Day 182 (July 1, 2010): Happy Canada Day!!

Today Mel and I went to Sherwood Park for Canada Day and attempted to eat at a free pancake breakfast but the line up was approximately 700m long so we decided to go out for breakfast instead. We went tothe  Road King truckstop for an awesome buffet breakfast. It was really good and I ate a lot. We then came into Old Strathcona (the community we live in) and walked over to where the annual Silly Summer Parade was passing by. There were a lot of cool floats and participants.  Mel will write about the pictures since she took them:

Look at all the people on the sidewalks and boulevards.

We had a great view of the parade because we were on the corner.  We could see this view to our left and the previous picture was straight in front of us.  We got to see the floats coming, then turn the corner right in front of us and the go down the other street.

The guy in the passenger seat is wearing a beaver costume, lol.

Horsies!!

Strathcona Seniors Association

Same organization as the last one.

Cute doggies.  They all had little booties on.  This one is hard to see them in because his booties are the same colour as his fur.

I liked the tree in the back of the truck with the paper maple leafs.

It says, "Maple Syrup, Hippity Hop, Drink it down and Bubble alot".  I not exactly sure what that means.

Brazillian culture

Brazillian dancers.  They were awesome. They can really move their hips.  It gave me inspiration for my Zumba fitness class, lol.

I can't remember what this organization was but I liked the guy with the snow shovel.  The band was good too.

These guys were raising awareness about donating blood.  They had some great cheers that they were chanting.

I loved the big "Mr. Mugs" dogs.  Did any of our followers ever read those stories in school when they were really young?  Our "readers" in grade 1 were about Mr. Mugs.

Punjabi Cultural Association of Alberta.  The children were dancing.  They were cute but it looked like they had a hard time standing up on the float. I was a bit concerned that some of them might fall off.

Edmonton River Valley Segway tours. They looked really fun to ride.

This was a cheerleading troup.  I can't remember the name of the organization but they were really good.  When they got further down the street they threw one girl so high that her legs hit the trees.

He was just tossing her back and forth like she was a feather.

This was a float about some kind of halloween festival.  See the fake arm sticking out of the back door?  This car had wicked hydraulics.  Moments after it left I realized that I should have taken a video of it.  Darn!

This dog was so cute.  It just sat there all patient watching the parade.  It was not bothered at all by the people or noise.  Lots of little kids came to pet it and it was really patient and gentle.  The only time it moved was when it saw other animals and then it got up and walked towards them to visit but it didn't bark or anything.  So cute!!

Day 181 (June 30, 2010): Virtual Museum

Today Mel and I went through a virtual museum on the computer. I didn't even know that they existed but a couple of weeks ago when we were researching activities for our blog we discovered one.  It looked cool so we added it to our list of things to try out.  http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/index-eng.jsp  We scimmed through all of the categories and then got totally immersed in the history of lacrosse portion. It was really cool and we learned a lot. I learned that Canadian Aboriginal people might not have invented the sport but it was most popular in North and South America but was played all over the world in similar forms. Mel found it very interesting that it was a game that was passed on through so many generations and that the aboriginals in Canada were actually banned from playing professional lacrosse by the government of the sport. There are many other topics to research on these museums. Though not as cool as real museums they are handy for people that cannot make it to museums.

Day 180 (June 29, 2010): Storm Watching

Today Mel and I watched a huge storm that came in. Actually two storms came in.  One came from the west and one came up from the south.  There was about a half hour break between them.  We were expecting a hail storm so we went to cover the garden with blankets but it ended up that we didn't need to because we did not get any hail. It was a really good storm. Just west of the city got a tornado but we were didn't. We had something else planned for tonight but then Mel remembered that our friend Audrey suggested that we watch a storm sometime and since we were going to be outside covering the plants we decided to switch our plans at the last minute.  The pictures explain the rest.

This is how the sky looked from the car when we were on our way to our storage unit to get some old blankets to cover the garden.

This one is cool.  It is nice and sunny one one side and you can see the storm coming in on the other side.

