What Keeps Me Going Back

I left Edmonton 13 years ago... It's crazy to think that it has been 13 YEARS!  We have returned and visited every summer.  Due to some family issues that my extended family is now having to face, I've done a lot of reflecting during this trip.  It is very possible that this will be the last year that our family will be visiting for as long as we have been.  One thing I am certain of, many changes are in store for the Tong family in this next year.  Even though Edmonton has changed (I have changed)and I no longer "fit" here, I still consider this city to be my home.  So what is it that makes me yearn to go back every year?

My mom

 Valuable friends

    My amazing sister, Sarah, who is a huge, huge blessing in my life

My kids... It is just so important to me that Grace and Jeremy experience, learn, and see a huge part of what makes me, "me."

As with every year, saying goodbye for me is very sad and emotional... It has been 13 years and saying goodbye is still as hard as ever...

Last Weekend in Edmonton

Every day we spent here seemed to go by slowly, but then the time comes to say goodbye and I must admit that the time went by rather quickly!  Here's a quick overview of how we spent our last weekend in Edmonton!

Sam and Grace
Grace has been wanting to spend some "girl time" with her "cousin" Sam so since it was our last weekend, we let her hang out with the "big girls" on Friday.  She was so excited to get her nails done and felt very grown up.  Sam is on the right, and Big Grace is on the left (another cousin).

International Street Performers Festival
We headed downtown for this fun festival in Winston Churchill Square.  It was the perfect day to watch street performers!

Wayne Gretzy Statue

 How is it possible that as a native Edmontonian, I have never visited the Gretzky statue?!  Unbelievable! :)  We made sure to visit this year- a must for every hockey fan, right?
Sarah's Work

Another funny Jeremy story:  Jeremy asked my sister where she worked.  "I work at a place called Enbridge."  "What's Enbridge?"  "It's a gas and oil company."  "You work at a gas station?"  "No, my company's called, Enbridge."  "You work at a gas station on a bridge?" 
Just to show Jeremy where she worked, we took him up to visit her in her office.  For the record, she works on the 9th floor of a very tall building, not a gas station!

The Sieberts
I've blogged about this family before- they're now living in Edmonton though we met them in Fresno 7 years ago (I remember this because we met right before our daughters were born).  When we come visit here every summer, we try to connect with them.  It's so fun to see our kids together!  We loved being able to spend time with this wonderful family!

Fun Day
Beulah Church held a Fun Day for their community on Saturday and since our friend Neil helped to organize the event, we went to show our support. 

Face Painting (I mean, Arm Painting) 

Pony Rides

 Petting Zoo

 Grace spent most of her time with the animals.  Jeremy freaked out when I put a rabbit in his lap, but Grace could've spent the whole day with the pot-bellied pig, goats, ducks, and rabbits.  She is such an animal lover!

Cotton Candy (my fave!)

The kids with "Uncle and Auntie Awesome" (nicknames the kids gave Neil and Binh)

Adventure Seekers

Many times in our marriage, I have been surprised that I somehow married a guy who is such an adventure seeker, while I am the complete opposite.  I like predictability, I do not like the tickly-feeling-in-the-stomach you get from going on roller coasters, I get nauseous very easily, I don't swim very well or enjoy being in the water... And sure enough, Jason would do anything for adventure's sake.  I've often felt like I'm holding him back, and he's always been great about not making me feel pressured to do something that I am not comfortable doing.  Fast forward 7 years... I am sooooooo glad that Grace has inherited Jason's adventure-seeking personality.  Now that she's old enough and tall enough, she has been a perfect partner for him to go with!  This past week, Grace begged us to go try out West Ed's Ropes Quest.  It's a ropes course in the mall that is three stories high.  Needless to say, Jason was more than happy to go with her.  Upon entering the course, she insisted on heading right to the top.  She tried every single obstacle and loved it.

Sarah = BEST Babysitter Ever!

