Another great weekend...

Hello Again from Calgary!

This is the first post by Craig, so I apologize in advance for errors, and offending anyone.

We had our first appointment with Hannah's new Cardiologist at the Alberta Children's Hospital. ACH is so kid friendly, and through the magic of Canadian Socialized Medicine it was wallet friendly also. I was half annoyed that I needed to pay $9 for parking on the way out until I remembered that was the only thing we needed to pay for.

We started out the weekend making breakfast and teaching Hannah some new words. Unfortunately by the end of the video you will see she had other things on her mind.

We had a mellow afternoon on Saturday, and went downtown. I took Sharon and Hannah to the Calgary Tower. Being a major city in Canada for some reason = having a large tourist tower. So we went up the 525 feet to the top and took in the view. When you first exit the elevator the floor in front of you is glass, so you can watch all of the acrophobic tourists freak out.

After coming back to earth we took a moment to get a picture with Canada's favorite animal, the Beaver.

This morning Hannah greeted us by showing us her new skill. She has learned to get into a sitting position from her back. It has been a big month for her. She has started crawling (backwards), talking more, she outgrew her infant car seat and is eating real food. As you can see she was pretty proud of herself this morning.

This morning I had the pleasure of installing Hannah's new car seat. For those of you who have not had the pleasure yet.....enjoy. After getting her new %!@#*& car seat installed we set out for Drumheller, Alberta "The Heart of the Canadian Badlands". I am amazed at the variety of terrain here in Alberta. In a three hour span you could be at 13,000 feet in the Continental Divide, then in a prairie that is absolutely flat to the horizon, and then in the badlands which are essentially washed out areas left over from the end of the last ice age. The first stop we made was Horseshoe Canyon.

After spending some time at the canyon we headed south into the badlands and along Hoodoo Trail. All along the route the hills around show all of the layers of earth. The black stripes in the picture are coal veins.

We arrived at a roadside turnout and got to spend some time walking around the Hoodoos. A hoodoo is a 15 or 20 foot high pillar, that is created by wind and water erosion. There is a capstone on top that acts as an umbrella and protects the sandstone below. They eventually topple as the sandstone is continually eroded.

We headed back towards Drumheller and stopped at a suspension bridge that crosses the Red Deer River to the Star Coal Mine. It is an abandoned mine site that looks like a ghost town. Several structures still stand, we will have pics of that later. The mine site is not exactly stroller friendly, so we did not get too close. We did cross the river on the open grate bridge that moves much more than I thought it would.

We then got back to Drumheller, there is a world class dinosaur museum that we did not have time to see. However the real attraction in Drumheller is the "Worlds Largest Dinosaur" which is 86 feet tall and contains an observation deck. Hannah was enjoying the view.

Well that was our weekend, I am heading to bed now, but I need to share what we are watching. The Canadian Pond Hockey Championships on TSN (ESPN) up next SportsCentre, yes I spelled it correctly. Good Night Eh!