Galaxyland

We had planned to go to Edmonton's annual summer fair, Capital Ex, with my parents, but when the day came, it was pouring outside!  It was the only day that my mom was able to join us due to her work schedule, so we decided not to let the weather cancel our plans.  Plan B was to go to West Edmonton Mall's indoor amusement park, Galaxyland.  Our kids wanted to go on rides, and it didn't matter if it was at the fair or the indoor amusement park (not only that, Jason does not enjoy going to fairs)!  This year, Jeremy was able to go on many more rides.  We had a wonderful time (and we stayed nice and dry)!

Edmonton Eskimos

The Edmonton Eskimos are Edmonton's professional football team.  They play in the Canadian Football League, and though there are many similarities between the CFL and NFL, there are also several notable differences.  Our friend, Binh, gave us her company's tickets to go see the Edmonton Eskimos play at Commonwealth Stadium.  The seats were fantastic- we were in row 5 at the 55 yard line!  Binh's husband, Neil, came with us, and we invited Sarah to come, too.  It was Jason's first professional football game and though it wasn't the NFL, he says he really enjoyed it (I was half-expecting that he'd sit there the whole night and complain about the "stupid" CFL rules).  The Eskimos ended up winning their 5th game in a row. What a fun experience it was!  

Swimming Lessons

One thing we've done every summer these past few years is enroll Grace in swimming.  It's something for us to do since most people are working while we're up there and our days are always free.  This year, we decided to try Edmonton's newest recreation center, Terwillegar.  It's a beautiful indoor facility with a huge pool (several pools, actually), full-sized skating rinks, several full-sized gyms, exercising gym, indoor playground, classrooms, etc.  This was the first year that Jeremy took lessons.  I woke up bright and early in March when online registration opened to register both kids so that the times would coincide and we wouldn't be stuck at the pool all morning.  At the time, Jeremy did not enjoy being in the water, so we enrolled him in Parent & Tot lessons.  Who would've thought that in just a few short months, Jeremy would overcome his fear of water?  He has loved going in the pool with Jason and Grace.  Unfortunately though, there was no more room in the other 3-year-old swim classes.  It was pretty funny to see this "huge" 3 year old in with the other babies.  Grace did wonderfully, and though she is usually shy and reserved around new people, she even made a friend on her first day (it's a small world- as it turns out, my sister actually knows that girl's family).  Both kids had an awesome swim experience this past summer!

Jurassic Forest

Every year that we've visited Edmonton, we've tried to do at least one new thing.  It allows us to have something to look forward to in addition to doing the "same old things." This year, we visited one of Edmonton's newest attractions.  In the middle of nowhere, about 20 minutes north of Edmonton is a place called Jurassic Forest.  It's a forest with walking trails in which you encounter life-sized, realistic-looking dinosaurs.  The dinosaurs are sensored so they move and roar when you come up to them.   Our kids really enjoyed it. 

 Di Dao took a week off work while we were there, so she was able to come explore with us.

 The kids were excited to finally see the T-Rex (of course, at the very end of the trails).

There was a play area for the kids to play at after we had our picnic lunch. 

July 24

Well, needless to say, we returned from Edmonton weeks ago, but it has been a whirlwind since I immediately threw myself into work to get ready for my new school year.  So, I'm now going to attempt to do some backtracking (mostly for my memory's sake)...

My laptop went through a lot and finally had to be reimaged.  It is now working as it should, however, I lost all of my web links and several programs in the process.  If there's one thing I learned, it is that I need to regularly backup my files.  My angst while everything was in limbo was due to the fear that I would lose months and months of valuable family pictures.  Thank goodness, the pictures are fine and they have since been backed up!

Okay, let's move on... by looking back!  It's going to take quite a few posts to catch up, but I guess I have to start somewhere!

My brother and sis-in-law drove up from Calgary to spend some time with us.  Our family went out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant called The Golden Rice Bowl.  It was a treat to enjoy Peking Duck!  We had to pre-order it to ensure that they would have it- basically, they prepare duck in 3 different ways: mu shu (which is like wrapping the duck meat in a Chinese-style tortilla), duck with rice, and soup.  SO GOOD!

On July 24, Jason competed in the Provincial Track Classic in nearby town, Sherwood Park.  Of course we went out to cheer him on!  This is likely his last track race- he has decided to take a break from it (for awhile?).  It wasn't his fastest race, but he came over the finish line first.  Unfortunately, this track meet does something called "age grading," which means they adjust times based on your age.  So even though Jason crossed the finish line first, he actually ended up in 2nd.  He earned 2 silver medals over 2 days of racing!  In addition, he broke the 200 m record and walked away with a "record breaker" t-shirt! 

Later that same day, we headed to my "nephew's" 2nd birthday party.  It was a huge bash- there were a lot of relatives in town due to a wedding the night before.  We had so much fun catching up with people who we haven't seen in ages.  It was an unexpected reunion!