Obviously, I love my sister for a million reasons, but high on the list is that she is great with kids.  With MY kids, she's amazing!  She took my kids to do all kinds of things, giving Jason and I a break from them and the time to hang out just the two of us.  It's so nice to go out to dinner and a movie without worrying about how much it's going to cost for us to have someone watch our kids (because let's face it, the cost of a babysitter is a huge factor when we have date nights).  We were (finally) able to go see The Avengers and ate at Sugarbowl, which is now one of Jason's favorite Edmonton restaurants.

(notice: the brownish colored left hand column is the dinner menu, and the rest of the whole menu is their beer selection, in addition to 14 rotating draught beers that were listed on a chalkboard!  No wonder Jason loves this place!  He can't stop talking about the lamb and goat cheese burger, what he claims is the very best he's ever had!)

Meanwhile, we know our kids are in the best hands.  Some of the wonderful memories of Di Dao that my kids will have:  they've gone to water/spray parks, rode on the LRT together, gone out for slurpees and other sweet treats, went out to breakfast...

 Thank you so much, Sarah (Di Dao)!

The Great Outdoors

I've bragged about Edmonton's green space before:
*Edmonton's river valley makes up the longest stretch of connected urban parkland in North America.
*Edmonton has the highest per capita area of parkland of any Canadian city
*the river valley is 22 times larger than New York City's Central Park
*park styles range from fully serviced urban parks to campsitelike facilities with few amenities
*the main "Ribbon of Green" is supplemented by numerous neighborhood parks located throughout the city, to give a total of 27,400 acres of parkland.
*within the 18,000 acres, 16 mi-long river valley park system, there are 11 lakes, 14 ravines, and 22 major parks, and most of the city has accessible bike and walking trail connections.

Okay, so these facts were taken from wikipedia, but you get the picture...

Naturally, there is so much to explore around here.  Here are a few things we've done outside:

Walks
We parked our car at Kinsmen Park near the base of a pedestrian bridge that crosses the North Saskatchewan River.  We crossed the bridge, climbed up one of the many steep staircases to the top of the bank, crossed back over the river on the High Level Bridge, then went down the hill towards our car.  We let the kids play at the park before heading back to the car. It was quite a workout!  Or maybe it was a workout just for me since I'm so out of shape! Actually, there always seems to be people out and about on these trails.  It almost inspires me to get out and get active- wait, I said, almost! 

Playgrounds and Spray Parks
There are soooo many playgrounds and spray parks here and we have certainly visited quite a few.

Hiking

Our family has gone on several hikes near here.  The longest one took about an hour and it took us through a ravine near a creek.  There were some pretty steep hillsides to climb!  It's amazing that there are tons of areas in the city that don't seem at all like they're "in the city."  We even got to see a beaver!

Geocaching

I've heard about this from other people, but we've never actually geocached before.  Since all we have is time on our hands, we decided to try it out.  For those of you who've never heard of it before, geocaching is basically like treasure hunting using a GPS device.  You are given the coordinates to where the cache is located, and then you have to use your GPS to guide you there.  We looked up 3 caches (treasures) and headed out.  Unfortunately, we didn't find the first one.  We searched and searched, but never did find it.  It would've been easy to quit, but we were so determined to find at least one.  So, we headed to the second one.  Success!  It was very exciting.  We found the cache under a rock, opened it, and signed the logbook.  There were a few knick knacks in the camo container, but unfortunately, we didn't bring anything to exchange with it, so we didn't get to take anything with us.  The kids were disappointed!  We decided to go ahead with the last one despite not having anything to trade, and once again, we were able to locate the cache.  Two out of three isn't bad for our first outing!  Next time we head out, we'll make sure to have something with us to leave behind!

I'm so glad that we've been able to explore and spend time in the great outdoors while we've been here!

I've been meaning to add this picture to my blog and since this post is about the great outdoors, I figured it related enough to be included here... The picture was taken by a local photographer and it is the best picture I've ever seen of Edmonton.  I wish I could get a print of this!!!

