Canada Day 13 : onward to Calgary

(yes I know I missed day 12, we went back to West Edmonton Mall, same craziness as Friday....)


We had a stupidly early start today - taxi was booked and confirmed for 7:20 am (yawn).

I checked they wouldn't call to double check, as I didn't want Anam, Ian or Fay disturbed - so of course they rang at 6:30 and woke everyone up. Grrrrr.

Anam told them NOT to ring the doorbell when they arrived, and not to get there before 7:20 as we wouldn't be ready. So of course the doorbell rang at 10000 decibels at 7:08 am and woke everyone up again - double grrrrrr!


At least that gave us a chance to say bye to Fay, who is the most adorable little poppet you could ever meet.

The flight to Calgary was super quick, I think we were in the air around 35 minutes - one of those flights where you have barely sat down and strapped in and you are landing again.

The taxi transfer was also painless, as was check in, and we were all unpacked and settled in at our hotel before lunchtime.

The hotel is FAB, even nicer than the one in Vancouver (and a lot cheaper!). The rooms in our suite are big and comfortable, and the wireless access and in room video games are free (they were quite pricey at the other place). Only disappointment is that the pool is shut for the season, but as it is an outdoor one, and it's pretty nippy outside, that's a bit of a relief really :)

Here are some piccies of the suite. Cool, huh?


Once we were all unpacked we went for a walk around town, taking in the Calgary Tower en route.



You get a pretty amazing view from right up there, especially when you stand on the glass floor and look STRAIGHT DOWN, yikes.

Interestingly, given he is a pretty nervy kid usually, and has a lot of random irrational fears, Connor had no problem at all standing on the glass. He obviously has no fear of heights. Having said that, I don't, usually at least, but I found it pretty heart-stopping stepping out into thin air like that, it really made me feel quite light headed.



I tried to get Connor interested in the majestic beauty of the Rocky Mountains....but all he was interested in was the view of the Saddledome :) (home of his team, the Calgary Flames, who we are going to see tomorrow)




On our way back to the hotel we went for a bite to eat, met a giant mountie beaver, and then visited the Flames store in town, where Connor spent the last of his holiday spending cash on 1) a Flames hoody, 2) a Flames teddy bear, 3) a Flames zipper pull with CONNOR on it, 4) some Flames temporary tattoos for the game tomorrow and 5) a Flames Mr Potato Head (which I have to admit is very cool :))



Then back to the hotel just in time to watch the Oilers teach the Wild how hockey is played, a nice bath, catch up with the blog, and bed.

All in all a long but good day.

Canada Day 11 : rest and recuperation

After the full on madness that was West Ed Mall yesterday, we all needed a rest today.

I took Connor and Fay over to the local play park (literally 2 minutes walk from Anam's house), and also watched them play in the snow in the back garden, but that was the sum total of my exertion today :)



I also spent hours sorting out pics from Thursday night's Oilers game, I think between Anam and I we must have taken about 800 photos, that's a lot of photoshopping....

Talking of photoshopping, these playing in the snow pics have been high keyed to the max using Photoshop actions. Aren't they fab?? Look at the bark on that tree!


I need to further investigate the world of actions.....oh for more hours in the day.....

and on an entirely different note, I REALLY miss Ethan and Darby. and Kessie and Pan. Remind me to bring them all with me next time (not sure how I'd get the rats through customs, but I'll worry about that nearer the time....)

Yay! the Fiver's back!

1. Are you a people watcher?

Yes, very much so. I got some quality PWing done today, at the West Edmonton Mall (wow that is one CRAZY shopping centre!!!)

2. Who do you hang out with?

My kids, my boyfriend, my mates

3. Did you work hard this week?

No, because I am on vacation, woooooooo hooooooo!!!!

4. How do you show a date a good time?

Me personally? (if so, dunno, ask Ian) Or in general?

5. What's your favorite rule to break?

None, I am a good girl, me :) I think I live mainly within the rules, but still do things my own way.

Canada Day 10 : West Edmonton Mall

Not sure what to say about this place really, other than it is INSANE!!!


Over 800 shops, 100 restaurants, a full size theme park, a massive water park, a full sized ice rink, at least 3 sets of crazy golf that I found, 25 cinema screens plus an IMAX, a full scale pirate ship, a sea lion show! in a shopping centre! And around 60 billion people. I swear the whole population of Canada were there. Plus two thirds of the US.


Oh, and a giant fire breathing dragon.


And Misfits babygros.


