July 31- Lunch with Cousins and West Edmonton Mall

Today was a hard day for us. We finished loading up the van today and said good bye to Paul's parents at 830am. Hugs were given and some tears were shed (well Kerri almost did, but she held them in!) Jasper grumbled at us like he knew we were going. I think he enjoys the extra 8 hands to pet and play with him. Mary sent us this picture of poor Jasper at the front door waiting for us to return.

The highway was clear, and the weather was beautiful for driving. Along the way, we saw a tanker truck with a picture of a young boy on it. At first we thought it was a missing child, but as we got closer, we saw it was one of the new Report Impaired Drivers ads from MADD. We hope it helps. 

Our first stop was Drayton Valley where we had lunch with Kerri's cousins Jason, Cinthia, Aiden and Kendra. We only had a moment with Jason as he had to get to work, and we were behind schedule because of construction, but it was nice to see him for the short time. Lunch was at Kahl's and it was really good food and a great visit. About 130 we left and headed to the big city: Etown- otherwise known as Edmonton.

The drive was just over an hour and it was real easy to find the hotel....especially since it was in the biggest mall in Canada (if it still is). We decided to stay at the Fantasyland hotel while in Edmonton. How nice to park the van and we could do so much without driving anywhere.

Cassel and Hannah decided to go to the water park and spent a good 2 hours fighting with the tsunami waves and sliding down the huge watersides. While they were splashing away, Paul and Kerri wandered through a few stores. We were able to shop for birthday presents while the kids were away. That is always so much fun!

At 6pm, Kerri and Paul got the kids from the park and then we all went to find something to eat. Luckily, almost everything we wanted to do or store we went to was in the area around the hotel. 

After dinner, we wandered around and looked at some stores. We found a pet store with the cutest Panda Pups- never heard of that breed before, but they are cute! And expensive!

One store called The Supply Sergeant we spent about half an hour in while Cassel, Hannah and Paul all checked out the army supplies, weapons and LARP supplies. LARP is Live Action Role Play and this entails costumes and weapons for whatever game or character the person is.

(The Supply Sergeant's window display)

We decided to go watch the movie Grown Ups 2 at the Cineplex. That movie was very funny, and just after 1030, we made it back to the room. Everyone is happy to just relax now and play on their iPADs, laptops and iPods to relax and take a load off.

This dragon is at the theatre!

July 30- Nanton and the packing to go head home.

Today was a mix of relax and busy. We spent the morning with Mary and Gerd relaxing and discussing family history. It was interesting to learn more about Paul's great, great grandparents. We were able to update the family tree information on Kerri's computer, and show Mary how Ancestry.com works. Kerri had found and shared some 1901 UK census data that showed Mary's grandfather.

After lunch, we headed to Nanton to explore. Nanton was just over an hour away, but Kerri still fell asleep. The first stop in Nanton was Ultimate Train Museum. This is a neat train museum and store that has a huge G-scale train set up in the yard. It is a neat place and there is a rideable train that goes around the set up. 

Next stop was the Miniatures Museum. This was a neat place. There were many scenes from the different ages. There was a First Nation scene showing Head Smashed-in Buffalo Jump and then it went onwards into the cowboy ages. A neat sign was the 1900 rules to be an Alberta teacher. We will let you read them so you can see what made them so unique.

Nanton is home to the largest candy store we have ever seen. It is a combination antique and candy store. There was every candy you could think off- from penny candies, chocolates, gum, etc. We also wandered down the street and checked out a few other antique stores, before heading back to Crossfield. There is also a the really nice Lancaster Museum (Bomber Command Museum of Canada) there, but we didn't make it this trip. As its name suggests, it contains a Word War II vintage Lancaster bomber, as well as many other RCAF and wartime artifacts. 

We also learned that the highway that travels through Nanton will be rerouted around the small town. This may spell the death for many of the small businesses which cater to the traveling public who stop to check out Nanton. Hannah likened it to the fictional Radiator Springs in the Disney Pixar movie "Cars."

On our way through Calgary, we stopped at Nancy's to say goodbye. We spent about half an hour with her and Kira before we continued on our way back. A quick trip into Airdrie to pick up a few things and then we were back in time to have a lovely dinner with Mary and Chico. After we had stuffed ourselves silly, we spent a good hour starting to pack our van Tetris-style. 

