Into The Mountains We Went

Not into the mountains themselves, I suppose it's really in between the mountains. Because we didn't really go into any caverns or anything. Does that make any sense. Um is anyone there? Did I lose my one and only reader?

On the way to the mountains we saw a small heard of deer like creatures. Were they the elusive white tailed deer? Or is that just the way the light hit their...behinds?
On our way back, by the way, we saw another deer like creature, and I try to remember its name. Was it meere or doose? It was like a mixture of moose and deer, I think. A quick google search later, I find it was a mule. I can never be right. It was a fun argument in the van though. No it's a deer! No it's a moose! Actually it's a mule.

Well it was funny if you were there!

And since I am all over the place anyway, here is a picture of the poor mule we argued over.
Notice how the light shines right on the dear mules...behind. I am so juvenile.

Also in the picture are the beautiful waters, mountain green and white capped tops of a range I do not know the name of. You could have deduced that yourselves but I feel like tour guiding you through my pictures so please humour me.

Below is a picture of Capitol Mountain taken on the way back from the Miette Hot Springs, which was a disappointment to me. Hot springs should be a big natural swimming pool with rocks, lichen and all that good stuff. That's how it is in my head and I quite like the image. But subhanAllah, the water from the pool is actually cooled down so it's a comfortable temperature for us. Imagine, not heated up but cooled down, in the middle of the mountains!
Also imagine living in a mountain town like Jasper. Your main street will look beautiful even through awful photography like this.

Does it feel like I work in marketing for Canada's parks. I'm not, I promise.

Pocahontas Cabins

When we headed to the mountains it was too cold to camp out so we booked a cabin. That also gives you a time-line of how long it took me to produce this simple post and so an opportunity to laugh at my procrastination. Go ahead, I'll wait till your done having your chuckle at my expense.

Done?

Okay, let the ultra short post begin!
This little scene was at the front of the cabins we were staying at; I think it was supposed to be a working solar powered model. But it didn't feel very up to working the moment I took this picture. Or shortly before or after that come to think of it.
The mini-golf range that was host to an extreme game between my sister in law and I. Guess who won? I laugh and take it as one of the few success I can brag about in life.

Later, a deer was found grazing right in the middle of the green. I think the range saw more action then compared to when we were playing. (Forgive me and my poor understanding of golf and its terms. Thank you.)
While staying at the cabins I kept planning to take a picture of the ceilings. They were made of logs. They sloped. They were beautiful. I also ask you to forgive me for my poor knowledge of ceilings. But gosh, it was nice to look at right before you went to bed. The kind of cottagey goodness you've read about that reminds you of the good old days before stucco. Above, in the picture of our neighbouring suite's front door, you can see a bit of ceiling, well that's how it looked. Beautiful innit?

Summer is Oficially Here

Don't April showers bring May flowers? Here it's more complicated; winter is like this stubborn teenager who just doesn't want to leave and when she just absolutely has to she decides to break a few glass vases on the way out. Basically in May, winter decided to trash my poor plants I left outside. But we're not thwarted by you stubborn winter you. In fact to celebrate your departure we went out and bought some beautiful planter fillers to replace the dried out ones in our current planter. Here I offer you a some before and after shots.

Here's before.

And here's after. Getting soil under your fingernails is quite satisfying, specially when you don't know a thing about growing things but you can look at this in the end.
And for my poor tomato plant who got a beat down by my lady winter, we shall not show her bruises but her beauty.That was a week ago, now she's turning red. Wow, I mean it's turning red. Ahem. I do love my tomato plant though, it's like a darling friend who I've known has gone through so much hardship but still lives life with a smile.

So with the natural progression of things, yesterday we felt the heat of summer. So much so that I think we both lost our minds a little bit. Gosh it was hot yesterday. The story is, it was so hot, we jumped into our car and drove right to Best Buy to get a portable air conditioner.

Side note: Have you seen these portable air conditioners? Portable makes it sound like you could tuck it under your arm and carry it around for the day but my goodness, they're twice the size of a window mounted air conditioner.

Anywho, so we went straight out to Best Buy, got there at 8:50 and left at 8:57 with a portable air conditioner that blocked the whole rear view. I say this because I get queasy when things block the rear view. We get home take it right out of it's packaging. Now it's getting late so it got a little cooler and the heat that was clouding our judgment dissipated. So we turned on our fan for the first time in the day. That's the punch line. Am I an awful story teller? We turned on our fan for the first time in the day! Anyway we packed the A.C up again and Best Buy will just have to take it back again. Cause our fan quite nicely cools us down. I just have to remember to turn it on.