Even though it was our 12th anniversary, it was such a busy day that we didn't celebrate until a few nights later.  My sister watched our kids so we could have an evening to ourselves.  Edmonton was in the middle of "Fork Fest," a festival in which local restaurants could showcase their menus at special prices.  After going through all of the menus, we decided on a restaurant called, The Blue Pear.  We enjoyed a fabulous meal!  We were able to reminisce and talk about our goals for the upcoming few years...  God has been faithful and has strengthened our marriage in these last few years.  I am so grateful for Jason and I love him more and more as each day passes.  I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us this upcoming year!  

AAAGGH!

AAAAGGGGH!  I have plenty to blog about and yet I haven't been able to because my laptop got a virus!  To make a long story short, it has been devastating- it wiped out all my picture files, my school files, my computer programs, my internet links, etc.  We took the laptop to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and they told us it'd cost close to $400 to backup the files that are recovered and to remove the virus.  My sister's friend kindly agreed to look at it for us and we just found out earlier today that there's not a whole lot he can do unless we had an external hard drive for him to back up the files...  Ours is, of course in Fresno.  So... nothing can be done to it until we return to Fresno.  That means I won't be able to blog or do any school work until next week.  AAAAGGGHHHHH!  I'm so upset!  :(

Kid in a Candy Store

This is somewhat of a silly post, but I had to share about this place!  My sister took us to Bulk Barn this past week and I was like a kid in a candy store!  It is a Canadian chain and it sells (over 4,000 products) in bulk form- that includes everything from soup to nuts, candy to snacks, health and natural ingredients, and my favorite section- baking ingredients! My creative juices were freely flowing as I walked down the aisles- "Oooooh, I could make ________ with this...." or "I wish I had these readily available in Fresno..."  Love, love, love this place!  We left with a ton of candy and snacks!  My sister and I hope to do some baking before we head back to Fresno so I'm sure we'll revisit the store for some baking stuff!

THE Mall

We had the chance to visit my childhood church this past Sunday: the Edmonton Vietnamese Alliance Church.  It was great to see so many familiar faces and quickly get a catch up.  Afterwards, we went for Vietnamese food at Pho Hoa.  It is actually a Vietnamese restaurant chain that started in San Jose!  There are locations all over North America- we went to the one in West Edmonton Mall.  Of course I loved it- I had my usual bowl of pho and Jason had his usual vermicelli bowl with spring rolls.  After lunch, we spent the afternoon at the mall; THE Mall: West Edmonton Mall!  I've blogged about this place every year it seems, but that's because it's one of Edmonton's biggest tourist attractions.  It still claims to be North America's largest mall (based on square footage, I think).  There's so much packed into one space- after all these years, I still think it's pretty neat.  After leaving the restaurant, we strolled down a few aisles of T&T SuperMarket... It's this HUGE Asian market that has every possible Asian thing you can imagine!  There is just no way for me to put into words or even take enough pictures to give you a good sense of what I'm talking about!  If Fresno had a store like this, I'd have no excuses as to why I don't cook Vietnamese food more often!  The store leads into the "Chinatown" section of the Mall.  We stopped to pick up some bubble teas.  Jason tried a new flavor today- blueberry- he really liked it.

Grace & Jeremy sharing their mango slush bubble tea. They love it!

We got the chance to wander around and do a little shopping.  In all our years of visiting THE Mall, we've never seen this: the Sea Lions' Show!  We just happened to be walking by and saw the crowds forming.  It was a pretty cute and decent show (if you don't think too much about the fact that they're animals being kept for entertainment- Jason and I are strangely beginning to have some opinions about that).





The kiddos with Di Dao (pronounced, "yee dow," ow as in ouch)



Fun at the "Lake"

Yesterday, my sister's friend, Scott, took our family to Summerside, a recreational lake community in Edmonton.  Basically, it's a residential development that centers around a man-made lake.  Only residents and their guests have access to the lake.  There's a clubhouse there, along with a sandy beach, playground, tennis courts, etc.  The developers even stock the lake every year with fish so its residents can go fishing.  Residents also have full access to kayaks and paddleboats.  The weather was just perfect!  Our kids had so much fun playing in the sand and splashing in the water (Jason says it was a little colder than when we were at Shaver last weekend).  Later in the afternoon, Scott took our kids to the pier to do some fishing.  He found a school of perch off the pier and showed the kids how to fish.  Between all of us, we caught 16 perch!  The kids loved it (of course, the fact that they caught the fish so easily helped- if we had to really fish and wait patiently for a fish to bite, I doubt they would've enjoyed it as much as they did). 

 

Jeremy wanted to go out on the lake, so along with Scott, Grace, and Jason, they went on a paddleboat.  Scott decided to cool off by jumping off the paddleboat, and soon the others followed (they learned later on that's not allowed).  After they returned to the shore, Jason and I laid on the beach and read while the kids played in the sand and water.  Thanks to Scott for his time with us at Summerside!  We had so much fun!

