Enjoying Unemployment, or: "I'm between jobs right now"

Yikes, I suppose it has been a while since I've updated...We spent a lovely week in Calgary and Banff doing all my favourite things: hanging out with the whole family (including our niece and both our nephews!), meeting up with Jocey, shopping, going to the mountains, making massive purchases at the candy store, riding gondolas, and 'lunch-ing' at the Banff Springs.

Dixie stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while we lived it up at the Tunnel Mountain Resort in Banff for 3 nights. We finally figured out why they call it Tunnel Mountain (since there are no actual tunnels in it...) It goes back to the days when the railroad was being built- they were planning a tunnel through the mountain, but decided to go around instead. And why wouldn't you? When you see Tunnel Mountain from the top of the Sulphur Mountain Gondola, it's really not much of an obstruction - you can easily go around on either side. Except the side with the river and the golf course.

I love the Banff, I really do! I think it is my favourite place in the whole world.

After that lovely bit of time off, I finished my last week at Riverbend. The congregation had a going-away lunch for us complete with cake and a gift basket full of baking stuff! I decided to try out my new industrial-quality cookie sheets a couple days later. They cook beautifully, and burn the flesh on my arm quite efficiently, too. I suppose that was my fault.

Dixie and I have been taking advantage of the above-average temperatures by sunning ourselves in the back yard. I finished reading The Catcher in the Rye in about 24 hours...that book reminds me of summer, even though it is set at Christmastime. It was a favourite for reading on the beach. Murray and I have also been using this free time to make some plans for the 'big move' which isn't really so big, since we're just packing up the car and heading east. Actually, Murms, Dixie, and I will be heading south to Calgary first, then west to the Okanagan for a few days, then back to Calgary. After re-loading on clean laundry and kissing our sweet kittee good bye we'll head east to Regina. Then northeast to Fort Qu'Appelle, then southeast to Glenboro, MB for a couple of nights. From there we'll cross the border and head south (and a bit east) to Minneapolis. As I was surfin' the 'net for things to do in Minneapolis, I came across advertisments for the Mall of America! The second biggest mall in the world (and who's counting that the biggest mall in the world is right in our backyard...that's just West Edmonton -this is the Mall of ALL of America!)

This trip just got a whole lot better!

From the mall...I mean, Minneapolis, we'll head south and east to Chicago. I hear they have the good pizza, and a Frank Lloyd Wright house/museum. We'll spend a night in Chicago and pray that the cow doesn't kick over the lantern like in that song we used to sing... (my mom is probably the only one who gets it.) ANYway, we'll head to Detroit and then cross the border to our final destination of Windsor. We're aiming to be there on August 17 so Murr can start work on the 20th. I'll be starting as the part-time DPS at First Lutheran in September. Hooray for being gainfully employed!

All this excitement doesn't happen for another few weeks though...we're heading south (but not east) for Stampede this week. Corb Lund is playing on the Coca-Cola stage, which should be a heck of a lot of fun! I caught the last 20 minutes of the Stampede Parade on TV this morning (it was a re-run from yesterday morning). That was about all I needed for the old Stampede memories to come flooding back, and now I'm pumped to show Murms what being a Calgarian is all about! Cowboys, corndogs, and cotton candy here we come!