We are now on our way back in to the city from our storage unit.  We are driving into the storm.  Notice that where we are now the grass isn't even blowing.  It is not windy at all.

I took these while we were at the garden putting out the blankets.  It is really dark!

This is the sun through the trees after the first storm.

I took this picture through our bedroom window.  Unfortunately you can see the screen but it is still a nice picture.  This is during the second storm.

Day 179 (June 28, 2010): Canada Celebrates Hockey and the Military

I was extremely excited for today's event.  We got tickets to go see the Canada Celebrates Hockey and the Military event at the Colliseum in Edmonton.  The event consisted of the Canadian Men's and Women's Olympic Hockey Gold Medal teams and the Canadian under 18 Girls World Champions.  It also was a tribute to the Canadian Military and the difference that they are making acround the world and especially in Afghanistan. I was really looking forward to seeing some of my hockey heros, which includes the Men's Gold Medal Executive Director, Steve Yzerman.  He is my favourite hockey player of all time.  I grew up watching him because a relative of mine played with him and then coached him with the Detroit Red Wings.   I have met him before in passing but I was still looking forward to seeing him again.  Anyway, the event was at kind of a weird time.  It was at 5:30 so I had to leave work early (I changed my schedule that day from my usual 9-5 to 8am-4pm).  That was the first thing that I thought was weird about the event.  The next thing was that hardly anyone was there.  It was put on by hockey Canada and eventhough they obviously had to contact the players awhile ago to get them all to Edmonton for today, the event itself only started getting promoted in the last few weeks.  I only heard about it 2 weeks ago.  The was only a few thousand people, which in the Colliseum looks like about 100 people because it is so big.  I felt sort of embarrassed for the players and the military that more people did not show up to honor them.  But with the timing and poor promotion it is no wonder.  People from out of town can't come to an event on a Monday at 5:30pm.  My next disappointment from the event was the fact that they didn't introduce all of the players individually.  They introduced some of the key players, the captains, the game winning goal scorers for each team etc. but for the rest of them they just said "here are your Olympic Gold medal forwards" and then the forwards would walk out, they did the same for the defence.  I thought that was kind of a poor way to introduce them.  They all did such a great job that they deserve to hear their individual names cheered for.  Anyway, here are some pics from the event.

This is the stage they had some local bands play before and after the presentations.

They let everyone go stand along the "aisle" where the players walked in.  We decided not to because the line up was about 10 people deep on each side and we wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.  At least in our seats we could see it on the big screen.

Hockey Canada Sign. Notice all of the empty bleachers?!?!

The white tunnel is where the players walked out on to the field from.

Part of the marching band.  They did a great job.

These are the cadets bringing out the huge Canadian flag.

Our Men's Team Captain, Scott Niedermayer, he rode in on that tank.  Our Women's Team Captain, Hayley Wickenheiser, also rode in on a tank but she was on the other side of the field.

There he is still on the tank.

The only mounted military troup left in Canada is from Edmonton.  They try to preserve the tradition of the mounted military.  I loved the horses.  They were so well behaved!

After the interviews and presentations to the players people got to tour the military vehicles that were around the stadium.

My hero, Steve Yzerman, on the big screen.

You can sort of see how they had the players sitting on the stage.  They had all three teams on there and they called up a few notable players/coaching staff for interviews.

They also interviewed some of the high ranking military personnel about the effect that the gold medals had on morale for our troups in Afghanistan.

Day 178 (June 27, 2010): Edmonton Turkish Festival

Today we went to the Edmonton Turkish Festival. It ran all weekend long but today was the first time that we had time to check it out. We watched a couple of dance performances and a musical performance where a guy played a drum and 3 other people played, what looked like, wooden spoons. They had food and jewelry vendors. I almost bought a really cool necklace with a glass pendant but I couldn’t decide on a colour or design so I didn’t get one. I liked all of them! Anyway, here are some pictures and a couple of videos.

This is the guy with the drums and the others with the "wooden spoons" that I mentioned earlier.

They said that this style of dance is from a certain type of Turkish people that are likened to gypsies.

This is the first time I have uploaded a video....hopefully they work: