A Taste of Winter…

Well, it finally happened – it snowed!!! A lot! We were a little sceptical of the weather forecast for here, as we’d been having wonderful warm (max. 17-20ºC!) days for most of a week, so snow the next day didn’t seem all that possible – but then we woke up on the Sunday morning and looked out our little window, at a winter wonderland!

View out our little window!

Everything was covered in snow! And it kept snowing for most of the day on Sunday too! We kept forgetting about it for a little while, then looking out a window and getting a little shock seeing everything white!

No one else here was particularly excited (except for Darwin, the young worker here, who missed winter here last year as he was in Australia instead!), as the snow is generally on the ground for 5-6 month of each year, so it’s not exactly a novelty… But it sure was for us!!! There was about 7-8 inches of snow that day, so more snow than we've ever seen apart from in the mountains at the ski fields, and we haven’t gotten over the excitement of it yet! J

Back of the house

The barn..

A real live Christmas tree! :)

Same view as a week ago with fall colours, but so different!

Half buried cars beside the barn

In the tree farm - no more mowing, that's for sure!

Canola field...

Looking back at the convention dining shed

The house

Piles of fluffy stuff

Ice crystals in the trodden down tyre tread marks

Buddy playing in the snow

Having fun with the four wheeler in the tree farm :)

Getting a little sideways - these are fantastic for the snow!

Winter playground

Whee!! Definitely little kids in the snow...

A splash of colour, as Lawrie unfroze the flag...

At the road in front of the property, looking slightly different to yesterday!

Looking back from the road

They said that it would most likely melt away after a day or two, but so far it’s been a few days and it’s still around, although a fair bit thinner and patchy in some spots… And we’ll be expecting more in the next week or so J - so as of yet, it’s just a little taste of winter (with maximum temperatures only down as far as -3ºC so far, MUCH lower to come!)…

It’s Fall!

It’s Fall! At home to me Autumn is really just the time between summer and winter, with nicer than usual days and chillier than usual days, but here it’s so pretty!! And here you can totally see why it’s called ‘Fall’ – everywhere you look you can see leaves flying around on their way to the ground!

The crispness in the air also makes for some spectacular and very bright coloured sun rises and sun sets, which have been amazing! Not to mention the snow on the mountains in the distance is pretty cool to see! It shouldn’t be too long until we have snow here on the ground, although not sure if it’ll be cold enough yet to stick around for more than a day or 2…

One of the first good frosts

One of the many spectacular sun rises

And another, hiding behind the trees

And another...

First glimpse of the snow covered Rocky Mountains in the distance from the house

The frosts are getting heavier, and the temperature much colder (generally colder than our winter at home!), and there are pretty colours everywhere, ranging from purple to green, as well as all of the pine and spruce trees! Not sure if I’ve ever seen a carpet of coloured leaves quite so thick!

Colourful view out a side window

Cute colourful shrubs in the garden

Little splashes of colour from the kitchen window

Part of a leaf carpet

Buddy :)

Some awesome coloured leaves found in the garden!

A serious carpet of leaves!

Awesome sunset!

Calgary – October 19th

On October 19^th, just after coming back from Saskatchewan and Wainwright, we headed down to Calgary for the day, starting pretty early for the weekly game of hockey there, at 7am…

There were some pretty tiny little kids learning how to skate and play too, as well as their dads and a few others, for a fun game!

After hockey we went with a few of the others to have breakfast then headed to the massive Chinook Mall to spend the next few hours there… Definitely somewhere I’d like to head back to! Then we headed back to the northern part of the city to catch up with Roxy (from Queensland, Australia, but living in Calgary for the last 18 months or so) – it’d been a good few years since we last saw Roxy, before we were married, so it was great to catch up!

From Roxy’s place we caught the train into the city centre, and walked to a nearby park with the cute looking ‘Peace Bridge’ as a pedestrian bridge across the river, where we had a wander around and a good chat! Some more pretty fall colours there too!

View of the Rockies driving past Calgary

Peace Bridge and the City Centre

Roxy

Peace Bridge

We passed a bit of time having a coffee before getting the train back to the southern end of town, to where we were having dinner at an amazing Brazilian barbecue restaurant, Gauchos. We met up with a few others for dinner – Lisa and Dario, Neil, and Kenton (brother of Roxy’s boyfriend Nathan), and we had an amazing meal! Gauchos has a very cool style of service, called Rodizio, with a buffet section full of salads as well as a few other things, then different waiters come around with the deliciously freshly cooked meats, which they cut off directly onto your plate! You have a little cow shaped card on your table, which has a green side (which means to keep the meat coming!) and a red side (we’re full for now) – so of course it was kept green until we were all done (or far past done…), and we tried some absolutely delicious meats, which just kept coming! So it’s really hard to keep track of how much you’re actually eating, it was no doubt a few platefuls of little bits though!

After dinner we went back to the home of some more friends, Kayla and Julianna and their grandma, where we somehow managed to fit in some delicious chocolate brownie and ice cream (soooo good though!) and having a good chat! Then we headed back to Roxy’s place then Didsbury, having another late night… After the great day and awesome people we met, we hope to spend a little more time in Calgary and surrounds too! J