Catching Up

I was able to connect with some important people this past week:
The Thomsons- When my parents first arrived here in Edmonton in 1975 as refugees, a group of people from Beulah Alliance Church went to meet them and help them adjust to their new lives.  My parents bonded with two particular people who I have always known as my Grandpa and Grandma Thomson.  Grandma had been a missionary in Vietnam for some time and was fluent in Vietnamese.  My parents came to know Christ through them because of the love and care that Grandpa and Grandma provided during this time of transition.  Through the years, the Thomsons have remained a part of our lives- they have been incredibly supportive during the many obstacles that have come up over the years.  The last time I saw my Grandma and Grandpa was my wedding.  Even my parents lost touch with them after they moved, and then my parents moved.  This past Sunday, instead of attending the Vietnamese Church where I grew up, we went to a church with my friend, Binh.  As it turns out, Binh's husband, Neil, accepted a new job a few months ago as Pastor of Young Adults at Beulah Alliance Church!  We wanted to come and see what church is like there now.  It is definitely a megachurch with lots of people!  After dropping off our kids at "KidZone," we headed towards the sanctuary- the first person I saw was my Grandpa Thomson!!!!  Isn't that crazy?!  I immediately ran up to him- it was so exciting to see him.  Church was starting so we decided to catch up right after the service.  Interestingly, the sermon was all about Vietnam and the guest speaker was a missionary from Vietnam.  It felt very surreal to me, as I sat and reflected about all things Vietnamese!  Afterwards, I was able to introduce my kids to Grandpa and we spent some time catching up.  He informed us that Grandma is now in a home and that if I went to visit her, she would no longer recognize or remember me.  I felt such sadness to hear this news.  Anyway, I am thrilled that I was able to get back in touch with him again.  He is just as I remember- warm and loving.

Suzan- My good friend from my university years... She has been so good about keeping in touch with me despite the distance.  I love getting together with her every year and catching up about our lives (I'm bummed I forgot to get a pic of us)

Binh and Neil- We got to spend a lot of time with them this visit!  Whereas there are a lot of friends that I try to see while I'm here, Binh and Neil are friends of both Jason and mine.  I'm so glad!!!  They had us over for dinner two times this week.  Yum- it was such a treat to have salmon rolls!  Our whole family loved this meal!

Grace's Date with Di Dao

It was a priority for Di Dao to have individual time with both Grace and Jeremy this visit.  She and Jeremy went to Build-A-Bear together a few weeks ago, and last week, she went with Grace to Crankpots, a ceramic painting studio.  They went to pick up the final product this past weekend, and here are a few pics of their time together.

Family Time

My brother and sis-in-law, PT and Teresa, drove up from Calgary to spend the weekend with us.  It was great to see them and we had a lot of fun together.  It just so happens that it has been reeeally hot here these past few days (hot here = 80s) so we decided to take the kids to Edmonton's newest spray park.  Everyone and their grandma were at the same park.  It was nice but very hard for the kids to enjoy since there were people everywhere.

The kids have been looking forward all week to going bowling.  We decided to hold off our bowling fun until Cau Son (Uncle PT) and Co Teresa (Auntie) came to visit.  The last time Grace went was when she was 3 and Jeremy has never been.  It happened to be Neon Bowling, and the kids got to use the bumpers.  Jason scored the highest, then Grace, and Jeremy and I tied for last place.  Um, yeah, it's been a long, long time since I've been bowling!

 
After church the next day, we went out for our annual family dinner.  Yup, our entire family is together for only one meal every year, particularly since we only visit in the summer. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at a blues festival called, Blues on Whyte. It was the 100th anniversary of the Commercial Hotel, a venue known for its blues music.  This is one thing that Jason has been really looking forward to.  An entire city block was closed off, there were 14 bands that played on 2 stages and a beer garden.  Vendors were set up in the street, along with some food trucks that we have been wanting to try.  We sat on a curb, listened to some music, people-watched (the perfect place for this) and just hung out.  

We had a great visit with Cau Son and Co Teresa.  We won't get to see them again until next summer!