Thursday July 21st

Thursday July 21st

GT and Me drivin the course

Greg Kelly Kari and Darren in beautiful Banff

So many years during the summer holidays I have passed up the opportunity to do certain things and attend certain events because of family needs or cost issues. Today all caution was thrown aside as an event came together of epic proportion but could not be passed up.
I had an Eye appointment with a specialist, ran some errands in the south for an hour and headed home to pack up my golf clubs and some beverages for a road trip to Banff Alberta with my good friend Greg. We stopped in Canmore to pick up Kelly and Kari from the Saddledome and proceeded to the Banff Springs golf course. It was an incredibly beautiful sunny day as we got our power carts and had a spectacular day hitting the golf ball into the bright blue sky and mountain peaks.
Celebratory beverages were shared throughout the day and somehow Darren managed to shoot a game of his life posting score of 81. Had I not missed two short putts of less than 2 feet I would have broken an 80 for the first time in 20 years.
Post game celebrations included a trip to the local watering hole downtown at the Rose and Crown pub. We had a quick visit with a couple managers i knew and the wonderful and talented Weeble (Dave) before heading out of town.

Photobombing King of  Calgary

Nice Drive Moroz

We headed back to Calgary and stopped at Greg's mom and dads house to pick up greg's kids and back to Greg's place. I drove almost home and stopped at Steve's house to visit with him and several other couples to get caught up on Steve's trip to Europe. He had just spent three weeks in Italy and Spain and had some great stories to share. Headed home and did some more packing before calling it a night. We checked in to our flight and are seated three rows from the back of the plane. It should be a spectacular adventure beginning tomorrow evening as the 24 hour countdown is on!

Kelly Girl

Darren and his Dome Girls

Weeble - King of the Banff Springs Golf Course

Best damn score in years.... Thanks for a great day Gang!!

Wednesday July 20th

Wednesday July 20th

Another extremely busy day I spent A few hours in the morning packing. I cleaned the garage a bit more and headed out before 10 AM. I dropped some cables off for a friend, picked up my sunglasses, got fuel for the van,and filled a couple of extra jugs and went into Costco to return an impulse buy a toy from last month. I stopped and picked up a blowtorch I bought online in an auction and then hurried off to Fox Hollow golf course to meet Greg and Chris for a round of golf. Greg dared me to wear a muscle shirt and Jean shorts so I did and they both had a good laugh. I brought a golf shirt along with me and was promptly asked to put it on but we had a good chuckle.
The front nine had its ups and downs with a few oor shots but I kept it under 50. The line was stellar as I shot a 41 and was very pleased. I had to jump in the van and drive all the way back home again to pick up the boys and of the cat to deliver to Krista's mums house. Most of Krista's family were there for supper to visit before many of us went off on different travels across the world. We had a great visit with Tim and caught up on wedding plans for late August. Jessica and her two kids were there while Dan was in Edmonton for a conference.Kristas mom will be watching the kids for the next two days while Jessica heads north to Edmonton to join Dan. Andrew and Bobbi were there with the boys.
It was extremely loud and warm in the small condominium. Everyone went for a nice cream but I headed home to continue packing, cleaning the house and doing some work on the computer.
The boys and I stayed up for a while and watched some of the finals for "America's got talent" and called it a night.

Tuesday July 19th

Tuesday July 19th

The boys stayed up after midnight last night playing video games and we're not too pleased with your dad woke them up at 8:45 this morning to go to the orthodontist. Our house cleaner Judy arrived at 9 AM sharp and made the house look like 1 million bucks. The orthodontist x-rayed Jacob and measured him for his braces which he would be receiving on August 26.

Nicholas unfortunately will have to wear his braces several more months until his teeth move into The proper positions if he wears his elastics regularly.
We went to several stores and then headed home for lunch. The boys did some gaming while dad balance the books for the CCTCA. Nicholas went off to play foot golf with the neighbours and then hang out at their house for supper. I got all the bills paid and more trip planning accomplish this afternoon. I was able to watch the final five episodes of black sails and have them deleted off of the PVR.
Krista came home from work at 5 PM and went off to have a pedicure with a friend.
She returned home and we barbecued some steak and had supper. We watch some television and continued packing and tidying up the house getting ready for our departure on Friday evening. Time is moving so quickly and I hope our whole of the drags a lot slower than our holidays have gone by so far this summer.

