A Wedding and a Wasp

My baby sister got married this last weekend, kudos to her. She made everyone origami butterflys as place settings - I had a hard time just folding the napkin! She is now married to Wilbert (Wil-bear for proper french pronounciation). A beautiful Mrs. Adolphe.

The day started out a little hectic - including my brothers and I ripping apart their apartment (and I mean ripped it apart - emptied boxes - the whole nine yards) to find her necklace for the wedding. We didn't find it. I officially apologize for the mess they would have had to come home to. (Sorry!)

The wedding went off without a hitch, it was very beautiful in a tiny white church, situated within a little museum here in Stony Plain AB. 

After the wedding Jay and I slipped over to the reception hall to make sure everything was running smoothly, the cake arrived and other than a few finishing touches we were done. I casually brushed my hair back as I made sure the cake looked just perfect and than a sudden sharp stinging, stabbing pain hit my left thumb! I looked down in horror (as I screamed) to see a wasp with his little REAR jammed into my skin - I ripped him out and threw him to the floor. Jayson came running (cause he though I had been stabbed - not sure why he thought that) and stomped on the wasp. My hero.

One thing I can say I miss about Alberta is the sun sets - they are always much more dramatic here (I do NOT miss having static hair and dry skin all the time. Nope.) 

More than anything i miss my family, had a blast seeing some of my cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents. Grandma even managed to find a photo from 1994 of all us cousins. Lets just say I am thoroughly thankful this photo was not found before my wedding (and no that photo shall not make an appearance on the blog)...my Calgary and Lethbridge cousins...the Festers.

Jay and I tucked away in the corner DJ'ing the dance - well Jay was DJ'ing, I was eating the chocolate favours...

The only two siblings married in the Kasper Klan: 2 down, 3 to go!

Now off to a week of relaxing before we hit Europe!!!!

Car is sold

CAR IS SOLD

As of this morning, we sold the car to Lissa's uncle who was up for a wedding and had to take it with him to be back in Saskatoon tonight.
On Thursday we put the car up on Kijiji selling for $2700.  This morning (sunday) the buyer drove off with keys and the deal was done.  It turned out that I didn't even sell the car through kijiji.  We attended a wedding this weekend and Lissa's uncle found out last night we were selling, so he took it for a drive last night and this morning took some more time with the car, and the deal was done.  I was quite excited to get this sold before leaving the country, but watching the car drive out the driveway was harder then I realized it would be.  We've done a many road trips with this car and it did well for us on this last trip to Seattle, Vancouver and then Edmonton.  Oh well, her Uncle and family were quite excited and now Lissa and I can travel without having to worry about where to park the car for the winter.

In Edmonton with Lissa's Fah-mily

Lissa and I are spending time with her parents until September 4th.  We finally booked our flights to the UK from Calgary.  The tickets cost us $665.  Check out www.canadianaffair.ca if your flying to the UK.

Each and everyday we are here I'm hoping it to last as long as possible because of how relaxing it is.  It was good meeting our new soon to be brother in-law Wilbert.  Smith, the dog has major gas all the time and I'm getting ready to list the car on Kijiji to sell.  Trying to make the car as clean as possible.  That was the big job of the day, other then that, lot's of sitting, chatting, drinking coffee, watching movies and going for walks.  We also went shopping at the West Edmonton Mall.  Agreed on a budget before hand, low taxes in Alberta provided more head room for purchases.  Will post more.  We love the time here, but very much already miss our family in Ontario.  We also miss our friends big time!  Our jobs are next to miss, but not yet:)

Love you all, and keep praying for us and if you guys need prayers, let us know... we have lot's of time!

Late Blog Entry

So sorry about the late blog entry.  We really want to keep it up.  It's been a very eventful last week and unfortunately it's been a week since we made any updates.  Now that the blogger business is back in action, you can keep checking us out and be confident we'll have new updates!