We still have laundry to do, so stopped packing for now. The rest can be done in the morning. As much fun as it has been to be on holidays, everyone is looking forward to going home. 

July 29- Relaxing and lunchtime with Nancy!

Today was a quiet day for us. We had a bit of a lazier morning, getting up after 8. We had a great breakfast and then about 1045 we headed into Calgary to meet up with Paul's sister Nancy for lunch. Paul got a little mixed up but we were able to pick her up at the University of Calgary, where she works, about 11:35am.

We went to a place called Montana's that was about a 5 minute drive away. We enjoyed a nice lunch with good company.

After we dropped Nancy back off at work, we headed back to Crossfield. Kerri had to do some work, so Paul, Cassel and Hannah dropped her off and they headed into Airdire to do grocery shopping and into Calgary to look through some hobby shops.

After a great dinner, we headed in to watch The Heat. It was a really funny movie and we enjoyed it.

As Kerri tried to type up this blog, she had Jasper vying for her attention....he was quite persistent! 

July 27- Yard Sales and Christmas in July!

Paul and Kerri left Hannah and Cassel with Mary and Gerd and went to find some yard sales in Airdrie. It certainly was fun trying to find the streets, especially when the streets all have the same name except for the ending.... We searched along Reunion Cres., Reunion Blvd., Reunion Crt., Reunion Place; you get the idea...

After a nice lunch in NW Calgary at a place called Joey's, Paul and Kerri headed back to Crossfield to wrap gifts and get ready for the gift exchange for Christmas.

The Christmas in July tradition came about because Mary and Gerd spend winters in Arizona and they wanted to share in the Christmas experience with us, so whenever we get together in the summer, we do Christmas. Usually decorations are put up, a tree, a turkey dinner is served and gifts exchanged, during sometime in July. This year we just have some lights on the stair railing, but it is Christmas nonetheless. Most of the gifts given and gotten are yard sale treasures and finds so that everyone gets silly gifts. 

During the afternoon, the 6 of us exchanged a gifts. There were many little gifts for each.

The Christmas dinner was great! Paul's sister Nancy came with Paul's and her niece Kira. After the delicious dinner and dessert, we all gather in the living room for our yard sale gift exchange. The rule is no more than a dollar per person is to be spent. And when you give the gift, you explain why you got it for them. Lots of laughs were had at the gifts, and lots of oooohhhhhing and ahhhhing at some of the treasures.

After the gift exchange, we played a game of Telestraitions where there were many laughs at the interpretations of each others drawings.  

What a fun evening. And now we can relax and put our feet up! 

July 26- Birthday brunch and visiting

The morning started with a light breakfast before we headed to the free book shed at Airdrie's Recycling Centre. Cassel and Hannah guarded the van while Paul, Kerri, Mary and Gerd looked through the hundreds of books for a good read. 

We then headed over to Cora's for Gerd's birthdays brunch. Paul's sister Nancy, her partner Jo, and his niece Kira joined us. Kira is over from Germany and staying with Nancy and Jo. It is nice to spend some time with her while she is here.

Kira joined us for the afternoon and we spent some time shopping in Airdrie before meeting up with Kerri's cousin Tammy. After a good hour of catching up and some good laughs, we said good bye to Tammy and went to the Nose Creek Museum. This is a nice little museum with lots of neat items like manual hair clippers (Hannah loved these), some old tractors, and some military memorabilia.

(The kids in front of an ad with Creepy Toaster Guy in London Drugs)

The young lady at the front desk of the museum was most helpful and she suggested a Gelato place to get a nice cool treat. The place was called Amarato Gelato and it had 72 flavours of gelato! Between the 5 of us, we tried, Black Forest Cherry, Strawberry Cheesecake, Lava Caramel Cake and Cookies and Cream. We may have to go back while we are here.

We came back to Mary and Gerd's and Cassel, Hannah, and Kira went outside to see if they could get Cassel's foam glider to fly in the wind. They did and just before dinner the glider got stuck on the garage. Upon retrieval, the nose got damaged. I do think it will fly again.

After a most delicious dinner, Kira, Cassel and Hannah went out to explore the town. It is nice to see the cousins doing things together. 

July 25- Back to Crossfield!

Today was the drive back to Crossfield, AB. We left Virden, MB about 9am after we enjoyed the hotel's free continental breakfast (which was 2 kinds of cereal and some bread for toast with coffee and juice).

Just before Regina, we stopped in Indian Head, SK. This is the location where Little Mosque on the Prairie was filmed and is the hometown of the actor who played Oscar on Corner Gas.

Our drive to Regina was nice, even with the rain. We went through about 4 different rainstorms. When we got to Regina, we found the restaurant that we were going to meet our friends, Korinne, Alee and Clive. Korinne and Alee had lived in Whitehorse in 2005 and our two families hung around together a lot. It was a lovely reunion and before had known, we had spent 2 hours catching up.

When we left Regina, we went to Rouleau, SK on the way to Moose Jaw. In case you don't recognise the name, it is otherwise known as "Dog River," the fictional town where the TV series Corner Gas was set. It was neat seeing The gas station, The Ruby Cafe and the police car as well as other memorabilia from the show.

The weather all the way along flipped between sunny and rainy. It is much nicer to drive in the rain or sprinkle than the heat of the sun.

We were running quite late so we hit a Wendy's drive thru in Medicine Hat and ate in the van as we drove past the Largest Teepee on our way out of Medicine Hat. 

As we drove into Calgary, we got to watch a spectacular lightening storm. There was no thunder that we could hear, but the lightening was amazing! We watched a continuous bolt of lightening hit somewhere in Calgary for over 3 seconds was astonishing! 

We pulled into Paul's parents driveway a little after 10pm.

July 24- Winnipeg, Gimli and starting to go West

What a fun and very busy day we had today. It all started with us getting up, packed and to the pancake house by 930. Once we were done eating, we headed to the Manitoba Museum. 

Driving through Winnipeg, there are many neat buildings and objects de art. Today we noticed there were giant balls that were sitting on the meridian. They looked like giant marbles. Some had been made into flower boxes and had some pretty petunias. The parliament building has a beautiful golden statue on the top called the "Golden Boy". It was created after the war and is really amazing to see. 

At the Museum, we got to see much of Manitoba's animals, mammals, First Nations heritage and the history of Winnipeg. Our favourite display was the Nonsuch. It was a replica of the ship Nonsuch and a small harbour town. Really neat. We also liked seeing the replica of the Hudson Bay House office. All the wooden carvings were gorgeous! 

We got to the Planetarium (in the museum) in time for the 12 o'clock show. It was really neat to look up in the darkened theatre and see some of constellations and then we watched a short movie called Ice World. 

Next stop: Gimli! We drove up to Gimli to check out the New Icelandic Heritage Museum. Gimli is a neat town, right on Lake Winnipeg. We ate at Amma's Tea House. The food was ok. Hannah and Cassel each tried the Icelandic sampler. It had 4 Icelandic dishes - don't ask me what as we couldn't write them if we remembered them. Ha! We were proud that they both tried salmon. They didn't like it, but they tried it. Paul and Kerri tried the Gimli mix tea. 

We drove around Gimli to find the Viking statue. We found it! A nice family photo was taken. 

From Gimli we started our drive West. We saw many small towns, and homesteads. What a lovely drive. And we also got hung up in a huge rain storm. On the way to Gimli it rained like crazy with lightening. When we left we hit a few pockets of rain. And we don't mean a light sprinkle, we mean a great big rain. So much, Paul almost pulled over to wait it out!

We decided to stop for dinner in Carberry, MB. We ate at Fat Tony's and enjoyed a great meal there. While there, we spent some time looking through the cemetery looking for the grave of Kerri's great, great grandfather Dalgleish. We didn't find it but she'll write the community when we get home.

We drove as far as Virden tonight. Stopped at the Virden hotel. Got a room with 2 queens and a hide-a-bed for $96. Not bad as it includes breakfast! Funny thing though, we pulled out the bed and there is no bedding so Kerri called the front desk for some. The front desk is confused and said, "no, I rented you 2 queens." Kerri said, "there is a couch here, and we pulled out the bed so want to get sheets." The gentleman's wife came down to see what we meant and was completely surprised there was a bed in the couch. (They were not English first language so may not have understood what a hide-a-bed was). Anyways, we got sheets and are good to go! 

July 23- Off to Winnipeg!

