My deepening love of nature...

I manage to accomplish a lot on my days off. I guess it comes from having so many things to do and so little time to do them in. This morning I slept in (whoops, sorry YMCA) and woke when I heard the telephone ring. A little later the doorbell rang and who walked in other than my cousin Joanne and her dad, my fantastic, wonderful Uncle Bob. They were here from Mayerthorpe County for a few doctor's appointments for Uncle Bob and between injections and bone scans they came for a cup of coffee and a cookie. That was the beginning of my day.
When Joanne and Bob left, Gramma and I got organized and headed out to Fort Edmonton Park to spend the afternoon. When we got there, however, there were 21 different school groups screaming and running around the park, and we were pretty turned off. So we walked down the path to the Jon Janzen Nature Reserve, where we wandered around for a few minutes before setting off down one of their fabulous hiking trails.
We did the short loop, thinking that once the school groups started heading out around 2 we'd go into the park and explore until it closed. The short loop was pretty great, and we had a great time exploring it.
This was one of the biggest birch trees I had ever seen.
Until we saw this one, which was thicker than Gramma!

This is the marker for 1905 street; for those of you who don't know how Fort Edmonton Park works, the basic idea is that the actual Fort structure is the real thing, relocated from its original resting place as the beginning of the city of Edmonton. Then there are 3 historical "streets": 1885 street, 1905 street and 1920 street, all constructed with real and simulated buildings from each of those time periods to illustrate what Edmonton was like in its pioneer stages.
This is the train you can take all the way around the park. We usually take it to the fort and then walk the rest of the streets back to the entrance in a big loop.
1905 street in all it's pre-war glory.
The horse stables on 1905 street. The park probably has more than 25 horses and a collection of cows, pigs, sheep, goats and fowl. The horses and ponies are used for rides, pulling wagons, and other such things. And they're cared for very well, which Gramma and I always appreciate.
The entrance to Fort Edmonton Park. The Fort is definitely in my top 5 places in Edmonton, right up there with Scona Market, West Edmonton Mall, Sproule Farm and the river valley. Gramma was saying to me this evening that other women may think she's crazy and ask her why we don't just go shopping together instead of hiking around in the heat and mosquitos, but she wouldn't have it any other way. I agree whole-heartedly.

On an unrelated note, La Senza is fine, but only just. I like Safeway, I like Penningtons, but I'll merely tolerate La Senza until it's time for me to quit. Just another name to add to my resume, I guess.

-Laur

Developments...

Last night Gramma and I went on an adventure after dinner. We drove to Snow Valley ski hill and headed down the Whitemud Ravine Nature Reserve trail to hike around and check out the sights. There were wild roses everywhere, and to tell you the truth, they made me even more confident in my decision to tattoo one on my shoulder. Look at how gorgeous that is! And not scary or brash at all.

We came to this bridge first after passing the maitnence shed and a HUGE mulch mountain (what do you say to that, Mom? I have a mulch mountain too!) and on either side of this bridge there was a small river or creek or whatever and it was SO GORGEOUS.

See the gorgeousness?

We came to another bridge later on, but it wasn't to cross the creek. This landslide had happened a while back and the parks people built a tremendous bridge and retaining wall to shield runners and hikers from danger. Look at the sky. It was such a gorgeous day.

Today Gramma and I have some shopping to do. I would say it's my day off, but I picked up another job yesterday at La Senza Southgate. Never, EVER thought I'd work at La Senza. It should be an interesting experience. I probably won't have any free time from now on, but the green must come, so work I shall.
Ta ta for now,

-Laur

Photo Journey #2: Whyte Ave and Scona Market

They're not in order, but they'll do.

-Laur

SUMMER!!!!!!!!!

For your enjoyment, the updated babies album!

BABIES!

I've had a crazy couple of days, that's for sure. On tuesday last week I went to Whyte Ave with my friend Nicole and we had an awesome time. It reminded me of Queen West in Toronto, complete with goth shops, vintage clothing stores, tattoo parlours and crazy pubs and restaurants. We explored, got awesome tea at a special tea shop, saw some swords and daggers at a weird upstairs shop, ogled baubles, and ate lunch/dinner at an Irish pub.

