Fairytale Life

I always loved fairytales growing up, I loved princesses and castles and knights on horses, Fairies with wings and flowers in their hair. I love dresses and makeup and ribbons and lace… I like looking pretty and cooking and taking care of others, boys opening doors and fixing anything broken. In summary, I’m about as stereotypically a girl as it gets.

This has led to the discovery of Laura jobs and non Laura jobs.
Lifting a rolled up raft from the truck to the shore, that’s definitely not a Laura job. Making breakfast for the strong men that will do the above job? Laura written all over it.
Carrying tents and moving stacked chairs also fall into the non Laura category. Dinners and picking up wedding gifts I’ve got covered though.

I appreciate those who understand our distinct roles. Glad we came to an understanding so early in our friendship.
L

Feels Like the End of Summer

Today was sad. Today marked the last Sunday Dinner as we know it. A group of us have been getting together for dinner, sometimes there are wild card guests but it has basically been the same group of us. The host provides the main dish and everyone else is assigned items, it's worked so well and we've had some of the best laughs and food. But all good things must come to an end; Kim and Mark get married on Friday and move to Waterloo. Nathan is going to Lethbridge, Jenn is leaving the ward. It was time.
Hopefully Kim, Mark and Nathan will carry on the tradition in their respective cities and we can make Sunday Dinners a Country-wide phenomenum.

I really love you all, hopefully I can find some way to fill the void you're leaving behind :)
L

New Aunt

I'm an Aunt again!

Baby Gage Lee West was born on Thursday August 3rd. He is 21 inches long and a whopping 9 lbs, his Dad was the same weight :)

I added some pictures so you can see just how cute he is.
L

Summer is my Best Friend

So I've done it!

I walked by a waterfall, ate ice cream in a national park. Sat by the lake and went trail riding. I got bit my mosquitos, a little sun burned and let my hair blow in the wind. I ate BBQ Chicken and played catch in a park. Saw a chipmunk and a little fawn. I visited Monarch A.B. as my random Alberta visit and skipped stones in the Old Man River. What a great weekend!

So far my quest to live summer to the fullest has been successful! Stay tuned for more updates!

This weekend reminded me of how much I love the Prairie's, they're so beautiful. Coming to the top of a hill, looking out and seeing miles and miles of farmland and foothills is far more beautiful to me than any mountain range. The mountains make me clausterphobic, I can't breath, there's not enoug sky, there's nothing like a prairie sky. So big and blue and with clouds like today it's perfect. I'll take the prairie's over the mountains any day.

The drive home made me contemplate my city living, a good looking cowboy may be just what I need
L

The Good Left Undone

The inbox is empty… there’s nothing to do.

After an afternoon of reading other’s blogs I’ve decided that I’m not taking full advantage of this summer. I should be going on Road trips, hiking in parks… floating down rivers. Watching movies outside, embracing the mosquitoes, not letting them scare me off. I need more summer in my life.

Who’s with me?

Luckily for me I have a trip to Waterton planned for the weekend… no more sitting around waiting for summer to come to me. I’m going to get it myself.

I want to go somewhere in Alberta I’ve never been…like Stettler or Rocky Mountain House. It doesn’t have to be exotic… random is good. I’ve lived in Alberta my whole life and there’s lots I haven’t seen, so here’s fair warning… be prepared for day trip invites. Cause I’m bored.

I want more!
L

Ward Hike

What a successful day.

The hike turned out to be so much fun, not very hard, just nice. It was really hot but lots of the path was shady. Once we got to the lake there was lots to do, like swim if you're crazy! That's glacier water! There were people rock climbing and lots of people having lunch. We hiked down on the hard path and had such a beautiful view of Canmore. Once we got to the bottom we had some delicious sandwiches and juice and such.

I was pleasantly surprised with how well the day went. A few more people would have been fun but I liked that group that we had. Check out the pictures so you can see all the fun you missed.
L

Whack-a-Mole Champ

"What do you want to do at Stampede?"

It occurred to me on Saturday that I've never played Whack-a-Mole, so that's what I wanted to do at the Stampede. So we find a Whack-a-Mole place and I give the guy my money and then I get a text message, so I whip out the phone, start repsonding and Whack-a-Mole starts!! I WON!!! All these years I've been hiding my light under a bushel, I didn't mean to hide the talent, I'll share it - I promise :) The Whack-a-Mole guy said that's the first time he's seen someone text and play and still win... see Tonia, txting makes me smarter ;) I have this cute green stuffed frog to remind me of my win.

