Don't Worry, it's Not Pictures of my Garden!

Because of my lack of posting in the last little while, I will apologize in advance for the upcoming posts; they will be picture overload! At least it's not anymore pictures of my garden ;) Two weekends ago, Duane and I took a day and went out to Grotto Canyon for a hike. I may have mentioned this already somewhere else...maybe not...anywho...we thought the hike was going to be fairly easy, and since we hadn't done many hikes this season we were okay with that idea. On the way out there I decided to look in our hiking book and read up on our chosen destination a bit better. I sorta wish we'd have read up BEFORE we left the house. I found out that this hike was voted one of the best short family walks in Kananaskis. We were looking forward to easy, but not THAT easy! Shoot. Since we were already over halfway there, the only option was to continue with the plan. It turned out to be enjoyable and easy...as expected. We got rained on...twice, but hid inside a random cave in a hoodoo along the way and waited it out the first time. The second time we got wet. As the book said, it was supposed to be short but we dragged it out into about 4 hours, stopping along the way to take pictures, check out the pictographs, see the waterfall, and eat lunch. And we saw many families along the way. Go figure.


Wood Lily
I think these are Forget-me-NotsWe saw a lot of water running over rocksDuane along the canyon wallA very typical Duane poseSome neat rock markingsA wild Columbine...in miniatureThe neat pattern along the canyon wallAnd, of course, the typical Duane and Karyn shot!Close-up of the canyon wall One set of pictographs along the way (I've saturated the coloring so it would be more visible)This is what I do when I hike. I nap.Alright, I didn't really...but it WAS comfortable and hammock-like, and when I saw it I just had to climb up there to pretend!And a shot of Duane not pretending to napThere was some really pretty moss up above us in the little forest, so we climbed up for a few shotsI stalked a butterfly moth...and I got pretty close!The waterfall at the "end" of the trail...it was pretty, but quite a sketchy climb along a slippery canyon wall to get to where you can see it properlyDuane climbing...a man after my own heart!As always, being goofyAnd then, at my request, being "normal"Another view of the fallsAfter the "end" of the trail, we continued on for another few minutes and then got rained on...you can see it in the distanceA fern growing out of the rockThe little hoodoo cave we climbed into when it started to rain on usIndian PaintbrushAnyone know what these flowers are? They were everywhere, and I don't have a clueA buttercup

That's all for tonight! Lots more to come from Stampede and our weekend in Waterton!

~K~

Getting the Heck outta Dodge!

So I never did get around to editing those pictures from Grotto Canyon, and I'm sure most of you are getting tired of looking at my flowers. I'm not, though :) They're even prettier now and there are lots more of them!
Duane and I, along with Kevan and Leah (of course) are heading out of this crazy city tomorrow morning for a 3 day weekend in the glorious mountains! YAY! I can't wait until Stampede is over and this city gets back to some semblance of normal. We're going out to Waterton to hike Akamina Ridge and another short hike along with a couple days of camping. I'm so excited for a few days of strenuous activity and some good nights of solid sleep and fresh air.
Catch ya later!

~K~

Update

Here are the pictures of the lantana after they changed from yellow (last post) to mostly fuschia. How pretty!



Love it!

~K~

My Garden...Yet Again

Here are more plants!! I also took a few more pictures of the columbine flower, and when I went back there to snap a few shots, the neighbor's cat was hanging out in the shade. So I took some pictures of him as well; he is quite handsome!


The lantana while it was yellow...now it's fuschia!
White Creeping Thyme...it hasn't creeped anywhere yet, and I'm starting to wonder...Another type of Thyme...just can't remember which oneColumbine...the pink in this one is more pronounced than the other onesThe handsome neighbor

And again, I have taken more pictures of my lantana since they changed, but I have yet to load them onto the computer. This is all for now!
Duane and I went hiking (if you can call it that) on Monday to Grotto Canyon, so I'll have a post to do for that in a couple days!

~K~

More Flowers

I realize it's been more than a couple days, but I finally did take a few pictures of my front garden. It isn't really overly exciting to look at, and definitely not colorful, but here they are anyway! As well, there are a few pictures of the daisies and the lantana from the side garden as they are progressing and my beautiful "weeds" growing along my garage. I absolutely love the Columbine flower, and I tried to transplant our last purple one last year and killed it in the process. Now we only have pink/yellow ones, and I think I'll leave them be and just wish they were in my flower bed :)

Front garden...it's hard to see the groundcover plants I planted because of the position of the sun, but they're there...small, but there!
One of the Thyme groundcoversNot sure what this is...it didn't have a tag, but it was cute and all alone, so I brought it home :)My daisies are open!This was taken the other day, and today some of the buds opened on my lantana!Also taken the other day...today there are more columbine!

I've got to edit the ones taken today, and then I'll post them too! Are you all done with flowers yet?? :) I'm SO not!

