Albertan Adventure

I'm sitting in the lobby of the "Service Plus" hotel in Calgary typing this as we wait for CAA. Of course we are having a small adventure.

Steve's Grade 1 teacher's van is filled to the brim with Ikea gadgets, we've had some very successful shopping times. My favourite moment in Ikea was going through the checkout 4 times to take advantage of the 20% we got back in gift cards through our new Pax wardrobe system. On one of those times, we took a frozen yogurt break and Stephen accidentally started grabbing a rather overweight ladies ice cream and she gave him the dirtiest look while he had the happiest "I have ice cream" look on his face. I laughed for about 20 minutes.

We finished the shopping spree at about 1pm yesterday and then hit the road with the van full of stuff to go for a short 3K prego-hike in Banff (it sucked to be there and not have the guts to do a real hike, but it was a beautiful day and enjoyable) and have a romantic dinner at my all-time favourite Banff establishment, Wild Bill's. This was our pseudo anniversary as we couldn't get away during the pre-Symphony Under the Sky week and we had a great 1/2 day of fun.

Anyway, on the drive back to Calgary we almost ran out of gas, but saw a station on the highway just in the nick of time. Stephen noticed that his one tire needed air, but air cost $1 at that particular gas station. He thought that paying $1 for air was a total rip-off so we blasted off down the #1 Highway, did a quick drive around downtown Calgary and determined that Calgary is a "real" city in our Boodlini estimation, and headed back to the Hotel.

This morning we were jumping into the van ready to head back to Regina and noticed a little issue. Our tire was completely flat. I'm sure it didn't help that we have quite a bit of weight in the back of the van and that we didn't pay the $1 for air.

And now we await our friends from CAA to fill our tire...and they just got here...thank goodness for my mother-in-law's annual Christmas present of a CAA membership. It has saved our Boodlini butt's on more than one occasion.

See you back in The Vag.

Exotic Balsamic Vinegar

Thursday nights are pre-natal class nights at the Y. Our instructor begins each class with a roll call, but tonight Stephen remarked at how "white" the names in our class sound. We giggled a bit at that and as I looked around realized that everyone in our class was white and how no one was named Hassan or Giuliano everyone was named Troy or Mike.

Later on, our instructor began talking about foods that might help to induce labour if you are overdue and mentioned balsamic vinegar. She had to stop and tell the class that it was that dark vinegar you get at Italian restaurants mixed with oil for your bread dipping pleasure. Meanwhile my 1/2 Italian husband sat in complete shock and I laughed until it was awkward.

"Traffic"

From our new house, I have two choices of routes to work each morning. All summer I've been taking Wascana Parkway up to College to avoid the Albert Street Bridge construction and the Starbucks enticement. Now that University is back on I've had to switch back over to the Albert option.

It's been 16 months in Sask and I'm already complaining about an additional 3 minutes on my ten minute "commute" each morning. Funny how quickly perspective can change after my old 45 minute streetcare ride/1 hour walk in Toronto...hmmm.

Motorcycle Ride

Because we are such a hip couple, we took the Honda CB750 circa 1980 to our prenatal class tonight. I made Stephen swear to go slow and take the least bumpy roads because I worry about turning Hairy into a milkshake.

It was such a beautiful evening, no bugs, warm...I hadn't realized how much I missed riding with Steve and realized it had been since summer 07 that we had really done so. Time to buy a sidecar for Hairy!

Tree Removal Magic

Marshmallow

Owen comes by for a visit and savours a marshmallow by the campfire.

Pickles

Our cutest neighbour is introduced to dill pickles. She surprised all of us by not cringing a bit.