Right now we are in Edmonton, just arrived yesterday.  Our last part of the road trip was from 8:30 in the morning until 9:30pm.  Up until then I was totally enjoying driving.  Driving into Edmonton from Jasper is the boring part and after driving approximately 50 hours in the last two weeks and having to go to the washroom badly it made me excited to be done the road trip.  Our stay in Edmonton with Lissa's family is for two weeks and is we're going to have an incredible and relaxing experience with her Mom and Dad and siblings.

Spokane
So backing up... our last stop before Seattle was Spokane.  On the way there, we got 800km to the tank, which I got a picture to prove!!

Lissa wanted to get a picture of the Madelines Cafe that we stopped at for Breakfast.  We had enough of these rustic diner restaurants that have limited food for a vegetarian and this restaurant had just enough artsy culture and fancy food to offset the sketchy dives in the MIDWEST.

In the morning we went out to our car to find the truck beside us had the window smashed in and a large bag was stolen, nothing was done to our car and we had the ipod sitting in the middle console.  A mental note was made to put away anything of value.  Especially in the US of A.  err and Vancouver... lot's of interesting folk live there.

SEATTLE!!!

Finally on August 15th evening we arrived to Seattle to stay with Lissa's cousin Maria and Jayson.  They live in a beautiful neighborhood up on a hill that overlooks the bay.  They are spoiled rotten with the view!!

Nothing like a Savory Italian dinner to spent some incredible quality time with Maria and Jayson.

This is the original Starbucks.  Went in, took a picture and quickly bolted and went to the next Starbucks which had less then half the amount of people in the store.  We enjoyed the gospel quartet group that was busking outside.

Original Starbucks in Seattle

The world famous Pike Place market in Seattle.  I didn't know it was world famous until I got there...

Fish for sale at the Pike Place Fish Company

El Malecon Mexican Food 

One of the days we spent in Seattle, Maria and her husband were at work and we slept in had french toast and coffee and watched movies in bed.  This was a good memory.  

Museum of Glass 

On Friday August 19th we picked up Lissa's sister in Vancouver.  This city is incredibly beautiful, but has a lot of different kind of people:)  Lot's of drugs, and crime.  We decided to stop for Dinner at the boat house over looking the beach.  Then we stopped at the Terminal Long and McQuade store and I thought we put up all the windows, once we got back to the car we noticed the back window was completely open and the camera bag was sitting right there, everything else was in the car, even my cell phone and wallet.  We took a moment to thank God that we didn't get cleaned out for such a stupid mistake.  

These pictures are taken on the yellowhead road in the Jasper National Park.

Bugs, Bison and an Adventure Wuss

Yes, Bugs. 

Driving a car you would think the windshield would take the brunt of 'bug blows'...I wish. Along with a hitch-hiking grasshopper (see photo) - and he decided he needed to come into the car...we have also had a bumblebee smack the windshield - bounce off the rearview mirror - fly into my open window only to splatter his innards all over me (yes I felt the spray) and land on my lap twitching. It was almost a hysterical moment, all this going 75 miles/hr - and Jayson was still able to retrieve the twitching bee from my lap. My hero. (I did have a moment, just a moment, of sympathy for this little bee).

He was having a hay day - antennas blowing in the wind...A close up, hanging on for dear life I am sure.

Lets not forget the 'honor' i had of a bug (still do not know what kind) fall through the sun roof and down my shirt. Again at 75-miles/hr. Impeccable timing. 

Oh and than the hitch hiking lady bugs were also cute - crawling up my leg - across my lap top screen. How they get on board. No idea.

On the previous post you had a summary of our camping experience, took a moment for me to get over the fear of  a bear creeping through the woods right behind our tent, tearing out tent to shreds all because he liked the smell of my lotion (Erin Steinman you were in my thoughts the entire camping extravaganza). 

Tent building - had bruised hips from how hard the ground was.

Didn't realize how burnt they were until we saw the photos after. Oops!

