Waterton The Great

When things were not so busy on Thursday afternoon, after a morning and early afternoon of preparing for the wedding and planning for Rachel's bachelorette party that evening, Haig and I snuck away to go to Waterton. I have wanted to go to Waterton for such a long time now. I would have to say Laura introduced me to Waterton. With her love of adventures I must have seen one of her photos there first some time ago. I don't know much about Alberta tourism, but I think everyone needs to go here. When we got out, I wasn't really sure where we should go, or where would be the best spot to take some photos. We drove up to the Prince of Wales Hotel, and I didn't exactly realize that the "best" photo spot was right behind it. We kept driving down into the little village, but I knew we didn't have a lot of time to get out and look around. I just wanted to find the perfect spot. I also felt pretty bad that Haig was driving us because we were driving our friend Michelle's car which is a standard and Haig hasn't driven one in awhile. 

I decided that I wanted to go back up to the hotel. Luckily we found parking. When we walked up the steps of the hotel, I could tell through the huge windows that the spot I had been looking for was suddenly right in front of me. We raced around towards the back of the hotel and we found the spot I had been looking for. It was so perfect! We took some pictures and stood at the top in complete awe of what we were taking in. I loved every second of it. We walked around a little bit, and I was very excited when I found a path to walk down to the rocks. I don't think we exactly learned from our PEI camping experience because we were not prepared to hike down and back up the steep embankment, but we did it anyways. We had to. It was right there in front of us, and we will probably never be there again. Once we got down, I took my sandals off and walked in the cold glacier water. I felt peace and happiness as we walked hand in hand, appreciating this moment and our life together. 

Beazer the Beautiful

We stayed about 13km away from Cardston in a little place called Beazer. We stayed at Badger Valley Ranch. It was the sweetest little place and I am so glad we could stay there with our whole family. Haig and I had a nice common area in the back of the lodge with our own bathroom and a big walk in shower. We basically had no cell phone signal at the ranch so it was nice to be able to spend so much time together face to face, and with our family. The rest of the family slept in the main area of the lodge and Mom & Dad had their own bedroom near ours in the back and Katherine & Eric had their own bedroom near the front of the lodge. 

The Neilson's house was the next house on the street. They have such a sweet home, filled with light and a love of the gospel, literally. It was such a pleasure to meet them all. Although we didn't get to know each other as much as I am sure Rachel knows them, I am so happy she has found them and that she will be able to fall more and more in love with them. They are some pretty amazing people. It was so nice to be in Beazer and look at the gorgeous views of the mountains. It was so nice to be around family and new family. Although we live different lifestyles, I admire what the Neilson family does. We especially loved their hospitality during our visit, and our new brother in law certainly knows how to BBQ a good steak...

Travels with my Husband

We left for Moncton on Tuesday, July 21st after work. It was probably the longest drive of my life. We hit a lot of traffic on our way out of Charlottetown, and there was road work on the Confederation Bridge so we could only drive about 40km/hour. When we got to Moncton, we went to the mall to eat some dinner and Haig wanted to buy a couple new shirts. Then, we drove to Paul's apartment in Riverview and spent the night there.

We got up bright and early to catch our flight out of Moncton to Toronto. We got there at a decent time, and didn't have to wait too long to board our plane. Once we got on the plane, I was super tired. I didn't bother to listen to any music, and I really wasn't interested in watching TV so I started to doze off. I really didn't realize I wasn't feeling well and then suddenly it hit me. I don't exactly know what happened, but I did end up passing out and having a small fainting spell in my seat. When I woke up, I got sick all over myself. Flight attendants rushed to help my poor husband sitting beside me. I continued to get sick. They asked him all sorts of questions about it and he told me later that this bugged him a lot because all he wanted to do was help me. I came too shortly after that and I had some orange juice to drink. I remained unsteady for the rest of the flight and I did end up getting sick one more time. Before we landed in Toronto, we were told that we would need to wait two hours until we got on our next flight, so we would not arrive in Calgary until 2pm instead of 12pm. That sucked to hear, but we knew we woulc figure it out.

Once we landed in Toronto, they re-arranged our flights for us and upgraded us to PLUS seats, which was very nice of them. Thanks Westjet! We hung around the Toronto airport the whole time. We ate some bagels from Tim Hortons and I drank some Vitamin Water. I also had some chocolate, because chocolate fixes everything right? I also threw out the shirt I had been wearing, which was pretty sad because I really liked that shirt! I had no problems again and we got on our flight to Calgary!