Monday July 18th

Monday July 18th

Both boys slept in extremely late but their dad got up early, clean the house and headed to Northeast Calgary to have the van detailed for his lovely wife. They kept it for three hours and clean the interior immaculately by steam cleaning the carpet's and maths and making it look brand-new. I ran a few errands doing some shopping and ran into many different people I knew while out and about. I picked up the van and proceeded home.
The boys and I did a bunch of chores including some yardwork while Nicholas went out to play with some friends and search for Pokémon in the local area.
We were invited out to Rick and Michelle's house for supper to see their new place in Lake McKenzie. We had a spectacular meal and watched another amazing storm Roll through and rain and hail on South Calgary. We returned home after 9 PM and started packing for a trip to Europe. Since Krista decided we were going to backpack, packing was going to be interesting. We started several piles and then watched some television and called it a night.

Sunday, July 17th

Tuesday July 19th

The boys stayed up after midnight last night playing video games and we're not too pleased with your dad woke them up at 8:45 this morning to go to the orthodontist. Our house cleaner Judy arrived at 9 AM sharp and made the house look like 1 million bucks. The orthodontist x-rayed Jacob and measured him for his braces which he would be receiving on August 26.

Nicholas unfortunately will have to wear his braces several more months until his teeth move into The proper positions if he wears his elastics regularly.
We went to several stores and then headed home for lunch. The boys did some gaming while dad balance the books for the CCTCA. Nicholas went off to play foot golf with the neighbours and then hang out at their house for supper. I got all the bills paid and more trip planning accomplish this afternoon. I was able to watch the final five episodes of black sails and have them deleted off of the PVR.
Krista came home from work at 5 PM and went off to have a pedicure with a friend.
She returned home and we barbecued some steak and had supper. We watch some television and continued packing and tidying up the house getting ready for our departure on Friday evening. Time is moving so quickly and I hope our whole of the drags a lot slower than our holidays have gone by so far this summer.

Saturday July 16th

Saturday, July 16th Today was an extremely early start for Nicholas has he had to be at McMahon Stadium for 7:45 AM to try on his football equipment so he could participate in a Calgary dinos junior football camp from 9 to 4 PM Saturday and Sunday. We had signed Nicholas up for this camp a month ago before he got excepted for a job at stampede and with late nights, early mornings and serious tackle football he would sure to be in great shape by the end of the weekend. Krista was not so impressed that she had to drive him early in the morning as well while I got to sleep in. :) When Krista arrived home after 9, we sat down and went through our itinerary for Europe and made numerous changes as well as book some tickets to different tours and events all over the place. It was an extremely productive review of our holiday and before you knew it it was time to head down to the stampede. It was pouring rain again once I got off the train and had to do the mad dash under the umbrella and 1000 people to get in the gates and off to work.

 Nashville North was jampacked with several thousand people and another thousand in line who would wait anywhere from 3 to 5 hours to get in. People are crazy. Time flew by as I prepped tons of beef and buys him as we went through hundreds of burgers and Smokies between 5 and 10 PM. Krista picks Nicholas up from football at 4 PM and came down to the grounds to drop him off for work and proceeded to go to the chuckwagon races after touring the Barnes and the horses with Jacob. They wandered around for a while and then met Nicholas and I are headed back to grannies place to pick up the van. I somehow managed to talk the family into staying for the fireworks and we watched it from the top of Scotsmans Hill Park. It was delayed for 10 minutes but then the 15 minute show was more than worth the wait as it really was exceptional to watch it with the grandstand show in the background with the music while looking down on stampede Park from above. You could see all the fireworks shooting out of the waggons set up all over the back infield and the amount of smoke filled the sky it was quite ominous. By the time we walked back to the van and got home it was after midnight but Krista and I still have to go and retrieve my car from the Ctrain station at Bishop O'Byrne high school. Very exciting day that was enjoyed by everyone.

Friday July 15th

A huge thunderstorm settled into Calgary around Midnight and it rained like the dickens until 2pm.
There was almost 2 inches of rain in 12 hours. It was coming down so hard at one point, that the back yard swales were backing up and my swale covers were floating around the backyard.

The water on the street backed up so badly that we had a lake for a few hours afterwards.

The boys got creative and pulled the kneeboard around behind a bicycle to entertain themselves.

I fixed the woodpile on the side of the house as it was leaning on the neighbours fence - and rather than ask me nicely to deal with it she complained to Krista and made up the biggest lie that she had spoken to me repeatedly? sheesh

The sun arrived at 230 pm and turned into a rather nice day for a while.
  Nicholas and I tacked up and headed for the stampede to work our evening shift and true to form it rained off and on most of the evening. We got out after 10 PM and headed to the train but not before Nicholas had to catch a few Pokémon in the area.  It was sure nice to get moderately early for a change and get a good nights rest.