Heading back Home

Our last day in Edmonton was another quiet one. Dad and I picked up some groceries for Oma, then had a hot lunch with her. Our flight left in the evening, so we brought along some buns for supper which we ate while waiting in the airport.

I enjoyed my time in Alberta, meeting up again with a lot of the family members. But unfortunately, the cousins see each other so infrequently that we don't have much to say to each other. We all seemed to realize that after the 3 questions (Where are you working/going to school? What are you planning to do? And who's your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse?), we ran out of things to say. At a reunion where we spend a few days together, we can get into deeper conversations, but when you haven't seen someone for years, it's harder. The next reunion is planned for 2012, and that's probably the next time I'll see most of the family.

Edmonton - The Partying Keeps on Going

The family got together one last time for church at my Oma's church. It's a very orthodox church, and since there was communion, anyone who wasn't a member of that church had to meet with the elders and fill in a form stating that they were a member in good standing of their home church. The list of names is then read by an elder at the start of the service - the poor man who got stuck doing it that day had 35 names to read! (Normally it's only two or three)

We had soup and buns in the basement after the service, then got to say our goodbyes to everyone. Back at Oma's, we had tea then went out for a walk. Supper was at R and C's - a nice light supper of soup and salad. Then it was off to my uncle's house for coffee and more goodbyes (to the same people!).

Edmonton - The Family Party

Dad and I had an awesome breakfast at C's - her husband R made up poached eggs, hash browns and homemade bacon (home smoked pork tenderloin). Amazingly delicious! My dad headed back to Oma's while I went shopping for drinks and snacks for the cousins' get together in the evening.

After getting changed at Oma's, I headed out with mom and dad to the hotel to help set up the room at the hotel, where we had a cocktail reception for just the immediate family (78 of the 115 made it). There were a few speeches and lots of stories about Oma, the graphs of the growing family that I put together were presented by my dad (in 10 years, there will be about 350 of us!!!), and of course, there were a lot of emotional family members. There was a wide selection of hors d'ouvres, which were brought out at intervals - a nice break from the stories when we could mingle with relatives we only see every few years.

Oma went out with 11 of her 12 children and their spouses for dinner while the cousins got together at one of the houses for pizza. After eating, we played a game of guesstures (a bit like charades) - boys vs. girls - and I'm happy to report that the girls won!

Edmonton - Day 4

We had a quiet day - visited my dad's brother in the morning, then went grocery shopping. We had supper at Oma's with my mom's sister and her husband and two of her kids, and another of my mom's sisters.

Edmonton - Day 3

I spent the day with my cousin C, who used to live in the same city as me, so we wanted to spend some time together and catch up. I got a tour of her new house, then we headed off to downtown Edmonton ... by a rather indirect route. Our first challenge was to find a parking lot that would let us pay! At the first two lots, our credit cards didn't work and we didn't have enough change, but the third lot had a person who could take cash.

We had lunch at Three Bananas - a cafe right near city hall. The food and atmosphere with both great. We then hiked to the Shaw Centre and down along the river. Edmonton isn't the most scenic city (especially in November!) but it was nice to get some exercise after all the coffee, cake and cookies!

I had supper at C's, along with her husband and her parents, who were also in town for Oma's birthday. We had a Korean barbecue - strips of marinated beef, grilled and wrapped in lettuce with grilled garlic. Delicious, but loud - the smoke detector kept going off! Her husband got plenty of exercise running around opening doors and windows and fanning the alarm.

Edmonton - Oma's 90th Birthday

For Oma's birthday breakfast, my mom made pancakes with berries and whipping cream. After cleaning up, my dad and I walked over to the mall and grocery store, returning "late" for lunch - my mom hadn't told us that we had to have lunch so early! While my mom and aunt set up the common area for my Oma's open house, I sat upstairs with Oma making a spreadsheet of all the family members and the years they were born. (My dad and uncle had decided that they wanted to see a trend line of the family growth and put me up the job of making it happen.)

The open house was CRAZY! There were over 100 guests, so many that we ran out of mugs and had to keep asking people if they were done so we could wash and reuse them. Oma really seemed to be enjoying herself, she was talking so much she hardly even got a chance to drink her coffee!

We had a quiet supper with Oma, my aunt, and one of my cousins who wasn't able to make it to the family celebration on the weekend, and a couple of uncles came over after for coffee.

