Thursday, Friday, Saturday...

Thursday the weather was set to be a bit mince so we drove into Calgary to go to the mall. It was fairly exciting as malls go usual kinda shops, there was also like a British grocery shop, i think i managd to convince the woman at the till i was an ex pat hehe.
Like i say weather was not well forcasted however we didnt entirely expect this when we came out the mall?

The carpark was white! big fat hail stones! There was a lot of snow too on the mountains and it was generally wet and horrid. However things were purchased, namely shoes:
Sketchers sandally things cos i dont really have any sorta dressyish summery shoes and i do like me some sketchers (especially ones that are in the sale)
And some Keds cos a) they are super cute and b) it was 25% more off the 2nd item so more shoes had to be purchased!

Friday we went adriving again down to Radium (ie land of the motels) and Invermere where we had a wander down to the lakeside:

Suitably scenic and what not, then we wandered round the shops. We went for a nebby in an antique/junk store type place. I got:Vintagey style costume jewellry, I do like me some vintage costume jewellry and I got all of it for the princely sum of $3! While we are on the subject of shopping I got this stuff earlier in the week, pretty no?
Today we went for a walk into town, I wore my new shoes which was of course a bad idea and i now have a hole in my foot. We had a wee look in the old RCMP barracks museumy place which was kinda neat and then specially for April:
A Mountie! (is it y or ie? ie looks better...)


The cos Canmore the town we are staying was built up around mining, it is miners heritage weekend this weekend and today there was a parade which we watched:
There were more mounties(ys)
A pipe band complete with Scottish flag!
Miner! and then all the mining familys came along with like labels as to who they were and such like, then there was an unvaling of a statue and some free food, which dad partook of mother and I missed out cos we were in the quilting shop oh well.

On the way back we noticed that even the clouds are supporting the Vancouver Olympics
(if you use a little imagination)


And of course there has been knitting too:
Entrelac sock nummer2, which was going along great guns but now i am getting bored of, I do wanna get it finished before i go to America but I mayhave to force myself, altho i dont think i have anything else i can knit before i get to Oregon so its the sock or nothing!!

OMG!! PUPPIES!!!

Today we went to Snowy Owl Dog Tours and went on their kennel tour and a sled ride through the forrest, it was awesome!

Dad and I made friends:
I got hugs and kisses...





We saw beeg fluffy doggies


and wee fluffy doggies

We saw their wolf hybrid, he's 96% wolf as much as you can get before he's fully wolf
Isnt he gorgeous!

We got to go in and pet and hug all the dogs which meant by the end of it:


Puppy prints! If you wanna see more puppy pics the flickr set is here.


After that we went out towards Lake Louise, stopped at Johnston Canyon and had a walk up to the falls which was pretty:
Then on the Lake Louise, which was smaller than I thot:
And lastly Lake Moraine which was an even better shade in reality
We stopped for a cuppa by Lake Moraine and there was a ground squirell that was evidently used to people, at one point he was sat on a guys knee stealing his chocolate bar.
Cute no?

There are more photos which i will upload to flickr once i get somewhere with a decent connection!

Day 5 in the Big Brother House

Dad's big brother that is. Today we ventured further afield to see stuffs, I got the map and planned us a trip.

First stop Takakkaw Fall (its magnificent in Cree) one of the largest waterfalls in Canada:


Now with added parents:We bimbled about here after the drive up steep windy road, some wee critter darted infront of us but as yet it is unidentified. At the falls the only wildlife we saw was this:


The lesser spotted Allisterius cameraticus which you can just see in the middle of the picture thru the trees.


Then back down the windy road and on to Emerald Lake:Lots of rock flour in this lake. We then took a random notion and decided to go native:



Yep we went g'nuing! I say we, father and I g'nued while Squaw Crapsitatwobbles sat in the middle and chastised father when he tried to go faster.
When we got back to the hut thingy mother escaped quickly


Then after some amounts of abortive navigation (the map wasnt entirely clear) we went to Kicking Horse Ski Resort and went up the gondola:

Its the top of the World! We were above the snow line so it was rather chilly.


I did spot a sledge:
however there wasnt quite enough snow to make use of it, there were however lots of clearly mentally insane mountian bikers careering down the mountain side, rather them than me.

