Last stop Medicine Hat

So, we went from the "Jaw" to the "Hat" last stop, weekend with the Napa's. Now some of you may have caught that Dean and I drove separate cars to the Hat when we left Calgary, and some of you may have even wondered why.... now I shall tell you the answer.... moi haha Friends of ours ( Jenn, Kerry and John ) took their fence down before we left on our trip, and I jumped at the chance to have the old fence boards.... so we loaded up one of the KIA's and brought the wood to Medicine Hat, so Papa could use them...... this of course left no room for anything else so that's where the two cars came in.....

this is the Glorious wood that Papa turned into........

3 nesting wonderful coffins!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say, if you know my obsession with Halloween.... THIS was the best gift ever!!!!!!!!!!

hahaha awesome - awesome job Papa!!!! I love them!!!!!!!

on Maddie's summer list she had see an movie in an old theater, and this theater in Medicine Hat is 99 years old!! It doesn't get much older! The pictures are a bit blurry, but it was almost pitch black in here, and I tried not to use flash, so bear with the pix

it was just the 3 of us in this theater that seats 410!! until just before the movie started and 2 more people came in. I wasn't a huge fan of the movie we saw, it was called Solitary Man and it was kinda depressing, you know depressing like the Nicolas Cage movie in Vegas??? anyway, the popcorn was SO yummy, and the theater was gorgeous, so I'll leave the movie memory out of it, and I had a great time!

the doorway to the Monarch

since we had separate cars, and Maddie has many things to do before school on Thursday, we left early in the morn, and everyone else went for brunch.... It would have been nice to go for brunch, but really, after all we ate in Winnipeg, if I didn't eat for 4 days! I wouldn't even notice!!!!

saying goodbye to the Napa's and heading home.... jiggedy jig

Moosejaw

We got to Moosejaw in pretty good time, gaining an hour helped too, so we got our campsite and headed into town to see the Tunnels. They were awesome, we went on the Passage to Fortune first, it was great, the tour guide could switch back and forth in an instant from yelling at us in character, to the soft tones of the tour guide. Then we went on the Chicago Connection. It's my favorite tour, they are both great but I like the mobster one a little better. Here we had a great actor who interacted with us, he made Maddie the doorstop and referred to her as that thru the tour, and if he said Kapeesh, you better say it back or he calls you a numbskull, but he acted drunk... very well, I almost would swear that bottle he was swigging from was real booze, and he had the mob accent perfect. It was so fun. I love the tunnels!!

proof, YES Dean did spend a night in a tent, he may never again, but he did this night!

no pictures aloud in the tunnels, so this was just a little memory that we went on them

our campsite is right beside the travel information so we walked around a bit and checked out the plane and moose

world's biggest Moose, Maddie wanted to see the world's biggest "something" this summer, and we made sure she lots of them on this trip

these are out of order, because Portage La Prairie is just outside Winnipeg, but here is the world's biggest Coke Can!!! How excited was I to see that!!! and it did not disappoint, it was HUGE, so big even that we had to put the wide angle on to see the top in the picture!

from the world's biggest to the world's smallest lol we had a pit stop in GrenFell and they had all these little grain elevators lined up, Maddie the monster terrorized the area, then we went on our merry way.

my hero town now that I've seen the world's biggest Coke can here

Last day...

Hello bloggers, there are a few things out of order on the blog, sorry, not real time this trip, we had some connection problems.... but here goes the last day :-)

Geo and Katie have been here so long they don't even notice the little ting, bang clunk of the acorns falling off the trees, it took us a day to get used to it... but now whenever they fall we just look at each other and say "nuts"


this ice cream spot was a favorite when I lived here. They had the only place I've ever seen with peanut butter dipped cones, we had them for breakfast because I didn't want to spoil my appetite for my favorite pizza later..

Cheyanne was a hard one to lock in but we found her, She had a sleepover, and then we had to drop her off... it was a short visit but I think the girls had fun with the time they had.

here we are for supper at Lisi's Ranch House, THE best pizza in the world!! Geo, Katie, me, Dean, Maddie, Val and Randy.

the owner and Friend Tony Lisi.... I've known him for uhmmmm alot of years!!! since school, that was a long time ago! We always try and make this is a destination when we come to the Peg.

Dean was amazed at how heavy each piece of pizza was. And so yummmmmy.

Randy and Geo built a Gazebo on Geo's land, way back in the Forrest about 5 acres in....or so. Last time we were here the ground was too wet to get to it, so this time we were determined... Randy got a cushion for Maddie to sit in the basket, I sat behind him and off we went into the land of trees....

Geo and Dean trailed behind and we were off.....

deeeeeep in the forest there was this cute little building just waiting for a party!!