~K~

Something New

This post was written for the sole purpose of getting rid of that super-creepy face that you see every time you load my blog. Not sure how often "every time" is, but if you're like me and have a daily blog roll routine that you go through...you're bound to see that face at least once every day! Sorry 'bout that! :)
I figured I should blog about my new garden today. Not super exciting, I know...but I can say that I'm rather happy with the outcome! Unfortunately I didn't do a before picture so you can see the transformation, but it looks FAR better...believe me! I have yet to take pictures of my "big" garden too, so that will be to come in the next couple days (I've only planted some yet-to-flower ground cover along with the perennials from last year and laid some nice mulch, so there's nothing super pretty as of yet). These pictures are from the side patch by the basement entrance. I've never really done anything with this patch because it seemed pointless since it's so small, but I got tired of the weeds and old bricks just sitting in the dirt...so I made it pretty a few days ago. I am skeptical as to whether these plants will thrive/survive in the crappy dirt/clay mixture....but I guess we'll see! Daisies are usually pretty hearty, I think...so they might surprise me!

I'll head out to take some pictures of the front garden in a bit, but this is all for now!

~K~

The Face Only A Husband Could Love!

Duane here:

We were doing a photo shoot with our good friends Chad & Tasha and their new baby Judah today and managed to snap this gem. Karyn hasn't seen it yet and may or may not delete this post so enjoy while you can!

Edmonton Weekend

I pretty much did a terrible job of documenting my time, photo-wise, in Edmonton last weekend (for a few other pics, check out the Taylor's blog at www.lowellandjulie.blogspot.com). Leah and I drove out on Saturday night, met up with the Wilkies, minus Matt, and had dinner at Jenna's house. Jenna cooked up a stellar chicken dinner for all of us! After dinner Leah and I took off to head over to Julie and Lowell's for the evening, and to meet up with our long-lost husbands :) It had been approximately 10 days since we'd spent any quality time with the husbands as they were SUPER busy out of town! Check out their blog (www.68photography.ca/blog), and you'll see why! We decided, after getting settled, that we'd all go for a nice walk in the river valley...considering the apartment is rather conveniently located next to it :) Our walk turned out to be about 2 hours long...which I enjoyed until I smacked my head on a rock wall, but Duane was pretty tired after a long day of shooting. We arrived back at the apartment shortly after dark and spent a bit of time watching YouTube videos, laughing, and chatting. Then we all hit the hay, as the next morning was quickly approaching. Our intent for the journey to Edmonton was because Jenna was being baptized on Sunday morning. After a nice breakfast with the Wilkie family, we headed over to the church for service. Everything went smoothly, nobody drowned, and we all got out of there and back home to Calgary safely!

We always enjoy spending fun times with friends, and this was definitely no exception :) Thanks for putting us up, Julie and Lowell...or rather, putting up with us! *wink*

~K~

Slightly Belated

These pictures are from a couple weekends ago, already, but I wanted to post them anyway :) I went to the park with Sydney and Ty for a couple hours one day when we actually had SUN in Calgary, while Noah was out horseback riding. We had lots of fun playing on the slide, swings, and eating rocks...well, that was mostly Ty's area of expertise ;) Here are a few shots...we went to a couple different parks; Ty was happy at one, and not at the other!

Syd in the tunnel:

I had just cut my hair...attempting to cheer Ty up and get a shot of my new style at the same time:Heading to the second park...he's getting happier!On our way...brother and sister...too cute!Notice how Sydney isn't wearing shoes...she wanted to wear Noah's and they wouldn't stay on...they didn't last long!That whale ride lasted about two seconds. As soon as she noticed the swing was available, she was off and running!This girl LOVES the swing! Content to just sit there......but definitely happier when she's actually swinging...and Ty was content to taste rocks while I was taking pictures of Sydney(he thought I'd never notice, I'm sure)......HA HA! You caught me! No worries, he never actually ingested any :)
Well, that's about all for now! I don't think this weekend will be quite as nice...and I'll be at their house ALL day Saturday. We may have to plan an indoor outing :)

~K~

New Haircut!

I finally went and did it (I've been debating it for a long time!). I got my hair cut. I also went to a stylist I'd never been to before who, as it turned out, didn't speak English. Yeah. I found that out about halfway through my cut. The style turned out, more or less, how I wanted...I think it's a little uneven at the back, but whatever...it'll grow, right? The guy was also very involved and that fact made me an hour late for dinner in Airdrie. Oops. I also blame the lateness on the fact that before I got my hair cut, my bank card got lost in the bank machine...but that's another story.

Front:

Back:
(Check out the crazy tan/sunburn line on my right arm. That's what working outside in short sleeves will do to a person. During my days off I'll have to wear tank tops and hang out outside a LOT to even things out!)

That's all for now, I guess!

~K~