Whack-a-Mole was just one of the memorable experiences. I sat in a helicopter! It was pretty neat. I ate a footlong hotdog smothered in onions and cheese (if you know me then you know that's surprising).

I've come to the conclusion that I need more rodeo in my life... the Chuckwagon races were so much fun! I want to go back! I liked the grandstand show but I loved the fireworks! It was a great way to spend my birthday. The only thing that could have made it better was cake

Thanks for the good times and celebrating my 25th with me Brad.

Thanks to all who wished me a Happy Birthday, love you all
L

Kim, I'm excited to hear about the house and if your offer was accepted

Happy Birthday to Me

I’m 25 today

It feels like a big deal, like a big number, you know?

How did you celebrate your 25th?

Mine will start with Breakfast with some friends. Then I’m going to the Calgary Stampede (now that I live in Calgary it tends to steal my thunder). I’ve never been to the chuckwagon races or the grandstand show, so I’m excited! I’d like to fit a Crave cupcake somewhere in there too but we’ll see if time allows it. Ideally I’ll receive multiple phone calls from all the good friends that are missing today and end the evening with some fireworks.

I’m not sure I’m where I thought I’d be at 25 but life is good.
L

Mean is hereditary

So I have this really mean landlady... and when I say mean I'm referring to the kind of person that takes pleasure in drowning kittens. Somehow she's gotten the idea that we're really bad tenants, I'm not sure how she came to this conclusion. We pay our rent, we mow the lawn (occasionally), we haven't destroyed anything in the house and we very seldom call to have things fixed. But despite the mentioned points she thinks we're awful. She's decided to raise our rent $300 which is unfortunate.

So she called about 2 1/2 weeks ago to say she'd be out of town for a while. She gave us the name of either her son or daughter to call if we had problems and she reminded me that she needed new rent cheques... no problem. I had every intention of taking them over early just to be considerate but things came up and I forgot. So today I realize it's the 30th and she needs cheques by tomorrow so I dropped them off in her mailbox around noon.

I come home this evening around 8:00 and there's a message from Mean Landlady's daughter. I'm going to type the message in as much detail as I can remember:

"Hi this is Mean Landlady's Daughter, I was supposed to have cheques from you by this morning but when I checked the mailbox they weren't there. Just wondering where they are or if this is your way of giving notice. Please call me because until I hear from you I'm going to assume this is your way of giving notice to vacate the property."

Going to assume we're vacating the property??? What? That was completely unecessarey... rent is due on the 1st, not the 30th. I have every right to wait until tomorrow to deliver them if I so choose. I called and left a very pleasant message saying we are not giving notice and the cheques are in the mailbox but I'm annoyed... there's no reason to be so mean about everything. Her tone was very rude and condescending.

And we get it already... you want us to move...

Good to see her mother is rubbing off on her
L

Rant

I oficially hate Stabilo (it's a music group)

A friend of mine loaned me their cd so, as per usual, I brought it home, opened up my iTunes and went to listen. But wait - iTunes doesn't recognize the cd, that's odd. Oh well, I'll just open its folder and copy it onto my computer and then I'll put it into iTunes.

Why would anyone... at this day and age make a cd that isn't compatible with iTunes?!! I don't get it but I'm angry!

The cd will let me burn it or copy it to my computer but it won't play in iTunes. The only program I ever use to listen to cd's is iTunes but they expect me to count them as an exception and use another program? Forget it... I just won't listen to it. I spend the majority of my time listening to music on my iPod... can't do that with this cd.

The only up side to this whole situation is I actually don't really like Stabilo's music so I wouldn't really want to listen to them anyway.. it's the pricipal of the situation though.

So, in conclusion... not being able to use iTunes ticks me off

So I just googled itunes and Stabilo together and came up with this message from the band...

"We're very sorry your experience buying our music was a negative one. e are grateful that you actually went to the effort and shelled out the cash to actually buy the cd. unfortunately, we the band have no control over the copy protection on the album. in fact, we asked the label not to make our disc copy protected. unfortunately the bottom line is that it's not our call. however, there are ways around it particularly if you are running a mac (which i'm assuming you aren't otherwise it should have worked). itunes is another option. again, we're sorry this was your experience, realize there is a lot of great music and hope you will find a way to listen to ours. thanks for the support."

stabilo

I feel a little less angry
L