At the bunk house

At the bunk house
Originally uploaded by theanykey

I may or may not have been on a train, and may or may not have taken this photo.

I admit nothing.

: )

Went for a drive with Chris, around Edson, led all the way through back roads and ended up in Hinton. It was a beautiful drive, even with the eleven or twelve storms we drove through or past in the whole day. We stopped a few times to take pictures, check out a few things, and the picture was one of the cooler things.

The picture is taken from inside the cab of the train. Facing out from the chair / desk area for the Conductor (left side). The Engineer gets to sit on the right side, and there's a ton of buttons and switches and levers. No wonder they go through all of that training.

There's more to driving trains than just forward and reverse. Like a tool, the person who took the photos didn't get any pics of the engineers side, or the cab, really. It may or may not have been me.

Either way, I uploaded a ton of new photos on my flickr page. (Link on the right).
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I went for my first dress fitting last week in EDM, and am even more excited now that I see how well it is going to fit me... : )

AND, the jewelry I got to go with it look like it was MEANT to go with the dress, so that just made the whole trip that much better!
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Apparently while I was in Edmonton for the day (not even a full 12 hours gone), Marley made a huge fuss and was acting panicky and Chris brought her outside. As I was told by Chris, she dragged him straight towards the front curb, and walked up and down the sidewalk, looking for my car, whining.

Such a sweetie. She's really smart sometimes, and surprises us with very blond 'moments' sometimes.

Right now she's digging up a blanket, on a chair, trying to make it more comfortable, and almost fell off. Oh yeah, real smart. Real blond.
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We got the apartment set up great last month, unpacked a lot of stuff, and now, we are probably moving back to H-town. The Mountain town.

And we're moving right before the wedding.

Right after the shower, in Cold Lake.

So, yeah. I'll be distracted right up until the wedding. That should help with the stress!

Anyone want to help us move? We have much less stuff this time.

; )

Just kidding. We're probably good. As long as The Moving Company is better this time around.

Oh, god, I hope the MC is better this time.

...
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Dad's b-day party was awesome. I had a great time in CL, usually I go home more stressed out than when I arrived, but not this time.

(Thanks, Mom!)

The hot tub was great, and even though I used no sunscreen, I didn't get burnt at all after being in it for a few hours two days in a row.

And then, totally not thinking, on my last day, I went outside into the noon sun wearing a short sleeved shirt, helped Dad sort some bottles and stuff, and burned my arms, neck, face, and chest.

And then the drive home the next day, the sun was beating down on my arm the whole way home, and felt like it was against a hot griddle. I ended up covering my arm with my jacket, even though the car was HOT...

Oh, well. I put lotion on the burns every time they itched*, and it didn't even do the peeling thing. Now I have a nice colour on most of my arms, but it is still a pretty bad farmer's tan. And very noticeable when I am wearing my wedding dress. Going to have to figure out a way to fix this. : )

*6 or 7 times a day
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Everyone remember what happened to Pookie? Almost had a repeat in CL.

Joy and I went out the Saturday I was in Cold Lake, went to get a couple of bottles of wine...

When I got back I heard that Marley had run out of the front door while some guests were arriving (exactly why I tried to lock her in the bedroom). She almost got hit by a truck, and some people ran after her, and she ran back to the house after the guy driving the truck honked the horn.

I was kind of in shock after I was told by Dad, and I was glad there wasn't very many people around me, because it took everything I had not to break down.

All of the same feelings that I felt when Pookie was killed came rushing back, and I managed to hold it together enough to get downstairs with Marley.

I called Chris, and once it started ringing, I lost it. I barely managed to tell Chris what happened, and eventually, I calmed down enough to go back upstairs.

Marley wasn't comfortable around the amount of strangers that were there, so I left her in the basement bedroom with the door closed. I went down a few times through the evening and she was sleeping on the pillow each time.

Later on after only a few people were still over, I brought Marley upstairs, and she still stayed really close to me, and then sneaked* back downstairs again anyway.

*Did you know "snuck" isn't a word?

I got a lot of comments on Marley's weight: she's terribly skinny.

We keep her food dish full, she eats like a cow, drinks plenty of fluids, and unless she has a full coat, her ribs are visible from 200 feet away. She looks like we don't feed her, and yet we feed her PLENTY.

(VERY rarely she gets a human food treat, but that's mostly limited to either special occasions when we have Really Good Food, or when we are in Cold Lake. Because it's hard not to feed Patches, and you have to feed Marley if you feed Patches.)

She was about 5 pounds when we got her, she's now about 8 to 8 and a half most days. (If she's just eaten a ton of food, then she's closer to 9.)

And even at 9 pounds, she looks like she needs to eat. I think her goal weight will be 11 lbs.

And unless we give her a ton of snausages, I doubt she'll reach it until she gets older.
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Oh, and after we move and get a good fence up in the front yard, we're going to think about getting her a friend...

:)