Edmonton

Driving into Edmonton we would have been hopelessly lost if it weren't for the GPS we borrowed from Kent's boss!!  They are doing massive road construction and they had completely removed the exit to our hotel!  Anyway, we wound our way around and found the hotel.  It was pretty late at night so we just relaxed and got ready for the next big day - WEST EDMONTON MALL!!!!  Ok, so the exclamation points are really just for Tiana, but...  This mall was, for the longest time, the largest mall in the world!  It boasts 200 stores, an ice rink, waterpark with wave pool, aquarium, submarine rides, 2 mini-golf courses, bowling, amusement park with stomach-emptying rollercoasters, restaurants, Asian grocery store, and probably much more than I'm missing.  We spent a full 8 hours walking around the shops and looking at the attractions!  Amazingly, the only thing I bought was 1 postcard! Kent bought 3 nightshirts and Tiana managed to put a sizable dent in her birthday money.  I didn't actually take any pictures, but I figured she wouldn't mind if I shared part of her album!  Sunday we went to Meeting with a fine group of people and then made our way to another Historical Village.  This time it was the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village.  It depicts the life of the Ukrainian settlers in the early 1900's and since my own great-grandma came from the Ukraine, I found it fascinating!  And they have this truly settled out on the prairie giving a pretty accurate feel for what the day would have felt like.  They were tougher than I!  Beautiful day, though, and so quite fun to wander around.  They could do well to have a bit more labelling of places, but still fun to see.  On the way there (and back), but of course when my camera wasn't with me, we saw a large herd of bison standing on the side of the road in Elk Island National Park.  I've seen plenty in Wyoming, but fun to see them this far north, too!  Later that evening I met up with a woman that I have "known" for many years, but only online via stamping/scrapbooking sites.  What a sweet woman!  We had dessert at our hotel and chatted for a couple of hours!  So fun to finally meet her!
Awww!!  What a GLORIOUS! day!!!!  We went to this beautiful park and enjoyed Edmonton's Heritage Festival.  It was awesome!!  It was like the Bite of Seattle - only BIGGER!  They had over 60 booths serving over 80 nationalities worth of food!  And they had small shops or displays about each country as well.  So fun, such good food and lovely sunshine to give us all a bit of color!!  A bit of shopping, a light dinner and some relaxing before the long trip toward home!