Then we took the chair ride up to see this fellow:

Boo the Grisly! isnt he cute
We were about 6 feet or so from him, which frankly is as close as I;d like to get and there was of course a bloody great electric fence betwen him and us. We had a little tour and a talk by the woman at the refuge which was interesting and Boo bimble about and did bear things.

After that we headed back and went to a pub in town for tea and were waitressed by Yorkie's Canadian doppelganger it was quite alarming the similarity!


So that was that, next some photos i took out the window on Sunday but forgot to post yesterday:
A rainbowSunny mountains!

Now i must away and wash and see what adventures are in store for us today!
(I shall endeavour in the name of not being uberly picture heavy posts to do more or less daily updates assuming we do things with photographing/chronicaling)

Canada: The beginning

Ok, so one has arrived in Canada, flight was not bad really having company helps! We got out the airport super quick and picked up our hire car, a brand spanking new jeep thus all aboard, father got himself used to this left hand drive/driving on the right crazyness:

Then it was out of Calgary towards Canmore, passin the olympic site from when the winter olypics were there in some year:
The olympics being behind the pick up.


We drove along highway 1 (its the longest in the World) we saw mountains:

A mountain, there are many of these it seems.


Found the house, which is very nice all airy and posh and what not with a spiffy view:
excuse rubbishy photography, it was 5am, thank you jetlag, why is it last time i travelled transatlantic i was up for 42 hours whereas this time i was ready to drop after a mere 14 or so?


Friday after we all woke up at 5 we just bimbled around Canmore, we stopped off at a cafe for 2nd breakfast:

I made a rookie mistake and forgot about the magnitude of the portions in this part of the World and ordered French toast which arrived and was enough to prolly feed a small village. We wandered round teh shops, i found the yarn shop and if i havent spent it by then end of the holiday i am going back and spending all my money there.


Then we decided to drive out to the side of a lake (I forget which) to have lunch:At this point i was berating Canada for not providing me with adequate wildlife spottings, well apparently Canada was listening cos when we got home we found these guys:

Just hanging out in the back garden, they didnt seem overly fussed by our presence, dad went out and sat on the deck and they just went about their ways.


Saturday we went into Banff, had a wander up and down the streets looked in all the touristy shops, didnt buy a large amount of cowboy gear then we went up on the gondola to have a nebby.
Father enjoys gondolaThe view down the valley
A ground squirell there were wee baby ones too but the wee buggers were too quick. On the road back down we saw an Elk which was quite exciting, tho i think it was a young un as it was fairly small and antlerless


After that we went for a cruise on Lake Minnewanka (apparently its an o sound not an a) it was supposedly a wildlife cruise but there werent much wildlife to be seen but well it was ok
Today we drove around Kananaskis country and that sorta area there were mountains, lots of mountains and some lakes, which i didnt take photos of cos well, a) its not the same in a photo and b) after a while they all kinda look the same, there was more wildlife spotting tho

a gopher there were loads of these scuttling about the side of the road along with a red squirell or two.

Tommorow we may venture further afield and see what happens, I imagine there will be mountains.

(NB, I am tryin terribly to not be all "what i did on my holidays by Fiona aged 6" but there isnt really any other way to write it, I have you will be glad to know ommited the intricate details of the trips to the supermarket etc, thrilling tho they were)

First Mitten Syndrome?

woo look 2 posts in as many days!!

Everyone has heard of Sexond Sock Syndrome, but i think i had the lesser known condition of first mitten syndrome, mitten number 1 on the right took 5 months, mitten number 2 on the left took a smidge over a day!The palms, funs!
And of course it wouldnt be stranded colour work without a shot of the floats, pretty neat no?
But yes these were my first real attempt at stranded colourwork so I'm quite pleased, I really dont know why the first took so long, too many other things got done in between times, I think finishing the first gave me motivation to do the 2nd so 3 or 4 discs of Season 2 of the Gilmore Girls later here we are! Pattern is Anemoi Mittens and the yarns are Cygnet 4ply in Raspbery and Phildar Lambswool in Camel. I likey them they remind me of Windwaker!

And talking of things taking forever and second sock syndrome, I finally got thru the first entrelac sock:wheee, I had to make the top a bit wider for my fat legs. Now i need to work up to casting on for its partner, which will be a different colour!

This will of course most likely be my last post before i leave the country for 3 months (I dont see anything exciting happening tommorrow) so hopefully that will mean my life is more interesting and there is more to blog