About 1030am we said our good byes, shared hugs and left Jim and Eugene's place to head to Winnipeg. Kerri's parents were heading out too to Winnipeg, but weren't planning to spend the night. Before we left, we drove to one last spot in Shoal Lake that we had seen but didn't know what it was. On the corner near the spot where the old hospital was was a sign that stated "Historic Site." We had asked Jim about it the night before, turns out it was a grave site - so of course we had to go check it out.

We made it to Winnipeg a little after 1 and went to the Western Canada Aviation Museum where we ran into Kerri's parents. We had been there about 10 minutes when Kerri found an error in their Air Mail display - it seems they left Yukon off the map and stated "White Horse" was in the NWT. Kerri was talking to the girl about it when her parents walked in! Kerri talked to a guy named Paul about the error - even the stamped envelope said, Whitehorse, Yukon, so Paul's excuse the Yukon wasn't around in the 20's didn't cut it. (This Paul was Museum Paul) Paul promised to get it fixed immediately. This was not the only map there that was missing the Yukon - the Canadian Air display also had the Yukon and Northwest Territories lumped together as one.

After the museum, we separated form my parents as we went to find some food. The kids were keen to go to the Polo Park mall we found that ended up being close to our hotel. We all found some grub to satisfy us and did some looking around. We found a funny shirt for Jayden, but decided against getting the shirt. We decided we would be good grandparents. Ha!

When I checked in at the hotel, I found out the Manitoba Museum closed at 4. Being after 4, we decided to go walk around the forks. That was a really nice place. There was lots of artsy things in the market and lots of interesting foods. The kids tried bubble tea w- Cassel liked his banana chocolate one, but Hannah wasn't keen on the strawberry one she had. I must admit, the strawberry had that fake berry flavour that isn't so good tasting. 

Once we were all hot and tired, we headed back to the hotel room. The kids and Paul went to the pool to wear off some energy. It was a grand pool with a slide and spraying bits all over. They stayed for over an hour and then came up to the room and were starving. We ordered some room service and once they finished eating, Paul, Cassel, and Hannah went to see Pacific Rim. Kerri had to do a written test for a job so didn't go. Kerri was also able to play catch up with the Blog as well!

It was a nice night even if we were all up until after 1!

July 22- Clear Lake and more visits

Today was a less busy day. We rose later, and didn't have to go anywhere for a specific time. 

Dad wanted to take us out to Clear Lake where his parents used to have a cabin. Clear Lake is up in Riding Mountain National Park. It is a beautiful location, if only it was not so commercialised now. The cabins along the lake were a mix of old, new, big, small and massive. Some of the cabins had better landscaping than many all year residences that I have seen! 

We stopped for ice cream at the store called The Boardwalk. There were about 50 flavours of ice cream you could get. 

Cassel drove there and back and I was in mom and dads van. We saw 2 bears - one was in a yard in Elphinestone as we went through - and a deer on our way in.

We were meeting up at Pat's to have dinner with her and Bruce. I brought my laptop so we could talk about family history and ensure I had the correct dates for her family. Pat has some information that she will send up to us. It was a great evening of sharing stories. 

We headed back to Shoal Lake quite late so we spent a bit of time chatting to Jim and Eugene before heading in to pack. It was a sad to pack to leave, but we were excited for our next adventure.

July 21st- touring around Shoal Lake

The day began about 9am or so with everyone gathering around the campfire while Jim made bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns for breakfast. It was a great breakfast, beautiful sunshine, great company. Mom and dad had come over as well from the hotel. 

After breakfast, we headed out for a tour of Shoal Lake. We went past dad's old house, saw where my great grandpa's hardware store was. It was called O.C. Snyder and Son Hardware. We went past my great grandparents' house and saw where some aunts and uncles lived as well.

On the way up to Vista to visit Kerri's day's cousin Pat and her husband Bruce, we drove thru Oakburn, Elphinestone and Rossburn. It was neat to see the small towns.

Pat and Bruce have a beautiful property in Vista. It is a corner lot that is lovingly groomed and becomes a field in the back where they have 2 horses. One horse, Frotto, is Pat's and the other is a friends who keeps him company. Hannah and Cassel enjoyed letting and visiting the horses.

That night we went to Benny's Pizzeria for dinner with mom, dad, Jim and Eugene. That night, we were able to relax while Jim and Eugene took dad and mom to visit more friends.