Rally Point???

In grade 9 gym I spent hours studying the rules. I had it figured out that if I got 100% in participation and in the written portion I could pass the class. My teacher even told me that knowing the rules would help me in real life because I could be scorekeeper for work intermurals.

Last night I was scorekeeper for the Corporate Challenge volleyball tournament. So there I was scoring away using the rules I learned in High School. All of a sudden, time outs are being called and people are freaking out. No one was yelling, but that's because you get kicked out if you yell, but you could tell they were doing some serious suppressing. It turns out that the rules for scoring have changed since 1990. Now it is Rally Point. After a quick lesson in new scoring rules, I was good to go.

But this does prove what I always suspected, that high school gym was completely pointless for me.

Blogging incompetent

I'm a blogging incompetent. I can't figure out how to add pictures to my posts. Every time I try, they all end up at the top and I want them after specific paragraphs. I have no problem figuring out complex manipulations to millions of rows of data, but this is completely beyond me. So to all my blogging expert friends, please send me some instructions.

My Pilgrimage to Southern Alberta

Since I moved to Edmonton seven years ago, whenever I played the game about three strange facts about yourself, I would always say that I had never been to Southern Alberta. People would be shocked and would usually reply with "But the temple is there!" There is also a temple a 12 minute walk from my house, so why on earth would I drive 6 hours to attend the temple. Anyway, this weekend was the Victoria Day long weekend, so my friend Karen and I headed south for my first ever trip to the Mormon Mecca of Alberta: Cardston. Some interesting facts/impressions about Southern Alberta.

1. No mormon shall live within 20 miles of the City of Lethbridge. This law is still in effect.
2. The largest LDS seminary outside the Utah/Idaoh corridor is in Lethbridge.
3. The small towns surrounding Lethbridge were settle by saints sent by John Taylor on settling missions.
4. There seems to be an attitude of "the Prophet sent my family, from our beloved Utah, north and I'm going no further north ever!!!!!"
5. There seems to be an attitude that Southern Alberta is the "other" Zion.
6. It's really windy.

I met my friend Karen 13 years ago in Ottawa when I was dating her nephew. Last year she moved into my ward and we've become close friends.
This is me; Wanda, Karen's sister; Karen; Brother and Sister Bennett, Karen's parents. This is after we went to the temple. What makes the Cardston Temple unique is that as you move through the temple towards the centre, the wood gets darker. Most temples, the rooms get lighter towards the centre. The windows do get larger, to allow more light in to try to counter act the effect of the dark wood. The reason for the darker wood is because it is more luxurious. In the celestial room the tassels on some of the curtains are made out of real gold. It truly amazes me what people sacrificed to build the temple. I sometimes wonder if one of the trials that we have now is the ease with which temples are now built.

After the temple, we headed to Waterton National Park.

Wanda being crazy in the car again. I'm starting to think that women without their kids are the most crazy people out there.

Wanda almost getting blown away.

This waterfall will be almost a trickle by the end of the summer. The mist is icy cold, because the water is from glacier run off, plus the weekend before there was a huge dump of snow. The smell of snow melting, and things starting to grow is purely divine. I wish I could somehow capture it. It would be the perfect pick me up in the dead of winter.

More of me getting blown to bits. This is a glacier lake. Apparently, this is a very calm day.

I love how the wild life just marches into the town site. We went into this furrier and had fun trying on coats that we clearly can't afford. And lest you judge about the whole fur thing, try waiting for the bus at -40F/C plus wind chill. This is some of the snow still left just outside of the town site. One of the great parts about Alberta is that it can be 20C and still have snow on the ground.

We also went to a Hudderite colony on Sunday. It was very interesting. For the most part, they keep to themselves and as a result there are all sorts of rumours and nutty lies about them. One of which is that they don't believe in taking pictures. Which is why I didn't take my camera. Imagine my surprise when they pulled out wedding photos. They told me I could come back because I asked so many questions and clearly had more. They told the Bennet's that most people come and just stand there and say nothing.

It was a great trip.

The Perils of a Busy Life

I have season tickets to the Opera and about a month ago was looking for someone to go with. So when my visiting teacher asked if there was anything she could do for me, I asked her to set me up. She came through big time and I had a great time with Nathan. Afterwards, he told her he was going to call me to ask me out and then there was nothing. I had pretty much written him off. You can imagine my surprise when he called tonight to ask me out for Wednesday night, but I have my last sewing class Wednesday. Then Nathan asks for for Tuesday night, but I'm doing math tutoring. (I exchange math tutoring for cleaning). I could hear in his voice that he thought I was just brushing him off. I tried to reassure him that that wasn't the case. So he asks for Thursday night and I have to go visiting teaching. After 3 tries, he gave up, which means that now I have to come up with something to do so I can ask him out, so he knows that I'm interested. I also had this awful realization that I'm busy every Friday and Saturday night for the next 3 weekends. Urg!!!

A special movie night

I just got back from the best friday night and I had to write right away. In my primary (sunday school) class, we have a goal to read from our scriptures every day and to complete the reading for our lesson each week. We get stickers for effort and additional ones for completion. After someone gets 30 stickers, they get to do one free activity of their choice with me. As luck would have it, Zoe, one of the girls in my class, and I both got 30 stickers at the same time. So we did home pizza and popcorn and a movie, The Chronicles of Narnia, at Zoe's house. Zoe showed me this very dangerous book called "The Girls book: How to be the Best at Everything" What makes in sooooo dangerous is the section on "How to persuade your parents to let you have a pet." And it works! And Zoe has the hampster to prove it. She was very understanding about me not wanting to touch it. We got a little carried away with talking about books. I love watching movies by myself, but there is something extra special about having someone's feet touch your leg or putting your arm around them and snuggling in to stay warm. At the end of the movie, when Aslan crowns the children and gives them their titles. I asked Zoe, what she would prefer to be known as: valiant, just, gentle or magnificant. She picked gentle and I would agree. The world needs more gentleness and Zoe is definitely going to provide that. Since I don't own a car, her mum drove me home and told me that Zoe had had a hard week and that our night together was something she had looked forward to. It was another example about how the Lord puts you in the right place to bless someone and then blesses you ten fold more for just being there. Spending time with Zoe filled up my soul and reminds me why I'm so grateful I get to go to primary.