I was still anxious on the flight but I kept myself very relaxed with ginger ale and HGTV. My husband fell asleep for most of the flight, which also helped because I didn't want him to have to worry about me so much. He deserved a break from the craziness that morning. I had no problems on the flight to Calgary until we were finally on the ground. We were walking off the airplane and into the long hallway that would take us into the airport and I felt all pent up anxiety coming at me. I knew I was going to be sick again, but I had to make it to a bathroom. Miraculously, there was one right around the corner from the hallway and I ran to it without saying a word to my husband. I texted him from the stall to tell him what happened. He waited for me and we went to get our bags.

Eric picked us up from our long, long morning of traveling. We made our way to the Persson's apartment to pick up Katherine, Emma and Cecelia and head down to Cardston. It is a shame we didn't get to see more of Calgary, but I am more grateful that we made it there to be with our family. After another scary event that evening, I knew no matter what happened during our trip, we were surrounded by people we love and we were there to spend time with them.  

Driving Range

Haig likes to golf. So one night, I accompanied him to the Driving Range. He started golfing a long time ago, but he also was able to golf a lot while he was in his last area on his mission in Minnesota, I can tell he missed it during the winter months. He was pretty happy when he met a couple new friends at work who also like to golf. One of his co-workers also gave him an old set of clubs, which was super nice of him because we won't be able to afford a set for a long time! It was nice to see him enjoying something! It was also nice to be outside and spend some time together before another week of work and craziness.

Strawberry-ing

Yesterday morning I went strawberry picking with my mom out at Woods Farm in Teahill. It was a nice little spot. It was hard to pick strawberries going up a hill, and I didn't really get the chance to talk to my mom as much as I had hoped to. But we got lots of strawberries and that's what we went for. Surprisingly, I didn't eat any as we picked them. We went early enough that by the time we were finishing up, it was starting to get busy and I just wanted to get out of there before it got too crazy. We went back to my parent's house and we cut the stems and strawberries and put them in ziplock bags with sugar. We like to use them in the winter for waffles, but I will probably have to open one up sooner because they are always so delicious!

Later in the day, after I picked Haig up from work and we ran a couple of errands, we went to Miltonvale Park for our Ward's strawberry social. We mostly just went for the strawberries because we were going on a date after to the driving range and we wanted to spend more time together than socializing with other people hahahha. Marriage always wins ;)

Camping Lunch & Cape Bear

The next best thing about our camping weekend was the food we brought. I was going to say sleeping in, but then I remember that we didn't really do that. I heard the ferry horn at 6:30am and I didn't end up falling asleep again. We also ended up sleeping on the ground because there was about four holes we didn't know about in the air mattress we had brought. I guess sleeping on the ground is what camping is all about though right? We started making our "breakfast" around 10pm, and it was so huge that it ended up being our lunch too. We took my parent's Coleman stove and made scrambled eggs, sausages and we toasted english muffins near the hot elements. We had also brought cherries earlier in the week that came with us, and they were the best camping snack ever! 

We took a walk around the campground after we ate and we freshened up a bit to go for a drive. We headed out towards Cape Bear where I thought there was a lighthouse we could see. We ended up down a red dirt road, in our "new" black car, but I am so happy with what we found. We were literally on the edge of Prince Edward Island. We stood at and around the top looking at the gorgeous red rocks and dirt. Then, we started scoping out a way we could get down the hill. I think we would have prepared ourselves a little more if we had have known we would be climbing down a read dirt hill. Haig was wearing flip flops, and I was wearing a white dress! I managed to get down the hill, and back up the hill later on with no marks on the dress, but lots on my red shoes.

We had so much fun down there though and I have never seen anything like this on PEI before so it was very exciting for me and just as exciting for my always adventurer husband. I am so glad I was with him and that he always keeps me safe, even when he wants to climb down a steep hill of mud and dirt!

   

Northumberland Provincial Campground

This past weekend, Haig and I went camping together for the first time! It was so much fun. I love having this handsome dude as my husband forever! We booked our campground a couple of weeks ago, after we found such a cute site on the campground's map. It was about 10:30pm and we were getting ready for bed, but Haig didn't want to lose the spot, so I HAD to go and get our credit card and book it. He is so funny. We were really excited about going camping and we prepared for it a lot. I enjoyed getting our meals and snacks organized and I think Haig was excited about camping with a girl, because let's be honest it's so much better than young mens' camp.

After work on Friday evening, we made one more stop at the store to grab a couple of things and then drove down to Wood Islands, close to the Northumberland Ferry. We had a little trouble finding the campground, but we were happy once we arrived. We were not happy however about all the bugs. There were so many mosquitoes around our campground. Luckily, we were prepared! We must have sprayed ourselves with bug spray about 18 times in one weekend! We set up our cute little campsite. It didn't take us too long because my husband is the king of camping. He seriously was amazing all weekend. He always knows how to impress me, especially with his ability to eat three roasted marshmallows at once.