calgary-palooza trip

well i'm here in cal-gary (that's the way i say it and sarah thinks it's funny). it was pouring rain when we got here last night. adriel and i ran up to the door together to get out of the rain. i told him to ring the door bell which he did and then proceeded to try to open the door himself. meanwhile karey bounded forth and opened it in with great vigour dragging a surprised and embarrassed adriel over the raised threshhold on his knees. he cried. karey made him cry.

this was my first time to 'the house that vicki bought'. it's very nice. it has two floors plus a basement which i've been getting my exercise on, running up and down them all day today. (that's because i'm banished to the basement of the snorers but the computer is upstairs and so is karey's shower which i opted to use out of the three showering opportunities available in this 'house that vicki bought'.) but i'm getting ahead of myself. karey and vicki ordered pizza for us, karey gave us a tour of the fabulous house that vicki bought and then we all visited downstairs in the lair of the people who snore.

adriel was a bundle of hyperness, so i started sending him on trips. it's the trick i came up with when the twins were little and all over me when i was trying to visit with people. i'd send them on missions, like run up the stairs, stand on one foot, jump three times and come back. so adriel went on a million of these missions and kept asking for more. he gave us quite a scare when he jumped from the top stair of the landing, folding his whole body in half on landing and i think slamming his jaw.

after a while sarah and kyle left and we had italian sodas. "do you want an italian soda?" asked karey. "is it like pop?" i asked. "it's club soda with whatever flavour you want." explained karey. "oh, no thanks" i said, and i was about to say water would be fine, when her face fell and she said sadly "but they're soo good." so we had italian sodas and they were very good. i had watermelon, karey had peach and vicki, the unifier had watermelon-peach.

then we retired upstairs and looked at karey's amazingorcapicturesofwonder and had a play by play. we're going together next year and so is vicki and sarah and kyle. while we were waiting for karey's computer to be have, karey gave me my birthday present. i got lots of cool things. here's a list for your perusing pleasure:

• a soft material 'fashion' cooler with green and yellow flowers on it (this is for our next year's trip. it's all for our next year's trip which is totally awesome)
• a reeces peanut butter cup (ok that's for now. in fact, i just ate it)
• lots of rolls of camping tp
• a dry sack
• a set of water proof pouches
• jelly bellys (oh ya!)
• after bite gel (hello! come to mamma!)
• the cutest sheep water bottle that i love
• a g/c for mountain equipment co-op! yahooo!

so that was fun. then karey and i went downstairs and she gave me the all important instructions for the tv. karey likes to put the fear of god into people in regards to turning the pvr off instead of just the tv. we talked for a bit and then karey went to bed. i watched tv for a bit--reba. reba didn't sleep with this guy because she felt you should be in love first. it's not often you see that kind of decision making on tv shows anymore. she didn't say anything about marriage though.

so let's talk about the trip here.

i was scrubbing carrots at work, minding my own business, looked up and there was sarah, kyle, adriel and sloan. after showing lisa the baby, and showing adriel the walk in cooler, and giving adriel a package of premium plus crackers, which he held and savoured a while, we left.

i started out in the back with the car seats. basically i'm wider than i should be to ride in that position, folks. at first when the seat belt was continually choking me it was quite bad, but after i got that figured out it wasn't as bad. sarah and i traded off and on throughout the trip. sloan wanted it that way.

highlights of the trip:

sarah wailing from the back "my wrist just went bum!"

sarah looking for the dvd jack, mudsy-like, clutched at my bum and found it! (not my bum, but the jack)

kyle smugly ate at taco del mar while sarah and i ate quiznos. this is when with one swipe of the wind sarah's napkin was abducted. we looked over our shoulders to see it cartwheeling down the road and out of sight in a matter of seconds.

our trip's theme song which we harmonized: teat-deetle-deet-deet-cheek-cheek!

we slept over at andrea's. dean calls their place the clarke hotel. well that's what happens with clarkes, once you open the door to them, you get over-run by them and you like it. kyle fell asleep in the chair and went up to bed and sarah, andrea and sloan and i talked for a while. we went outside to watch the meteor shower, over sarah's complaints who said it was too cold. it's totally dark at andreas and when we reached a place that wasn't overrun by trees, we saw many a shooting star. when we went in sarah nursed sloan, and went to bed. andrea and i talked until late and then she went to bed. i slept on the couch.

next day we left at quarter to 9 after andrea burned me a cd of this group that dean was writing an article for the paper about the night before. and after listening to caleb's wonderful piano pieces.

we got mcgriddles of course. they tried to give me one mcgriddle and one sausage and egg mcmuffin. what am i supposed to do with a sausage and egg mcmuffin??? i ask you!

many cars tried to stunt our growth. especially campers.

i learned about ron sexsmith. i had a song of his on one of my cds and didn't know it. gold in them hills. on a cd biffy made for me. we discussed that you have to close your throat to sing along to ron and kyle said that ron was a sex smith--a dying breed.

we saw a grizzly!

we did a wiggly!

we stopped at lake louise and kyle tricked us. he tricked us into hiking straight up the mountain to this view point. it was 1.6km and he said it would only 4 minutes. like fools we believed him. it was soooo steep and everyone we passed kept saying that no we were not close, and yes it was just as steep up ahead. but it was a beautiful view. back down on level ground we saw it way up the side of the mountain and gave accusing looks to kyle. i taught adriel to look for mushrooms on the way up and he kept finding tons. i'm turning him into a naturalist and no one can stop me.

coming through banff we were poor schmucks.

well that's all i can write now. stay tooned as my bff karey van wieren is wont to say.

ps. road kill count: 2
pps: sarah's chapstick count: 6