Life's Whirlwind Adventures

Calgary Zoo, twice in a week, my life is on an up swing.  I went the first time with the girls from work and it was fantastic, so I thought it would be a great trip to take with the boys.  Then I realized that I had been a neglectful mom and had never taken Lil Man to the zoo before, and I can't even understand how that happened. So Sunday after the family reunion we headed to the zoo with our cousins, Graham, Carla and their two girls!! There are so many sights to see at the Calgary Zoo, the newest exhibit is the Penguin exhibit.  Unfortunately, they closed down the Australia Exhibit (back in 2010) and that made me sad. I didn't exactly like the Australia exhibit, it was never my favorite but the kangaroos were neat and some of those night creatures were creepily intriguing.  Our first stop at the Zoo was the Penguins, it's right when you come in, so it makes it easy!! Those lil penguins are so darn cute.  The little tuxedo wearing acrobats! The rock ho...

The Schnell family is a very close family that enjoys holding family reunion events at least once a year if not twice a year, I am so blessed to have been brought into this family.  Just to be clear, this is my husbands maternal family and I really, and truly love them all. After all my gallivanting around the world, ok North and Central America, I came home in time to celebrate birthday's for two uncles.  So we had a mini family reunion the first weekend in May. And I got to drive my new car down too!!! For me family is so important, I love all my family and I cherish the time I get to spend with my family. It's not as frequent as I would like, but when we do it's always a good time.  So to all my family, new and old, blood and chosen, I am very grateful to have you in my life and I love you all!!!

So since taking a picture of the sun would have been cliche, I decided to find the next best thing.  A light bulb, no joking, but I did find some great plants that had some great sunlight shining on them, so those were my submissions for Week 20!! Also Lil Man playing at Sylvan Lake and the treacherous stairs that inflamed my sciatic nerve.

Good bye Explorer Remember back on Good Friday I told  you my car had been involved in a hit an run?  Maybe you do maybe you don't, anyways it was involved in a hit and run and then the insurance adjuster told me they were writing off my Explorer, there was just too much damage. I had an idea of a car I was going to get, it was just going to be a car to get me through until we had some more of our bills paid off.  I had looked at the north end car dealerships and had found a Kia at the Kia dealership.  It was a Forte and it looked ok, nothing fancy, but it seemed to have the added features I was looking for, but it wasn't a car I loved.... not by a long shot, but it would have done the trick. When we checked our mail upon our arrival home from Vegas there was a customer appreciation invitation for MGM for the following day.  The kicker was, if we bought a car that day we would get a free trip to Vegas!!! Now this may seem like a fantastic deal, and reall...

The day after the wedding, is always one of those anticlimactic type days.  All this anticipation for this big day has built up, the day comes it's wonderful and then it's over and now everyone involved in the wedding has to come up withs something else to look forward too. I suspect that's why after people get married they are bombarded with "So when you going to have a baby?" type questions. Hubby and I just sorta of hung out, we went back to Ross I had to get a couple more items, and I was looking for something for Chandler.  We hung out by the pool, said good bye to Nellie and Rhi because they were leaving that night.  Hubby and I contemplated hoping the plane early but it didn't work out so we just sort of did a little walking tour of the south end of the strip together. I really and truly enjoyed our trip together but I was so happy when we were boarding our plane to Calgary to head home!! I was done with vacations and I was ready to sleep in my own be...

The first day where my body seems to want to sleep in I had to be up early, as I had to head over to the Bellagio to get my hair done and start prepping for the wedding with my beautiful sister. All the bridesmaids met in Courtney's hotel room then we headed down to the salon so we could make our appointments.  Courtney got a manicure done and when she was finished we all had our hair styled.  Courtney looked absolutely stunning, she has the nicest ebony colour hair and it's long and they had a half up do done for her!! After the hair was all styled and pinned into place we headed up to Courtney's suite for the dress and make up portion of getting ready. After ordering some room service the girls began the process of doing make up and getting into our dresses.  It was fun and Courtney's other bridesmaids were great to hang out with, I knew Pam from before but this was the first time I had met Courtney's friend and sister in law Trinity.  She was very nice ...

