Alberta Was Amazing!!

We are now home after being away for two weeks on vacation in Alberta.  We had an absolutely fabulous time everywhere we went and it was great seeing family and friends :)   The weather cooperated and 3500 kilometers later we are home again and sleeping in our own beds...aaaaahhhh....nothing better than sleeping in your own bed and without a child kicking you LOL!  With the kids being older now, we were able to do the 12 hour drive in one day each way, giving us two extra days of visiting.

If you are interested, I've blogged about and posted some pictures of our time in Alberta.  If not, no worries!!  I know it is not a card related post so feel free to skip it if you like.

Our first stop was in Edmonton to stay with some very dear friends who moved there a year and  half ago.  We got to go to the West Edmonton Mall Water Park one day and had a ball in the wave pool and doing every single water slide they had a few times.  Great work out, that's for sure, as you have to go up a loooong way sometimes LOL!   We also went to Fort Edmonton and we all absolutely loved it!!  They have four eras in the fort and the highlight was dressing up and having our picture taken.  I chose to be a saloon girl, hubby was a trapper, son was an outlaw and my daughter was a puritan.  Unfortunately hubby has to scan the picture at work before I can post it as it is a print.  I can't wait to show it to you!!!

By sheer fluke it looks like my daughter is holding the gun on her shoulder and my son is very happy to put his sister in jail LOL!

 

Just love this picture :)  My daughter still loves Little House on the Prairie so I had to take a picture of them in the covered wagon.

From there it was on to Drumheller where the Dinosaur Museum is located.  It is an absolutely fabulous museum and what impressed me the most is they have bones in the museum which they found just 10 years ago and they are still finding more.

The sheer size of these things was quite something!

From Drumheller we headed down to Calgary to visit hubby's sister and had a great time at the Calgary Zoo. It is one big zoo and very well done so the the animals can live in an area very similar to their natural habitat.

 

Loved these metal outlines of various animals at the entrance to the zoo.  Figured one was all you would be interested in LOL!

The log was hand carved with the animal images in it.

We all had fun taking a picture in the mama kangaroo's pouch :)  Being the mom of the family, I decided to post my picture in the kangaroo as I can relate LOL!


From Calgary we went back up to Edmonton to visit hubby's brother and his family and ended up spending the long weekend up at their cabin on a lake.  It was the perfect way to end our vacation.  We got to fish, Seadoo, water ski, build campfires, roast hotdogs and make smores as well as great fun with card games at night.  Mommy got some down time to just sit and read too :)

 As you can tell, my son has the relaxation part of fishing down to an art LOL!

Love the smiles on their faces - they never left and their joy and excitement were contagious.  Special mommy memories to tuck away in my  heart :) 

I'm posting fishing pictures as the kids just loved going out in the boat.  They each caught a total of nine jack fish each like the on in the picture (it's some sort of trout) over the three days we were there.  It was catch and release as apparently they are not all that tasty.

If you have hung in here until now, thanks :)   We saw many wonderful things, got to visit with family and friends, got spoiled with some amazing meals, and had many great family times together - the perfect vacation.

Laundry is almost done, grocery shopping is done, lawn is mowed and we have almost recovered from our 12 hour drive yesterday so I am very much looking forward to getting some stamping time in!!!  Hopefully my mojo didn't get left in Alberta LOL!

I'll be back on Friday with  my Inkspirations card and then starting this Sunday, I get to participate in the sneak peek blog hops as one of the Guest Verve Divas (somebody please pinch me!).  It is Verve's 4th Anniversary release and let me tell you, you'll want to come by and check things out as Julee has put together an amazing release to celebrate with :) 

I'm hoping to be able to get back into a more regular stamping routine - have missed posting and all of you too!