Calgary Stampede & Hummingbirds

My apologies it's been awhile. We've been busy entertaining my cousin and her man from Ontario. His first time out West and she hasn't been in a long time. It was their first Calgary Stampede as well.
What is the Calgary Stampede? It's a 10 day exhibition with fair grounds, a huge parade, rodeo, shows etc. It's a huge party time.

On Friday we went to the parade, it's the longest and largest parade in Canada and takes about three hours to watch! Here is Round-up Band (I was in this marching band once), they are junior high school students (I didn't take too many other pics of the parade, sorry, my bad):

On Saturday we had a Stampede breakfast to attend at my parents place(traditional pancakes, bacon and such), about 50 people came and it's my job to server up the pancakes.
Then we went down to the Fair Grounds, where it proceeded to pour rain! :(
But it was still a good time. Here is a pic from the skyride over the grounds:

Sunday we went to Banff and Lake Louise, showed them all the major sights. Here are a few pics (it was cloudy this day too).
The Banff Springs Hotel:

Downtown Banff (that is Cascade Mountain in the background):

And Lake Louise, it was a terrible day for photos, it's sooo much prettier than this but this is what we got on the weekend for a photo:

And then back to work. My Grandma is also here visiting so we saw her last night and just haven't been home in days it seems! But it's tapering off. I am at the Stampede with some girlfriends one more time tomorrow night and then I need some sleep. lol.

I have not stitched much at all. But did get a few stitches into Hummingbirds the other day. Here they are so far (have I mentioned that I find backstitching a huge PITA, I frogged three times on one section, but it looks nice so I will suck it up):

Not too much else to report. Just really tired from all our activities and such.
I got the cutest Turtle pillow ever the other day and will post a pic of it soon.
Also watch out, as I will be holding another giveaway when I hit 140 followers (just need 1 more!) :)

Hope you are all doing well and love hearing from you and reading your blogs.

New HAED Start & Canada Day

I have lots of fun photos to share with you all today. Hope you enjoy.

First up, a few more pictures from our mine ruin walk two weekends ago as promised.
Here is me (I actually like this picture of me which is so unusual):

And better ones of the ruins:

It was Canada Day on July 1st. And the B/F and I both got the Thursday and Friday last week off. It was sooo nice. We went climbing in the Rockies, it was cloudy so no pretty blue sky this time around; here's the B/F on a rock face (yes we have all the training and safety gear):

Then it was a Canadian Football League game in the evening, where our team the Calgary Stampeders won! Here are the fireworks from after the game:

And finally I started a the HAED SK SAL that started on July 1st. This is going to be Rose. She is a dream to stitch. I am loving her so much I find it hard to put her down. This is my progress so far:

And what she will look like when done:

(I like her sooo much more than Elfland, but I will try to finish Elfland too!)

We have a busy weekend coming up with lots of family coming into town including my cousin from Ontario, my Grandma and my siblings. All for the Calgary Stampede (it's a big outdoor western festival that runs for 10 days). It will be exhausting but hopefully fun! So pics of that to come next week. And any stitching I manage to sneak in there too.
Thanks for reading and for all your comments, past & present!

Hummingbird Stitching & the Ghost Town

 have been trying to find time to update this blog for days. My apologies to everyone.

First up some stitching goodness. Here is the beginning of hummingbirds. It will be four hummingbirds in slightly different positions and it will be finished as a bellpull. Here is the start:

And we did go to the ghost town. It was a beautiful day. This ghost town is near Lake Minnewanka just outside of Banff. It was an old mining town from about 1908 to 1930ish. They were getting coal from the mountains to use for the railroad at the time. Many of the buildings/homes have been moved as heritage sites (years back) to Banff or Jasper. But foundations and a few buildings still stand.
Here are some pics (the B/F has more great ones but hasn't downloaded them yet, so I may share more in a few days).
The scenery:

The ruins:

Some mountain goats on the road on the way out:

We have lots more great photos of the ruins but they have to get downloaded. So I will try and share them soon. (also my new meds are awesome as they are allowing me to get back into the mountains I missed it sooo much!)

We have a big day ahead of us, it's Canada Day!!! (like July 4th in the USA but for Canada). So most people are off today and took tomorrow off cause really what's the point in working. it's gorgeous here about 21C (70ish F) and we are headed back to the mountains to do some rock climbing!
I will post some pics later.
(and the new HAED BB SAL started today so another new start for me, I know terrible, I will have pics as soon as I get some stitching done)

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my blog. I appreciate every one of them!
And to my fellow Canadian, Happy Canada Day! :)