 Boat picture for Jayson:

It really was pretty:

In the end the bison turned into the traumatizing experience of the day. It is all cute and fun to have a whole line of cars stopped to take pictures of bison (gooing and gahing)...UNTIL the whole heard starts running towards the road, snorting - where you are PARKED! These things are 2000 pounds people. They could probably just ram through the car if they decided we were in the way. The awesome part of this all - we couldn't get away because everyone was stopped (remember the whole line of gooing and gahing people).  I almost wet myself. Oh the trauma. We survived though, see photos and video below. I didn't get a video of them Galloping valiantly towards the vehicle - battery had died at this point. In which Jayson made the comment that I should make sure I video every moment I feel terrified - cause they make good videos. Awesome. I will walk around with a camera finding ways to terrorize myself to entertain people.

One of the bison - only 3 feet from car. Shiver.

And the video link - this shows the bison herd - now imagine those big ol aggressive guys - galloping towards your vehicle and running just in between the cars = not fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZKjjjBFFec

So far the road trip has had its adventures, nearly caught in a tornado, stranded in a town of 284 people (all very nice mind you), small detour through a desolate badlands/grasslands called Wyoming, bug and bison encounters...all this to realize I was needing this trip. I was obviously becoming a little bit of an adventure wuss having not travelled or done anything more risky than drive to Toronto (mind you that has its moments).

Tomorrow is Seattle - I LOVE the Rockies - they are lush and pretty and we will probably see some wildlife...as long as they are all a safe distance away.

Just camped in Yellowstone National Park

Lissa and I finally had our first camping experience together.  All we had was a tent and two sleeping bags.  We didn't have much room for packing camping gear in our car so we weren't that prepared.  It was a little too cold for two sleeping bags, the ground was lumpy except for one spot that was hard ground, we tried using Lissa's yoga matt and some of our towels we had to make it a little more comfortable...  The result was a cold uncomfortable night.  Oh well, the scenery was nice.  I guess I haven't converted Lissa into a wilderness camping guru yet.

Mount Rushmore

After leaving our stop at Kennebec we were headed to Rapid City (close to Mt Rushmore).  Our plan was simply to drive straight to Rapid City and check out Mt. Rushmore before finding either a campsite or hotel to stay in.  

On the way we came across the South Dakota Badlands.  It was incredible, and we took the scenic loop right through the South Dakota Badlands National Park.  Here are some photos:

Every 5 miles the billboards were advertising 5 cent coffee at the Wall Drug Store in a town called Wall.  Never heard of it, but the closer we got their were signs advertising homemade donuts, pies, and icecream.  We had to check it out.  Turns out it's quite the destination for bikers and the place is jam packed and doing very well.  It's basically a glorified St. Jacobs Farmers Market in a very small town.  We caved and bought coffee, lunch, homemade donuts and icecream!  There really is coffee for 5 cents!!  I had to break up a quarter to buy a coffee!!  It was gross, but I still fully enjoyed drinking 5 cent coffee...  This is something Lissa could not understand.  

There is a bike rally.  I think it's for the whole of South Dakota!  Everywhere we went there were bikers and 90% are driving Harley Davidsons.  It made me want to judge people for not driving a harley.  Their is a culture of Harleys, which will not accept anything less then a Harley.  In fact, our motel we stayed in at Kennebec was filled with people driving Harley's.  We were the only guests with a car.  By the time Lissa and I got deep into Wyoming, we were sick of listening to the noise of the bikes.  

We felt like the odd ones out, because we were driving a car...

Finally our destination, Mt. Rushmore...

Instead of going back into Rapid City, we decided to go further west, so there is a shorter drive to Yellowstone the next day.  We kept going west, but we took the wrong turn and went the back roads.  This was a weird feeling.  Almost nobody in sight and very little grass, trees or water.  I was a little worried, because if our car broke down, there might not even be any reception for our phones at all and how would we get help.