It's been awhile!

But there's a mighty fine reason for that!  We've been on vacation!  Woohoo!!  We flew up to Calgary one fine a rainy morning to be greeted by grey skies there, too.  As is the frequent case in the prairie, though, give it milliseconds and it changes!  We had bits of sun and even a soaker or two throughout the day.  The first day we just kind of drove around and were lost.  Enjoyed some frosty A&W rootbeer in a frosty mug, had some poutine (OF COURSE!), and in general just chilled a bit. We also enjoyed a delicious dinner at Gnocchi Ristorante!!  The next day we decided it would be a fine day to take a 2 hour drive out to Banff.  I could have spent the WHOLE vacation there!  I didn't bring proper gear, but the hiking would be so incredibly awesome!  We took a stomach-unsettling gondola ride, enjoyed fresh mountain air and managed to feed the Canadian economy a light snack. Thursday, well, that was icky.  Most of the day was searching for a- or in the- doctor's office trying to find out if Tiana had an infection.  It's a long holiday weekend for Albertans so we wanted to make sure before everyone took the weekend off!  We only saw one place that day and that was Lougheed's Mansion.  We did go to a really lousy mall, but it was right next to Chinatown, so we went through the cultural center and then had a bit of dim sum to fill our bellies.  That after taking a gander through a really pretty park.  Felt good to walk in fresh air!  Friday - now that was a good day!  We spent the bulk of the day walking through the Heritage Park Historical Village.  This is a place that I remember visiting when I was 4 years old.  Amazing that some of it even came back to me when we were there!  The only thing we forgot to do was go back and get ice cream at the parlor I remembered the best!  Straight from there (after a Starbucks stop of course!) we drove the 3 hours or so north to Edmonton.  I'll save that part of the trip for another post.  If you wish to see the pictures from each day, click on the the words associated with them!