I worked pretty much the rest of the week and had a two interviews for second jobs, one at the Movie Gallery up Rabbit Hill Road from us (geographically desirable) and one at Southgate La Senza (not so much). Hopefully I'll hear from one or both tomorrow or the next day. I would prefer the movie store job because it's a lot closer and I can wear what I want, and it pays better than La Senza.

I had my first Saturday in weeks off today and went to Old Strathcona Market as a treat. It's the markets 25th anniversary this year, so there were a lot more people and street artists there than usual. I had a good look around and wound up buying pita and tsatziki for tomorrow night's Greek dinner, and some spinach and feta cream cheese because I do so miss good Toronto cream cheese. I also had pork on a stick and a mint chip ice cream cone. WOOHOO!

It was 31 degrees in the sun in Edmonton today, the perfect day for walking around and exploring, but after a few hours I had had enough of the heat and headed home for a shower and a cold drink. At around 5 Gramma and I headed for U of A Michener Park, where the Rob Bell Memorial Tournament was in full swing, just in time to have some dinner and watch Carson play wonderfully in a doubles match. He and his partner Bryce won two out of three games against Marvin and Lane, who also played well. I got to coo and cuddle with Erica while they played, so I was happy.

All in all it has been a great week; if I hear from Movie Gallery tomorrow with a yes, it will have been a near-perfect one.

More news and pictures to come!

-Laur

P.S. On Thursday night I went out with the ladies from the floral department for a farewell dinner (two of our ladies have left us for greener pastures :( ) and we went for Indian food. I ate Indian food. My horizons are expanding!

So lucky

Today was the first gorgeous day we've had in more than a week, and though I was inside at Safeway for most of it, I got to enjoy the last bits of sun on my drive to and from the gym this evening.
I was driving west on the Anthony Henday, past Sproule's farm, when I came around a bend and there was the sun, hanging above the horizon in the form of a fiery orb. It was so gorgeous that I couldn't even blink, I was so transfixed.
That sun isn't something I would ever have seen in Toronto, and I'm so grateful I'm here to experience that particular facet of nature's grandeur. I have to do something to commemorate my time here, especially now that I've purchased my ticket home (NOT TELLING WHEN! IT'S GOING TO BE A BIG SURPRISE!). I've been thinking about how I'm going to do that, and a few ideas have come to me. They're permanant ideas, reminders of this summer that will stay with me forever, and I'm hoping I can choose an image that will be truly worthy.

Any ideas? For those of you who have managed to wade through the cryptic nature of this post, email me your thoughts.

-Laur

MmmmmmMAC

I love Southgate. West Ed is bigger and flashier and has a Sephora AND a Lush, but Southgate has MAC and that's all there is to it. I went to Southgate on Friday to just be by myself for a while and hand out a few resumes (looking for a second job to increase the caaaaash flow) and indulged myself in a visit to the MAC store. I talked to a lovely girl named Allison for a minute (she's interested in moving to Toronto) and then she convinced me to sit down and let her play with my face. I like the results (above).
Friday night my friend Nicole and I went to South Common to take in a movie, but seeing as we had lots of time before the show, we decided to investigate a Japanese restaurant across the parking lot from London Drugs, and lo and behold: SUSHI! Real, raw fish and wasabi and soy sauce SUSHI! I ordered miso soup and 3 pieces of salmon nigiri and was in heaven the whole time I was eating them. I'll have to save my pennies and go back there again to order some real sushi (the place is SUPER expensive, seeing as Edmonton is landlocked).
Nicole and I walked out of the restaurant 20 minutes before our show was due to start and found this hilarious little car. It was of Japanese make and it was hilarious. It had British steering (read: steering wheel on the RIGHT side) and it was built like a box with a speedometer that looked like it had come out of a playskool toy. Nicole was enraptured by it, as you can see. Despite the distraction we headed to the movie theatre, which was PACKED, and we were 10 minutes late for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Oh well. I don't know who I love more, Harrison Ford as a somewhat confuzzled old man or Shia LeBeouf because he's Shia LeBeouf. Great movie, thoroughly Indiana Jones, go see it if you haven't.
Last night I went for my first long walk around the Riverbend neighbourhood; I walked up Rabbit Hill Road and turned into a walking path in a hydrocut, and when I got to Carter Crest Road, I took this picture. If I ever move permanently to Alberta, I'll make sure I have enough money to move into the Riverbend neighbourhood, if only for this view.