Edmonton - Day 1

After having breakfast with Oma, we went and got the car washed to remove the "driving down a gravel road" evidence off the car. (If you read the fine print on car rental agreements, they usually say no non-paved roads!) I then attempted to make a package of soup.

Oma doesn't cook very often (or maybe ever) anymore, but still has packages of soup mix, cake mix, etc. in her pantry. I found one without milk in it, minestrone, opened it (it looked ok), smelt it (smelt ok) and then added water and started cooking it. My mom wouldn't let me taste it until it had boiled for 10 minutes - just to make sure anything that might have been living in there was good and dead. It didn't taste right, so we tossed it and went on to soup #2, chicken noodle. This one tasted fine and we added some meatballs that my mom made and a package of dried "soup vegetables" that Oma had in the pantry - they had either passed their expiration date 2 months ago or were going to expire in 2 weeks, so we decided they should also be used up! Soup #2 was pretty good! After lunch I headed down to Leduc to visit with a cousin and discuss airplane things (he's a pilot), then back to Edmonton for supper. The three of us then drove up to St. Albert to visit another cousin - I drove, my dad was using his GPS, and my mom a map. We normally have no problems navigating, but we got messed up pretty quickly on this trip - road names had changed, my dad said left, my mom right ... things just weren't working! We finally decided to just use the GPS and found the street, and when my dad asked mom what the house number was, her reply was "This isn't the right street!" Turns out that she had grabbed the wrong map printout and was directing us to a totally different place in St. Albert! That explained a few things.

My cousin put out a HUGE spread of food for us. Apparently they first were planning on having wine and cheese and remembered just that afternoon that my dad and I can't have milk, so quickly added a bunch of meats and fruit! But at least my mom got to enjoy her cheese (she doesn't get to very often).

Rocky Mountain House

My dad and I really enjoyed our stay in Rocky ... or Romoho as my dad always calls it. The boys have made a trail from their property and onto the crown land that's behind it, going past an old cabin to the North Saskatchewan River. After walking around the camp with my cousin C and her boys (all 6 of them!), my dad and I went out with the oldest three. My dad recorded the hike on his GPS, and the kids where happy to get all the waypoints - I think they're planning on making a map from it.

After a delicious lunch, we got back on the road and headed up to Edmonton. We had supper at Oma's and Catherine and Rob dropped in in the evening!

Out into the Wilds of Alberta

After church and a quick lunch, we packed up the cars and headed out to my aunt and uncle's property about two hours north west of Calgary. My dad went with my uncle in his truck, while my aunt, the dog and I went in our rental car. The drive our was awesome - the property is at the end of a road and backs onto crown land so it really is in the middle of nowhere, and the views of the mountains from the highway were great! It was a "fun" experience trying drive the last 100m of road before their property line though - thick mud! My aunt and I paused about 30 seconds to debate wether or not to just walk the rest of the way, but figured we'd just go for it. She was a bit nervous though as I almost went sliding sideways into their gate! (Front wheel drive cars are not made for this sort of thing!)

My dad and uncle where at the property before us and went ATV-ing, but were back pretty soon. We then walked around the archery range my uncle had made - a bunch of 3D foam animal targets. Even though he has all the distances memorized, he still got me to determing the range before firing. My dad and I tried to pull his bow, but with a 75 lb draw, we didn't get too far!

Our next weapon demonstration was the riffle - a 7mm Remmington something or other (he told me, but I can't remember these things!) I got to go first, aiming at the gap between 2 trees ... can't miss that! My third shot was at a stump - I'm not sure if I hit the stump or something else, but a piece of wood came flying up from somewhere.

After my dad did his shots, we headed back to the 5th wheel to warm up while my uncle went off searching for a deer (though I would have been surprised if we hadn't scared them all away).

The next activity was driving the rhino (ATV) around the property. My uncle made a trail around the edge of the property, including 2 bridges over ditches (cut down a tree and split it lengthwise). He told my dad to keep the edge of the wheel 1" over from the edge of the bridge - my dad had interpreted that as 1" of bridge showing, but I interpreted it as 1" of wheel hanging off the side. At the first bridge, my dad kept asking me to make sure I was only an inch over because when he looked down, we were hanging over by at least 2" ... which means that he was probably hanging over by 4"! The first bridge also has the nice characteristic of DROPPING on the right side just as you get all the wheels on the bridge! I think it needs some reinforcement.