And Here We Are!

We're here in Edmonton!  Our travel day was this past Wednesday.  We drove from Sacramento to San Jose and stayed overnight at Darren and Julie's home.  They're good friends of ours and it seems like the only time we see them is once a year when we're in town in need of a ride to the airport!  Joking aside, we value them so much and we always enjoy hanging out with them.  Grace and Jenny reconnected very easily, and Claire was very excited to have a new "best friend," though it took Jeremy quite a while to warm up to everyone. 

Darren was able to call up some of Jason's childhood friends to join us for dinner.  We got to see Jon and Sarah and their new one-month-old son, Ben, as well as Jason's former roommate, Rob. 

The next day, Jason wanted to visit Los Gatos, his hometown.  We headed to his favorite park growing up, Vasona Park (Oak Meadow).  He has fond memories of the Wildcat Railroad and wanted to let our kids experience riding the train.  They loved it (though Jason says it is quite different going there as an adult)!   Afterwards, we walked around a little and let the kids roam the play areas.  We ate lunch at Armadillo Willy's, one of our favorite places to eat in San Jose before Darren dropped us off at the airport.

Waiting at the airport with a really goofy kid!

For the first time in a long time, it was an uneventful trip to fly from San Jose to Edmonton.  The kids did great (no throw-up, no running away from the Immigration line), there were no delays, and we didn't upset travelers for holding up the security check at the airport with all of our stuff (most notably, our 2 laptops and 2 portable DVD players- they all had to be taken out of each of our carryons and checked individually).  When we arrived, Jeremy and Grace immediately went up to both of my parents with big hugs (I had been worried that it'd take Jeremy at least 2 weeks to warm up to them).  Since then, we've taken it pretty easy, which means I don't have a whole lot to blog about.  We've slept in, watched tons of cable TV (we don't have it at home, so we watch a lot of it while we're up here), gone to several nearby playgrounds, eaten a lot (food will have to be a blog post all on its own!)...  

On Thursday, we went to the public library here to check out some books.  We always do a lot of reading while we're up here.  Jeremy wanted to check this book out... but we decided to leave that one behind!



This morning, my dad took the kids out for breakfast (that's a big deal- I was worried they would misbehave, but he said they were great).  Earlier, Jason and I were able to have some alone time- we headed to Whyte Avenue, a wonderful little neighborhood with unique businesses.  We got a chance to talk, walk around, browse, and even went for our first bubble teas of our trip!  A very nice and relaxing start to our trip!

  

2011 World Masters Track & Field Championships

The BIG race!  Jason has been training since December to participate in the 2011 World Masters Track & Field championships.  However, due to injury, Jason had to drop out of his first event, the 100m, on Friday.  We didn't head to Sacramento until Monday morning.  It was a good choice because he felt pretty good heading into his 200m race.  Part of this was due to the extra few days of rest for his recovery, but part of it was also due to the help of our friend, the Yamashitas.  These wonderful friends now live in Colorado.  In one of my emails to Jessica last week, I had shared about Jason's injury and how that affected our plans for the week.  That same night, Brent (who is a physical therapist) called and left Jason a message- he had set up an appointment for Jason with one of his friends who has a private practice in our area for the very next morning.  His friend worked with Jason for over an hour and the results were fantastic- Jason felt loose and much more flexible.  He wasn't at the top of his game, but he felt good enough to race.  The actual championships included athletes from all over the world.  For example, just in Jason's event, he ran against athletes from France, Russia, Australia, Grenada, Denmark, South Africa, and Great Britain... How exciting it was to see Jason's race!  

I was so nervous for him that I was feeling sick to the stomach.  I was so relieved when he crossed the finish line- his time was 23.91 secs, fast enough to qualify for the semifinals. The best part was that he didn't reinjure himself or make it worse!  The semifinals took place the next day.  His time was 23.51 secs (13th out of 30).  Unfortunately, he didn't make it into the finals, but regardless, we are incredibly proud of him!  He has worked so hard, has been very dedicated to his training, and determined through injury and all.  Great job, Jason!!!  

Jelly Belly Factory

We drove up to Sacramento on Monday morning, but since Jason's race wasn't until later that night, we decided to take advantage of being in the Sacramento-area by heading to the Jelly Belly Factory inFairfield (45 mins. west). We waited in line for a tour and learned all about how jelly beans are made.  One funny memory: during the tour, we were given samples of jelly beans in different stages.  When our guide came to give us some samples, she accidentally dropped some on the floor.  All of us said to Jeremy, "Don't eat those, Jeremy!"  He didn't...  Instead, he innocently picked them up and... put them back into the guide's basket.  She looked at us, and said, "Um... Ok... I guess we can't use those anymore!"  She had to go get another basket of Jelly Bellies.  It was so funny- I guess he was just trying to be helpful!

There was a gallery of artwork made entirely of Jelly Bellies like this one of President Reagan.