I've worked the entire weekend and today I battled some very mixed feelings about Father's Day. They're un-mixed now, and I know I've made the right choice. Tomorrow I work all day as well, and then Tuesday Nicole and I are going downtown on a Whyte Avenue adventure! Stay tuned!

-Laur

Thursday Morning Tea and other musings

Look at this kid. She is too sweet for me. She's got her rice krispie treat in one hand and her juice in the other and she's just as happy as can be. Until Isaac comes over and pulls her hair for no apparent reason. This is Thursday morning tea.

That delightful expression on Rebecca's face would indicate that she doesn't appreciate Shireen spitting mashed banana all over her arm. Understandably so.

I edited this photo with the cookie-cutter tool in Adobe Photoshop Elements. I watched an instructional DVD on the program last night and learned a few things, so now I'll be able to edit my pictures better. I'm well on my way to becoming a champ photographer!

Why not? That's all I have to say. Not much else going on right now. Had a personal training appointment this morning that took 2 hours
and has made jello out of my legs and arms, so that's pretty satisfying. Figured out today that I'm spending too much money, and I think I'll be going out and making a concerted effort to find a second job soon.

-Laur

Continuing plans

I'm trying to hammer out my plans for the rest of the summer because June has begun and once July hits, a lot of my family will be coming to town and I'll need to take their presence into consideration.
I know that Gramma and I are trying to plan a trip out to Drumheller, to the Royal Tyrell Museum, North American's biggest dinosaur museum. Drumheller is almost desert-like, and its badlands have been a hotbed of fossil discovery since the 19th century. I went for the first time when I was 7, and it astounded me, understandably. Again at 14 I was bamboozled by the sheer size of the prehistoric thunder lizards, and this year, at 21, I want to complete the trifecta with a visit, as an adult, to the wondrous museum. We think we'll go over the 17th and 18th of the month because I have 3 days off in a row (my reward for holding down the fort while my supervisors are on vacation). Drumheller is about 300 km away from Edmonton, past Calgary, and considering Gramma's endurance these days we'll probably stay at a family friend's B and B in the nearby town of Rosebud instead of attempting the drive home on the same day.
I also want to go to Calgary this year, preferably for the Calgary Stampede, but I don't know if that will be possible. I would have a place to stay, with my mom's best high school friend, Jane Bourne, but I don't have anyone to do stuff with. Boo! Someone come to Edmonton right now to be my travel buddy. I figure if I do go, I'll go early and arrive in time to spend the day and some of the evening at the Stampede, and then come home the next day, like a whirlwind of cowboys and cattle-roping. We'll see if it actually happens.
Gramma also said something about doing the Jasper/Banff/Lake Louise corridor, up through the mountains, maybe with Auntie Brenda. I would LOVE to go to the mountains, for sure. The only obstacle is getting everyone to agree to a traven itinerary.

More on this as possibilities develop.

-Laur

Blogging from OneNote

I'm hoping that the problem of pictures will be solved with Windows Vista, but I think it probably won't. Sigh. I'm writing this blog entry through Microsoft Office OneNote, mostly because I'm getting stoked about all the fantastic courses I will be taking come September.

