The Stampede

I love the summer in Calgary. Not only do we have Canada Day followed by 4th of July (for us lucky few who can celebrate both, guilt free) but we also have a glorious 10 day holiday called the Calgary Stampede – the greatest outdoor show on earth! For those wonderful days, everyone puts on their best cowboy gear including all boots, wranglers, hats, etc. The event is similar to Halloween, where girls can wear whatever ‘barely there’ outfit they want as long as you have a cowboy hat and boots on! But to top off the entire week of costumes is the free good. If you are seriously into it, you can eat three meals a day for free. Every business has a stampede breakfast every morning. You can drive all over the city and see them every few seconds. Also, for lunch and dinner, every company you work with invites you to a stampede barbeque. It may not be worth it to eat chili, hamburgers and pop for a week straight, but you at least you could say you did it! To end the week, you could actually attend the event we are all celebrating. The big fair, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

4th Of July

Every year we make a trip to Idaho Falls for the fourth of July. When we got married, Mick told me we could spend whatever holidays I wanted with my family, but he wanted the 4th with his. Seeing as how that isn’t even a holiday in Canada, I figured it was a deal! Just kidding, that is when most of his family is usually there. So this year, every sibling was there, from Houston, Denver, Las Vegas, and Idaho Falls. It was so exciting to see the kids play together who haven’t seen each other since we got married (almost three years ago). We went swimming almost every day, saw some good friends we really miss, had a great fireworks show and food at Holly & Justin’s house, saw the parade, went to the water park, saw “The Greatest Fireworks Show West Of The Mississippi” (ha ha), got some serious Target time and shopping in, and celebrated a few birthdays. I can’t wait until next year! The only sad part was missing Mick’s first Canada to be there. Maybe next year we can do both!