Graduation Approaches!

Courtney brought up her graduation announcements upon my request.

I was so grateful to be a part of her graduation, even if I just watched.

Courtney Owen helped her stuff envelopes. 

I am so proud of Courtney and all she's accomplished.  It's hard

to be away from her, especially during these pivotal times in her life.

Gorgeous announcements, they always are very classy.

I'm glad she was willing to share with us.  I helped by making a

 list of the people we want to send them out to and then I addressed 

the envelopes.  That was my contribution.  We are going to make

her a card of pictures to slip in them and then she can mail them out.

The "Ledge"

Our next destination, "the ledge".  We discovered things we've never

seen before and we've been there a dozen times.

First the girls had to pose in the large, now empty, wading pool

with the magnificent building in the background.

Now just the girls a little closer.

Tough guys, or girls, or whatever!

Our cute Courtney, she's such the perfect model.

Only the second time I've been "in" the ledge, first time for the girls.

Beautiful architecture,

royal flags,

radical rotunda,

sweeping stairs,

shiny elevators,

and long lonely hallways.

They are having a special anniversary celebration for the queen.

You can write a special message and leave it for her.

Our cute Courtney's on the spiral staircase.

We finally discovered what's in the tunnels down below the "ledge".

There is a wall of ducks, 

Courtney liked this one.

This is a very large map of Alberta, carved into the wall.

Courtney liked the three large grain storage facilities carved into the cement.

Alberta's provincial bird, the great horned owl

I don't know how they got this airplane down in the tunnel, 

it's kind of a tight fit, ha ha.

look for the bear necessities

what you lookin' at?

This is a replica of the legislature building made completely out

of Lego's, 200,000 of them, to be exact.

Not a bad interpretation complete with light posts, flowers, trees

and bushes.

Everything looked really good, until you turned the corner. . .

and there they were, Darth Vader and the stormtroopers. Ugh!

This is awesome, I want to build something like this.

I even spotted Harry Potter in one of the second story

 windows, all the way from Hogwarts.

Courtney crawled under the bridge, in the summer

there is water that flows underneath.

I took this picture with my little camera, I think it turned out

really good, senior pictures good.  Of course the subject matter helps.

Courtney decided to roll underneath the bridge, she said it was a lot

easier when there was water flowing under it in the summer.

This is her jacket afterward, silly girl.

At The Stadium

On our trip downtown, we stopped off

at the football stadium, we just had to take

some pictures because it was such a beautiful day.

This was the first awkward shot before they put their game

faces on, so to speak.

They both shoved their cameras in their pockets, I couldn't

resist the shot.  Cutie patootie's.

Now this is a cute shot.

They're warming up, this one is even better.

Then they got a little crazy,

then a lot crazy.

The wind was blowing and someone's shadow got in the way.

They were so cute and having so much fun.

This is a magnificent stadium, we've never been to a game, but it's awesome.

It's called The Commonwealth Stadium!

Happy 18th Birthday Baby Girl!

The Courtney's are coming, the Courtney's are coming!

They sat in the emergency exit seats, look at all the leg room, but . . .

Is this who you want manning the exit doors in an emergency?

Not me, silly, silly girls.

They were supposed to arrive at 11:40 pm, but they were 

late getting in.  They didn't land 'til 11:50 and we didn't see

them until almost 12:20 am, by the time they made it through

customs.  And it just happens to be the morning of Courtney's 

birthday, yeah!

We didn't get to bed until almost 2:00 am, but it was great to

have them here.  The next morning we let them sleep in and then

I fixed them a yummy crepe breakfast.

Shortly afterwards, the "boys" showed up.  Nathan came first and

brought Courtney a bottle of bubbly and Travis showed up with

a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Good, good friends.

The boys met Courtney and Courtney met the boys.

They had fun, catching up,

being silly,

and playing with bubbles.

It was so fun to watch them play and listen to them laugh.

Then they took some silly pictures

and Nathan enjoyed playing with the "bunny" game.

 He stacked the bunnies 5 high, then they fell.

He tried again and was able to stack six, all in rainbow
order, he didn't even realize it until I pointed it out.
red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

After they left we took Courtney downtown to look around.

This is the old Strathcona sign welcoming us into the city.

They keep adding on to this high rise apartment building, 

it just gets bigger and bigger.

This is a new building going up downtown, on

First and Jasper.

Then we drove through Chinatown and stopped at the Italian bakery

to pick out a few pastries.  We enjoyed a giant cream puff, an apple 

strudel, blueberry strudel and several other tasty treats.

We passed by this magnificent church, it looks like a building from

downtown Ogden.

This is the Epcor building, Edmonton Power Corporation.

We had so much fun with the two Courtney's today.

We stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home and picked up

an ice cream pizza for her birthday.  I had planned to buy an 

ice cream cake but they were literally all ice cream, no cake.

  I fixed Courtney her favorite dinner for her birthday, Cafe Rio 

sweet pork burritos, they were very yummy.

After dinner they went on a double date with Travis and 

Nathan.  Travis picked them up and they all went over 

to Nathan's for a bonfire and s'mores. 

I made this candy birthday cake for Courtney while

she was out and had it waiting for her when she got home.

It was kind of fun and turned out really cute.