I took a leap today, only half an hour ago, when I realized that the time of my Teaching Geography course had been changed so that the Fine Arts digital photography course I wanted to take was in conflict. It's only an hour, but I can't very well skip the first hour of Teaching Geography all fall semester for a photography class, no matter how badly I want to take it. So I began to look around for other 3-credit courses I could take that would count towards my Arts degree. This is where the leap comes in: I enrolled in "Acting for Non-Majors" part 1. Pretty crazy, eh? I've asked my friend Monica, who took it a few years ago, to give me her thoughts on the whole thing. I hope it's amazing, because I think I could really benefit from taking it. What better way to become a more effective and effervescent speaker/teacher than by taking an acting class?

That's the story so far, morning glories. I need to email the chair of the Visual Arts department and let her know that I no longer need to be admitted into the photography course. I'm still a little sad about that, but you know what? It could be worse.

 
 

On a calmer note, Gramma and I had a lovely day. I woke up, went to the gym (4 days in a row, kids! I think my gigantic butt might actually be gettings slightly flatter), met Kay and the babies and then we all went back to my house (read: Gramma's house) for tea and snacks. We sat on the patio in the sunshine and had a fine time until just before noon, then everyone went their separate ways. At 1, Gramma and I headed to South Common to do some quick shopping. Gramma did groceries at Superstore and I went across the road to buy fake Crocs at The Great 88, a big kitschy dollar store place, and dock shoes at Payless (polka dots, woohoo!), and then headed back to Superstore to find Gramma and ask the PC financial guy some questions. On our way home I tested out my crocs in John and Kay's garden on the Sproule farm, first grooming Shep, who rolled in cow plops the day before and needed to be brushed to get the smell out, and then weeding and breaking up the soil around the long row of Saskatoon bushes alongside the vegetable garden. Grooming a 115-pound Pyrranese Mountain Dog is no walk in the park, especially when he's a puppy at heart and not very well-trained; I have scratches on my legs from his affectionate swipes, but at least now he doesn't smell. Kay worked on removing all the unwanted dill from her herb and flower garden while Gramma tentatively weeded around the vegetable rows.

After the grooming it was peaceful, if not windy, as the horses gazed on from their paddock and Shep, bless him, took a nap in the sun. We had tea on the porch after that, and then Gramma and I came home to do our own thing and then prepare dinner (hamburgers and corn on the cob, YUM!)

 
 

Cheers,

 
 

-Laur

Ceeeeeelebrate good times, come on!

AMAZING! It's 7:00 am in Edmonton and I'm sitting in the den, closest to the router. It's been half an hour since my Fall/Winter 2008-2009 enrolment began, and I'm finished. I got every course I wanted except for a Fine Arts digital photography class, but I enrolled in another Ed elective to make up for it. This is the first year I haven't been screwed by York. I have Fridays off, and in the winter only one class on Tuesdays.

This feels good :D I could even go to the gym now, but as a celebration reward I think I'll go back downstairs and go to sleep.

Nighty night.

-Laur

Evening BBQ

Look at this child. Is she not perfect? What a cuddlebunny! On Saturday night Gramma and I were invited out to Sproule Farm for a farewell BBQ in honour of Luke Marsh, the young Australian guy who has been living at Rachel's house for the last 10 months. He went home this afternoon, back to Calbarra Beach, AU, to his family and friends.

We went on a walk to the fields near a local golf course after dinner to see how many stray golf balls we could find. The grand total was 31, better than anyone has done in a while, though we cheated a bit because one of the Sproule cousins, a 15 year old named Andrew, slid under the fence surrounding the course and picked balls right off the fairway. Pictured above is the view of the prairie sunset as we were walking back to the farm to roast marshmallows. Pretty stupendous.

These are the two horses that live at Sproule Farm. Neither one of them actually belong to the Sproules; instead, a woman named Sue pays to keep them there. Most of the time the horses do as they please, only going into the barn when they want to and eating all the grass they want. While they aren't friendly, the brown one, Roux (pronounced Roo), came over for a nuzzle and a pet when I called to him.

This is my fantastically perfect first marshmallow. It was delicious. I do love a campfire, and this one definitely impressed.

-Laur