy happy joy joy it's Friday!!