Moving Day, Part 3

Ok, I am getting really sick of moving. It's so exhausting. Just one more day of this. I can do it!

I need a power nap first.

A rundown of my exhausting day: On very little sleep, I drove an hour out to the farm to pack some more of our things and load them up. That took three hours. While I was there, I noticed that my yellow jacket sting I got on Saturday (at the buffalo thing... we accidentally stood on their nest) was really swollen and was turning purple. Figured I would go to the doctor once I got back to Edmonton and drove to Edmonton. Unloaded the things in my vehicle into our new place and was in sooo much pain from my sting. I called the doctor and they told me to put baking soda and cold water on it. Now it's much less painful, but I still had to go back to the farm and finish packing. Hence, this picture:

32 oz of licorice milkshake later (Have I mentioned how I'm addicted to Burger Baron milkshakes? ) I was feeling much more energetic!

Apparently all I need to make me happy is some artificially flavored frozen milk product.

This rug I'm standing on came all the way from Saudi Arabia!

My in-laws have this office mat in their garage. It's one of those plastic ones that has those hard spikes on the bottom so it will stick to your carpet. You're supposed to put your rolley office chair on it so you can actually use the wheels, but instead they just have it in their garage for people with bare feet to step on.

It's my favorite part of going in their garage.

This is my second favorite part - dirty feet yay!

The dirt really emphasizes my footprint.

Kneeling pose, as per request.

Moving Day, Part 2

The moving madness continues! My dad was kind enough to drive out to the farm to help me move our bed. (We don't have a roof rack on our vehicle, so without his help we would have had to rent a truck.) About 5km into our drive, it's poured rain for a few minutes and got the ropes holding the bed down all wet. As a result, the ropes stretched out and we had to stop and re-tie then bed. Kind of inconvenient, but we did get the bed to its destination safely. Thanks Dad!

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam

Today we took a tour of the plains bison handling facility at Elk Island National Park.

I've loved buffalo/bison ever since I was a little kid. When I was very young, I went camping in Yellowstone National Park with my parents and with my aunt. Some of the bison came into our camp. My parents and I took refuge in our car, but my aunt sat on the picnic table and tried to pet them. They were massive and I was pretty sure that they were going to kill her. They didn't, of course, or I would probably be terrified of the noble beast today. Instead, that experience instilled a great respect for bison in me.

When I was in junior high school, my great-uncle was raising bison on his ranch. We would visit from time to time and get to help him with the animals. It was a little bit scary, because they can be so fierce, but I loved it. I loved spending time with this huge and delicious animal.

We live about 20km from two buffalo ranches and driving past them on the way to and from work is always the highlight of my day. So when offered the chance to see where the national park handles their wild bison, I jumped at the chance.

This is a national heritage building. I can't remember what it was called, but this building is the only one in Canada that has serviced two national parks since it was built. They used to use it to hold the hay to feed the bison in Elk Island and also at Jasper National Park. Today it holds used office furniture.

This is one of the pens where they bait the bison into in order to test them for disease. In the winter when the food is harder to find under all that snow, the park rangers will place hay bales in the pens and open the gates. They then bait them into chutes where they can separate them, take blood samples, and quarantine them if necessary.

This is the boardwalk around the bison handling facility. The actual walkway is composed of metal with holes punched in it to let rain/snow through so that it doesn't get so slippery for the workers. The edges of the holes were quite sharp. It was fun to walk on.

Here's a closer look at the metal I was walking on. The smaller holes are poked from the reverse side, so their edges are sharper than the ones on the larger holes.

The boardwalk goes around in a spoked wheel fashion so that the workers can get to all areas of the facility. We walked the entire length of the boardwalk and went inside a veterinary-type office to see where they did medical tests.

This overlooks the many pens where they keep the bison after initial medical tests. The workers nicknamed this area Purgatory because any worker in this area is stuck there by themselves all day with only radio communication to the other workers. It's also a purgatory for the bison, because this is where any sick, injured, or unruly bison are kept in isolation until their condition improves.

Right after this picture was taken, my husband and I were attacked by yellow jackets. Apparently Georgia Tech's mascot hates me.

Wuv, twue wuv

I just love July weddings... Maybe I'm biased because I got married in July, maybe it's because someone I've known for a while chose a July wedding, maybe it's just because so many people I know get married in July and I get to have free food at their receptions... I dunno, something about July weddings just makes me twirl with delight.

Today we attended the wedding of my husband's friend Brad. It was a beautiful wedding.

Unfortunately, the justice of the peace was an entire hour late due to a scheduling error.

Fortunately for you, that means feet pics!

This is the newly-wed couple. What a beautiful bride for Brad! Her name is Jennifer, and from what I can tell, she's totally awesome and also totally obsessed with shoes. But that's ok. Somebody's gotta keep the shoe industry in business after I boycotted them.

Just for fun, I followed the advice from 27 Dresses and I watched Brad's face while the love of his life walked down the aisle, escorted by her son. It was a beautiful moment. As tears streamed down his face, you could feel the amount of love he feels for her. It was a positively magical wedding.

And then the justice of the peace quoted the marriage scene from The Princess Bride, which just totally made my day. We had the guy conducting our ceremony do that too!

After the wedding came lots of good food, and then lots of speeches and lots of toasts. 

I was really full and really happy. The natural next step was to dance.

Yes, this is my husband dancing with the groom. They're just that awesome.

Of course, he saved the last dance for me.

Moving Day, Part 1

My sister-in-law is moving out of my in-laws' house so that we can move in.

To show my support, I helped carry things to their new house!

Yay garbage can!

They have a lot of stuff.

Putting together their new patio furniture.

This is a table with an umbrella. Immediately after this photo, it got really cloudy and started storming, so we didn't end up putting them together.

I put liners in their drawers instead.

Horses, a gopher, and kittens

Our landlord keeps horses behind our house. They're friendly and love to get pats on the nose.

They also are very sneezy.

Ew, it sneezed on my pants!

Hubby heard this guy whistling in out backyard and went into exterminator mode.

No more gopher digging tunnels in our backyard!

We fed it to the kittens. 

I'm an island, you're an ocean

More gay bacon strips!

Guys, I was really happy because I had my new Epic Meal Time shirt and my hubby got me some sweet new polarized Maui Jim sunglasses!

This shot is completely candid. I love it.

In case you're wondering why I'm wearing a shirt that says "Gay Bacon Strips," please watch the following video. I freaking love these guys!

City Feet

 We've been visiting my husband's parents and just needed to have some alone time so we went for a really long walk. 36 blocks in all. We stopped to take some photos at this gorgeous spot overlooking downtown.

I must have moved halfway through this photo because I look like I just watched The Ring.

Yay, back to normal.

We were out actually quite late on our walk, especially when you consider that it doesn't get dark here until almost midnight.

Well worth the walk for these photos, though.