And because that's the most I've ever written out without giving any visual aids, I think I deserve an award. I actually thought I'd post a picture of the A.C. box, but it's kind of boring, and there's no green in it anyway. I like green and if it doesn't have green in it, it better make up for it somehow. The A.C. box didn't get the memo but the tree outside my window did.

Quick Craft - Ribbon Blanket

Baby, like babies are wont to do, loves the tags on her blankets and toys. She is quite content to feast on them for minutes on end. She'll even taste thin strips of Velcro, make a grossed out face, hold it a few inches away from her face as if surveying it, and put it right back in her mouth.

So remembering a ribbon tab blanket from a blog lurk on, I went to work on making a small two sided one for baby to suck to her hearts content. Two days later and only maybe an hour and a half of work later, I've finished it.

Above you can see the two corner ribbons that melted from the heat of my iron. I wanted neat edges, but didn't think of the poor ribbon. Now it's all mangled, but if I didn't tell you, please tell me you wouldn't have even noticed.

Everything I had on hand since I buy pretty ribbon and material when it's on sale. I think this is the first time I actually used my bargain buys though. I'm so proud of myself.

The mess of ribbon and cloth is still on the desk, but I'm going to clean it up, right after I post this! Oh, never mind, baby's up, clean up will have to wait.

Elk Island National Park

Elk Island Park is only a 30 minute drive away from us, so it was easy for us all to pile into the van with little preparation and drive to it after breakfast one day. Baby and I probably did delay the beginning of the journey a bit, but hey we're both so cute. Well, to be exact, baby has enough cute for the both of us.

It was a gorgeous day but I think a little too soon after winter, things had not seemed to have just yet fully recuperated after the cold. Take for example the bison,
and the cattails
It's like they just woke up and have bed head but they're so beautiful it doesn't really matter.

We did see the customary welcome bison by the side of the road. Just not the herd that blocked traffic for 30 minutes last summer until a white pickup decided to show all 25 cars how we do it in Alberta and drove right through the bison like Musa (peace be upon him) parting the sea. Apparently the bison know not to stay in front of a moving vehicle. Ah, memories.

The park was very empty when we started out but while we walked along the boardwalk there was a group of kids along with their parents participating in some group geocaching. I always wanted to geocache but it just wasn't the time to start, baby wanted to sleep pronto. And instant sleep meant a moving vehicle, so we headed back home. Not before we got some free juice boxes though (and politely declined the hot dogs), which also meant spilling fruit juice on my baby's cutest little sweatpants. Oxyclean, I think I shall look you up and I leave you, my dedicated reader (yes I know there is only one of you) with a signature green close up.
Oh and if you want free juice to spill on your baby's good clothes, visit the Parks Canada events page for Elk Island so you know when they're handing it out.

Plant Update

Keeping with tradition, the plants I had first photographed are now doing quite poorly. The clan and I had gone out into the mountains for two nights and we came home to this.

My mint plant had dried out and so we decided to harvest it and dry the leaves to use later. Um, but the drying had mostly already occurred, so um, less work for me?

The coriander decided to pale on me and is actually growing flowers, I should read up on what exactly that means.

And now for a never before seen plant that is unfortunately also sporting wilted leaves.Can you imagine that those are the beginnings of a tomato! Please excuse my dirty windows. I should figure out how to blur the background because that darned building is looming over my dear plant.

Oh and on a tangent, I'm totally the green one.

Source: http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/features/wtduck/?sample=3&type=sunday

Downtown Edmonton

I really enjoy the atmosphere downtown since it reminds me of home. From what little I know of downtown Edmonton, it's a very laid back core. Regardless, I live in the very corner of the city so trips to the middle of the city are few and far between. We're not very familiar with the city sights but when we have out of town guests, the one place we do bring them to is this little city park. We enjoy the trail down to the river, mind you it looks like fitness central on a Friday afternoon.

The trail zig-zags down because of the incline, but there is always the off beat short cut down.
I have this thing about taking trees and pathways. I like to think I'm a deep person. This picture symbolizes the choices in the paths we take, the tree signifies life. One path is higher and easier than the other, we have to chose which one will take you home safely. Um, not really, I just take a lot of path and tree pictures, I have to figure out ways to justify them, right? But that totally made sense.
Before leaving the park, the boys waited for the train to cross the river, because that's what boys do. But I must admit, I think it's a pretty train.

And finally while driving back home, I took this last picture from inside the van.

Downtown, I really am sorry I don't know you better, but our odds are stacked against us. I hope this summer my baby and I will become close friends with the transit system and maybe then I'll visit you because I'm scared of your parking. I've already cried once before because of it, but I totally understand that it's my fault and I should just learn already how to get out of a parking lot without freaking out. You've done nothing wrong, it's all me.