So after a full twenty four hours in Vegas you would think we would have become accustomed to the various differences in time and various need for sleep.  But no, even though I was in bed by midnight, almost three hours past my regular bedtime (I know lame), I was up at the crack of dawn.  That wasn't even bad my hubby had only arrived back to the hotel at 4 in the morning, complaining that he hates this town because he got lost, and he was up and wide awake at 8 am.  I had laid awake for an hour, trying to will myself back to sleep which became a useless task. So let's begin this day!! Saturday wasn't as full as Friday was, catching the bus in Vegas is simple but it can be a little time consuming and they only allow 5 people in a cab, apparently that's a state law.  So Saturday morning we went shopping again, ok i went shopping and hubby begrudgingly followed me around.  We only walked a couple blocks down the strip to Ross so that I could buy some items I was...

Sleep what's sleep?? This is especially true in Vegas!! I was so tired when I finally fell asleep the day we arrived in Vegas yet, I was up at 7 like normal, and wide awake.  So I got up and headed down to the gym and did a workout. After that workout I met Adrian back in the room and we got ready to head out for the day.  First stop.... OUTLET shopping!!!  Where i bought almost nothing, seriously, I bought nothing!! My husband on the other hand bought tons and tons of stuff!! Ok maybe not tons and tons, but he did buy a significant amount of things.  Well ok he just spent more money than I did. After wearing our shoes out at the outlet mall we headed off to the pool at the Wet Bar in MGM.  It was an experience, but it was a lot of fun!! There was music and a pool and table and lot of booze!!  I think it was a pretty expensive afternoon, but the boys from the wedding party were winning and spending their money as fast as they won it.  No wonder no on...

I personally think Vegas is the type of town that grows on you.  My first visit to Las Vegas was ok, but I didn't get all the hype that I saw everyone posting about, I truly thought it was a neat place, but give me a beach any day!!  So when my sister decided her wedding location was going to be Vegas, I had mixed feelings about it.   I needed to make this trip more fulfilling then the last. The first thing we did was ensure that we were not bringing children with us! Check, both kids were deposited at aunties houses for the week!!  Grandma and Papa would check up on the lil one and my big son would be spending some time with his lil cousins.  First hurdle solved, now just to figure out what Hubby and I would be doing in Vegas. This was literally the first trip I did not plan down to the wire.  Vegas is so busy on a normal day that I thought instead of planning things out we would just play it by ear and see where the wind took us.  It was also Hub...

Almost 5 years ago I lost my father. He had been battling heart and lung failure for ten years, had outlived the original prognosis from the doctors and had fought to get better. He had gotten better, in that he was able to leave the hospital, he was able to undergo some pretty significant surgeries and he was able to live a life similar to the one he had lost, but in many ways that first illness had taken from me the father I knew all my life growing up.  In the last year of his life I did see that man come back, he had let go of some of his bitterness, he had accepted things as they were, not for what he felt they should have been.  Every day I miss him, and wish he hadn't left this world, I know that he is no longer in pain and that he is in a better place with my nana and his dad. I was pregnant with Chandler when I received the first call that my dad had gone into the hospital. I thought my world was ending,  how could my dad, the man who always went to the gym was...

For the 19th week of this photo challenge we had to find the drama.  I personally like to keep my life fairly drama free so I wasn't sure where I would find drama, at least, not what I would classify as drama. We had a family type reunion, and well family always brings about some drama so here are some pictures of our family trip to the Calgary zoo to see the penguins and other animals. this picture had the most drama because lil man's cousin wanted nothing to do with the picture taking

Week 18 was perspective.  There was talk about us all trying to take a picture of the same subject, but as we all live in different areas of the province this was not really possible.  But I found some interesting subjects to choose for this week. One was  a picture of my sister on her wedding day, she looked so pretty, and I love the silhouette picture I was able to capture. The other was of a sign I had seen in one of the bars in Carlos and Charlies.  It was so fun and had everything to do with perspective, not even how I saw things, but how others see and value things.