It was dark when we got back to the trailer and figured out what the dog had been doing while we were out - she must have done a lot of climbing and jumping to get on top of the stove and to our loaf of bread ... and eat half of it! We ate the rest - it was still delicious. Along with that we had some fruit and barbequed white tail buck that my uncle shot last year on this property.

My dad and I left just after 7pm to head up to Rocky Mountain House, but first, we had to get the car our of the gravel. I was sure that I had parked on hard ground, so was a bit surprised when my uncle called us to say that my dad was stuck (he was turning the car around for me). It was only after a bunch of pushing that only seemed to move the car sideways and my dad getting out and pushing, that I noticed that he hadn't taken off the parking brake! (Explains why we couldn't get it to rock!) The rest of the drive was uneventful.

We found my cousin's place by GPS coordinates (easier than looking for road signs in the dark) and were able to spend a bit of time with her husband before heading over to their awesome guest cabin. It isn't quite finished yet (no door nobs, etc.), but had everything we needed plus more!

Calgary - Hiking and hanging around

After sleeping in again (vacations are great!), I went with my aunt for a hike around Weasel Head. It was a nice walk through the river valley but there were a few icy patches on the path. On the way home, we stopped at a bakery to pick up some dairy-free (for my dad and I) and gluten-free (for an aunt and some cousins) good for my oma's birthday celebrations.

Back at her house, we worked on a photo album of our family that my aunt is putting together for my oma. My oma can't see very well, so this way, she can put the pictures of us under her magnifier and see what we look like. To avoid the trick-or-treaters, we went to a fantastic Thai restaurant for supper, then went back and relaxed at home.

Calgary - Kitchens and Guns

I slept in pretty late this morning (my dad and uncle had left for their meeting by the time I got up), had breakfast and then went with my aunt to look at kitchen showrooms - they're renovating their kitchen soon so we were looking for ideas. We stopped for lunch at an awesome Lebanese restaurant while searching for the right cupboards, counters, and taps.

Another one of my cousins teaches at the school across the street from my aunt's house and we were planning on surprising her their but ended up being on the other side of the city at the end of school, so called her and went there for tea, instead. She's been married over a year, but I still have never met her husband and won't on this trip either!

After getting dressed up at home, my aunt and I drove to meet dad, my uncle, the rest of the group they were in meetings with, and their spouses. It was interesting to meet the people I had heard about from my dad, and also to learn more about the organization he has been doing so much work for.

We were home late, but somehow when we got home, the conversation turned to my uncle's love of big game hunting and his "hunting room" in the basement. He has several sets of antlers, including a huge set from a moose! We also got to check out his variety of bows and guns (along with descriptions on how they work and what animal they are used for) and got a lecture on how to make your own ammunition (assembling the brass, bullet, gun powder, and primer). Only in Alberta!

Edmonton to Calgary

My dad has meetings in Calgary this weekend, so after eating breakfast in our suite (mom was eating downstairs in her mom's apartment), we drove down to Calgary. It isn't the most exciting drive and November is probably the ugliest time of year - no leaves and no snow, just dry and brown.

I dropped my dad off at the offices near the airport, then made my way to my aunt and uncle's place in the south-west. My dad's directions didn't include on the the turns I was supposed to make and later I was in the wrong lane to turn where I had to, but the city is pretty much a grid of numbered streets, so I found my way with no major difficulties.

I spent the afternoon relaxing with my aunt, looking at each others pictures of Peru (she and my uncle went two months before I did), before heading back across the city to pick my dad up. One of my cousins (from a different family) joined up for supper - lime dill chicken with rice and stir-fried peppers. Mmmm - my aunt is a good cook!

Off to Alberta!

My Oma (my mom's mom) is celebrating her 90th birthday on November 4, so I'll be in Alberta with a lot of family to celebrate for almost two weeks. My mom flew out yesterday and my dad and I had a late flight this evening from Toronto to Edmonton. Nothing too exciting really - just normal airplane stuff. I did buy myself some noise-cancelling headphones this morning and they worked great! They made flying a lot more comfortable.

We got into Edmonton just before 11pm and drove to my Oma's place. We rented a suite in her home (she's in a retirement residence), so we have our own space, including a little kitchen. I'm sleeping on a lob sided cot, but it will do!