Insane :)

We were all exhausted by the time we got home, but the kids had a lot of fun :) (and so did the grown ups really, in a mildly overwhelmingly stressful way)

Canada Day 9 : Canucks @ Oilers

WARNING: this post is going to be a killer for anyone with dial up net access! Photos galore :)

I had a great day today - stash shopping and a hockey game, the perfect combination!

Anam took me to Treasured Memories, an Edmonton scrapbook store that she does DT work for. The place was a real Aladdin's Cave of goodies, and I might just have spent stupid amounts of money in there :) They were nice enough to give me a discount, though, so that softened the blow quite a bit.

After the shopping trip we came home to deliver Fay to her little pal's mum for a sleepover, and got all ready for the big hockey game. Canucks vs the Oilers at Rexall Place, a vitally important divisional battle, just a stone's throw from the end of the season.

We met up with Ian and had a bite to eat, and then got a cab out to the arena.


The atmosphere there was excellent, nobody gave us any stick for our Vancouver jerseys, well not bad natured stick anyway :) We were really lucky that tonight happened to be "Fan Appreciation Night", so there were loads of extra things going on - including free popcorn and inflatable bangy sticks all round and lots of signed jersey giveaways and so on - that seemed to put everyone in a great mood.


We had GREAT seats for the game - thanks to Anam's pal whose hubby is a very important honcho at Rexall. They were immediately behind the TV cameras at centre ice - and you just can't get a better view of the entire game than that - they put the cameras there for a reason :)


The game itself was great for me and Connor, not so for poor Anam and Ian, as we beat them 4-1. Anam says we only won because of Luongo, and to be honest I would struggle to disagree with her tonight. The Oilers were putting us under tremendous pressure, outshot us significantly, and really should have got more pucks in the net, but Lu pulled off some frankly superhuman saves. Thank GOD he's ours. Can someone PLEASE get him to sign a 20 year contract extension?


I love the showbiz of the games here, the way they lower the oil derrick did kind of bring to mind the Stonehenge set from Spinal Tap, but it really was cool the way they all skate out through it. I am going to suggest to Steve Nell that we have something similar for the Wildcats lol.


Thanks to very nice important honcho man, we had special stickers on our tickets that said "club access" - and that basically got us into the fancy bar downstairs, where I could actually get served (would you believe the woman at the public bar upstairs refused to serve me because I didn't have ID???? I was actually so flattered that I didn't care about having to drink water instead of Smirnoff Ice :) :) :) ).

The other advantage of the Club area, is that it is handily situated between the players' dressing room and the ice - so they walk right past you as they come back out to play - how cool is that???

Malc- I'm afraid I didn't get quite close enough to MacTavish to run my fingers through his hair for you, as requested :) But here is a photo, I hope that will do :D


It gets even more exciting - in the 2nd intermission, we got a tour of Oilers TV from aforementioned honcho, and Connor even got to don a headset and be a part of the team for a while! Pretty cool of them given they were directing a live TV broadcast going out across Canada and probably the US aswell, and he was worryingly close to very important looking buttons and dials :)


We had to take off our Vancouver jerseys for the tour ("you have a choice son, either you lose that jersey or your pants" lol), but luckily we had t shirts on underneath :)


(After the game the same fab man accidentally made Connor cry by beating up Furry for wearing a Vancouver hat, and even some nice policemen couldn't cheer him up - oops! But a reassurance that Furry was just fine and the promise of a ride home on the train did the trick)

As for the plethora of fab photos, I can't take credit for all of them as some of the in game shots and most of the "backstage" pics are Anam's, taken either with my camera or her whizzy new Nikon D80, bought earlier the same morning.


Sorry there are so many, but I just couldn't narrow down the selection any further.

All in all, a brilliant night

and sorry Oilers, but GO CANUCKS!!!!!!


Pics below are half from the warm up, half from the game, in no particular order:

The 2 Ryans....nice to see Ryan Shannon back on the ice





Ditto for Boom Boom Bieksa (on whom my mate Ellard has a very manly man crush :)), it seemed like he was gone forever after that nasty skate-blade-through-the-calf-muscle incident:





I love that race across the red line they do in warm up, those NHL boys sure can fly :) :

Luuuuuuuuuuuuu





Sexiest bottom in the NHL? :)



Another great save from our saviour :)


Naughty boy Willie

New job for Markus?


Best pic I could get of the new boy, Matt Pettinger, already producing very well for us, keep it up Matt!


Why is Anam's favourite Oiler flashing our goalie???

Curtis Sanford:



Poor Willie still has to wear the full face shield:

Kes got a nasty sting from a puck to the foot late in the 3rd and hobbled back to the bench in obvious pain :(