Shannon's Wedding

Iberostar Costa Dorada in Puerta Plata was excellent. For one week I relaxed, I partied, I laughed, I cried. Everything was taken care of. I found myself asking "Why did I wait so long to take a vacation?" My sister was the most beautiful bride, and so easygoing. I see why she has such a huge social circle.

Here is how I spent my last day there. I went for an early morning walk on the beach with dad. But we wandered off the path to look for birds. We found a parrot after which we felt the need to celebrate with an afternoon drink. On the way to the lounge we rounded up aunties and uncles for a liquor tasting and laughter, then met mom afterwards for a nice dinner and show. This was followed by lounge drinks with Tanya and Shannon/friends. How can you beat that? Its tough but there are options, (and free ones, at that) snokelling, spa-time, reading a book with the sounds of sprinklers, rusting leaves and birds.

shannons shower and stagette

Shannon's wedding shower weekend was a success. Mom, dad and I gave personality to each and every decorations we made. There were lot of laugh out loud pictures drawn to demonstrate and decipher? Wedding advice at the shower along with a revival of Kenny's records. We had a grrreat time afterwards with jungle themed shots and party games at the bachlorette party. Shannon has great friends who worked hard to get this thing organized. So much fun!

road trip

 Sean , mugs and I are always keen to get out of the city on weekends if possible. This weekend we headed east to Drumheller. We took the scenic route, checking out an abandoned house on the the way there and the Drumheller Coal mine site on the way home.

shame on you...

Dog shaming... enough said

It's christmas in heaven..

It's that time of year again, and picking out a tree with Sean and mugs feels like "its Christmas  in heaven" except the fact that is was super windy out there today. We managed just fine picking out our tree while mugs did her own chop job to the willows. When we returned home it was decorating time.

wicked bail (skills)

You can take the girl out of the prairie, but you can't take the prairie out of the girl :)

Mom's November visit

 Our retreat at the Banff springs was heavenly. We went to the spaaaaaaah

and wandered around the hotel the next morning after brunch.

 They had just started decorating for Christmas, the place was spiffed up in record time.

 We shopped a bit. Don't you think I look Russian in fur?

 After returning to Calgary, we tried re-create the Fairmont experience with high tea

We also tried to find our inner zen with yoga and tai chi...If only muggins could
express her inner joy as this dog does.......

Nanton, sweet Nanton

This weekend we went on a road trip to Nanton, AB. We visited Nanton Aviation Museum. Sean noted how much it has evolved and improved since visited (a decade ago). I enjoyed reading through old magazines, looking at the exhibits and Sean most enjoyed the hangar with the  planes and flight simulators. Nanton is such a neat old town, with plenty of antique stores to check out. We acquired  a 1970's board game that is the Napolean version of risk. Can't wait to check it out!

birds of a feather flock together

We woke this Saturday morning to what sounded like terrible wind, a high whistle it was. Only after we opened the curtains we discovered that the entire yard was peppered with birds! Each tree in our yard was bustling with activity, as they exchanged places and bullied each other around. I'm still not sure what the fuss was about, as our yard was the only one with any action. We were thankful they cleaned up our crabapple trees before muggins could make a mess of them. I will have to ask dad what the heck that was about.

the big rock

We took Muggins on a road trip. Though it looks like she is in jail in the first picture she is actually quite cozy in the back of Seans Volvo station wagon. Yes that's right, he has a (feels like) new set of urban wheels to cruise around on now. We went to explore the "Big Rock" near Okotoks, the largest rock in the Foothills Erratics Train. This is a group of rocks that were carried by ice along the mountain front and dropped as the glacier melted some 10,000 years ago.