A quick trip west

Since we are living in the prairies for the time being, we've decided to take advantage of the opportunity to explore parts of Western Canada that we've never been to. Until Sunday, our current hometown was the furthest west I'd ever been. When we got Peter's newest work schedule it showed that he would have 3 days off in a row. Since Calgary is a 7 hour drive away and it's somewhere we both had at the top of our list of places to check out, we headed there early Sunday morning for a whirlwind trip.

We arrived around supper time Sunday night, checked into our hotel, and promptly headed to Olive Garden for supper. Yum!! It is definitely one of my favourite restaurants. I'm incredibly boring and always get the Chicken Scampi, but it's just so good. We headed back to the hotel and Peter and Nathan went for a swim before bed.

As you can see, Nathan had a great time. This picture was taken around 9 pm - he's usually in bed by 7! We all conked out around 10.

Monday morning we were up bright and early as we had many things to accomplish during our only full day in the city. First up was the Calgary Zoo. We arrived around 10 and it was still pretty chilly. I hadn't thought to pack hats and mittens, so we improvised until it warmed up. Here are some of my favourites from the zoo. Poor Nathan walked pretty much the whole time and was dead on his feet by the time we left around 1.

For the first half hour at the zoo, every 30 seconds Nathan would ask, "Can we see the giraffes?" After covering several exhibits and seeing no sign of giraffes we asked a zoo volunteer and thankfully found our way to the giraffes. (Despite the big bright spot in this picture I still love it.)


When Nathan was obviously too tired to walk anymore we headed for lunch. We had found out that there is a Pizza Delight restaurant in Calgary. I thought I had said good-bye to their pizza, garlic fingers, and caesar salad when we left the maritimes, but I was able to get a taste of home at their out-of-the-way franchise in a subdivision of Calgary. Yum!!

Then it was off to CrossIron Mills Mall - a very new mall (I think) just north of Calgary. It was not yet on the GPS maps we borrowed from a friend, so we had to find it the old-fashioned way with a paper map.

We walked in to the first store, Bass Pro Shops, and it was an experience. This is a picture of the sign just inside the door:
We browsed the shops of the mall until it closed at 9. Hannah enjoyed the car ride we treated she and Nathan to (Nathan was not very happy once the car started moving).

After a very long day (Hannah lost 3 soothers in the mall and Nathan lost one of the new cars we bought him. Hero daddy dashed into Toys 'R Us and bought him a replacement 5 minutes before they closed) we headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

Here is one last picture of Hannah and Nathan playing in bed this morning before we got going for the day.

After a final swim in the pool for Nathan and Peter, we got on the road. We arrived back home around supper time tonight. I'm sure we'll all sleep well tonight!