Maddie what are doing in Phil.... that fridge is named Phil.... (Phil the fridge.... ) and it's full of booze!

when we were in Drumheller. Maddie bought a geode. It is a rock formed with a hollow center, and it crystallizes inside. Maddie gave her Geode to crack to .... none other than Geo! Well... he tried a hammer, and hammered, and hammered, to no avail... then Randy put it in a vice, and it blew up! as much as a rock can, it was almost solid inside!!! But after dusting themselves off, they had fun again!

And that was our journey... next stop MooseJaw.....

almost 11 hours of visiting 11:16 am - 10:30 pm

No rest for the wicked in Winnipeg... we were on the run all day today running to different parts of town, visiting both families. It's a blast don't get me wrong..lol but we need a vacation after this! First stop was Aunt Hilda, and cousin Heather and kids. We had a BIG yummy lunch, then Aunt Hilda showed me pictures of little Dean... hehehe he's so cute! After the kids went downstairs to play with Heather's old barbies.... well!!!

Aunt Hilda, Dean and Heather

....well is right, I was so jealous... Heather still had her barbie camper and airplane.. I lost mine in the flood at my Mom's house the year we left! :-( I had these exact toys.... I was having a flash back!

Maddie found a doll, "growing up Skipper", that when you twisted her arm she GREW!!! her torso extended so she got all grown up! I didn't have that doll as a kid! Maddie was fascinated.

Dean found an album in perfect condition, Bob and Doug McKenzie...lol now it was Dean's turn to be jealous

after awhile we went to Heather's house, the kids were so excited to show Maddie all their toys, I was just as excited I must admit! And then we look outside and they have the ever so coveted TREE HOUSE! Me and Maddie both ran up to see inside, it's the cutest thing, a little deck, windows, heating, plugs... if we had been there a day earlier I think Maddie and I would have slept in it!

Jocelyn and Justine climbing down the ladder leavin the tree house....

then we scooted to another part of town to Tania's house. She wanted to share one of Dad's last tubs of frozen Spaghetti sauce with us. She also invited Tom and Mary which was awesome cause we were out of time to visit anyone else, and I really wanted to see them this trip, so Tania to the rescue! I don't need to tell you the sauce was absolute heaven..... nobody makes it as good as Dad!!

Tania and Mary, I had 2 heaping servings, and then took a doggy bag when I couldn't eat any more!

me and Tom

me and Tania

still not done visiting after that we went to my cousin Mike and Buffie's house. We were greeted by the cutest little doggy Ginger, who had the first PAWdicure I have ever seen!!

me and Mike, when I was much littler I sat on his knee for a picture... in the old picture he isn't in as much pain!!!

me and Buffie. We left to get back to Geo and Katie's only to find out Maddie's uncle was waiting for us to say hi after dropping off Cheyanne, but we missed him by minutes.... oops sorry! Maddie's cousin was sleeping over so I will get a picture of them when they wake up!

Goldeyes

Geo and Katieface took us to a Goldeyes game. The team lost :-( but we had fun, we even got to see an incident at the plate.......

at the entrance to the game

Goldie making everyone clap, we had great seats!

intently watching the game....

the girlies....

there was a horrific call against the Goldeyes, bases loaded, full count, tie game.....the umpire called a strike... and Maddie just happened to catch it on video, it was a blatant BALL.... the baseball player slammed the bat into the ground.... starting yelling at the umpire, and then the team lost it and started to landslide.... :-( we lost... boo Mr Umpire!!

2 seperate adventures....

Today me Katie and Maddie went East.... Dean and uncle Bernie went West.... here is the East part. When Geo came home today he asked us what we did... I replied, we saw a Dragon, a Giant Mosquito, a big Catfish and a haunted church. he smirked and said "you played Runescape all day" haha good answer, and quite possible... buy NO we went on an adventure........

first stop was Stonewall, there is a quilting store there Katie wanted to check out, and in town they were taking down the rides from a fair, so there was a Dragon in the street....

here is the pretty quilting store,it was jam packed with supplies as bad as Scrapbooker's is, to the ceiling!

Komarno, has the world's biggest Mosquito, I'm not sure why, ( well aside from the obvious, but every city could have a mosquito then lol ) but the plaque was missing so I have no info for you. It's giant tho' and it spins! This picture looks like it was taken from the mosquito's point of view.... just lurking until it sees the right time to attack!

over to Selkirk to see Chuck the world's biggest catfish. He's much prettier than the ones you pull out of the water!!! A little heavier tho'...

now over to River Road, and anyone from Winnipeg knows the legend of this church... if you walk backwards around this church 3 times at midnight you will see the Devil, hence the No Trespassing signs everywhere. We were there a little earlier than midnight.

so many of the tombstones are so old they have toppled over or twist out of the ground, this one is from 1872... and it wasn't the oldest one that we saw.

We headed home after that and waited for the boys to get home. In the meantime we played dice....