I am not sure what I can say in my defence.  There always seemed to be something else we needed to do, or the weather was not good.  Finally, all the stars were aligned just perfectly, the sun was shining, we didn’t have any pressing business, so we were off.

I love the Rockies, but when I speak of “my mountains”, what I really mean are the mountains of the Ghost River valley, north west of Cochrane, up the forestry trunk road.  Kevin and I have been visiting this valley for the past 20 years, and I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is my favourite place on earth!!!  No other place makes me quite as happy as this area.  Let me explain, that the river, although beautiful, is likely not the MOST beautiful waterway on earth.  Because the river is routed towards Lake Minnewanka for the production of hydroelectricity, there are a lot of gravel berms, and such.  But, what the river lacks, the mountains more than make up for. 

The mountains in this area rise up from nowhere.  These are the front ranges, and their beauty affects me every time that I see them.  I have to tell you that today, I was nearly moved to tears….I really missed this place.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera.  I am not sure how.  It was all loaded up with fresh batteries and empty memory cards, and then it was forgotten on the kitchen counter.  I therefore have no pictures from today’s excursion.  However, I have many, many photos from the Ghost, and so I am going to dip into the archives to show you this incredible place.  You will see the kids looking a little young, and Mungo might look “de-aged”, but try to look past this to the beauty of the area. 

Mungo was beside himself today.  He got to run, off-leash, in a wonderful forest for hours and hours.  Tonight he is curled up on the couch, threatening to sleep for the next three days.

One of the most wonderful things about the Ghost area, are the sheer cliff that top nearly all the peaks.

Between peaks, in nearly every drainage, lurks a hidden waterfall.  All you have to do is pick a drainage, and you are sure to be rewarded every time.  We hadn’t been up the drainage we visited today for quite a while, and I had sort of forgotten what the fall was like.  I was surprised to find not only one fall, but two!  Amazing!!

This truly must be heaven on earth!

Now you have heard me complain about the hound before, but most times he is actually too smart and this gets him into trouble.  There is one thing that he does that does NOT put him in the “too smart” category. 

Occasionally, Mungo tries to “hide” something.  Usually it is something that he REALLY likes, but he just can’t consume it at the moment.  So he tries to hide rawhide strips and occasionally a really good toy.  Today, the item to hide was a stuffed toy.  It is actually a bear made out of alpaca fur (sorry Giulliana!)  Things with REAL fur make Mungo crazy.  So he will walk around for hours carrying the toy, and then eventually he gets tired of this carrying.  Instead of carrying it, he decided he should hide it or bury it, to prevent us from taking it.  I am not sure why we would like a slobbery, half eaten alpaca skin bear, but that is not the point. 

First he has to find the perfect place.  I am not sure what makes a place perfect, and once you watch the video, you will understand my confusion.  Something in his head tells him that a place is PERFECT and then it is time to start hiding!

As you can see, the toy is now perfectly hidden…you can’t even see it, right?  How about here, can you spot the toy now?!!

One day he decided to bury a rawhide right in the middle of my bed, not hiding under the covers or anything, just smack in the middle of the comforter.  The thing is once he figures it is hidden, he watches us.  If we look toward the toy or the rawhide, then he knows you can see it, he starts the hiding process all over again.  The day he “hid” the rawhide on the bed, the kids were under STRICT instructions to “not see the rawhide”, and thus it stayed “hidden” there for several hours.

Yup, that’s my dog…not the sharpest knife in the drawer, or the brightest tack in the box.  Phew…a night of “hiding” can tire a hound out!

AND…we have the added bonus of a hound dog for a personal trainer!  Whenever we head down to the “gym”, Mungo follows along to make sure that we are doing our exercises just perfectly. 

Make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades together during this row!

A little extra resistance will make those crunches much more productive!!

He calls this  yoga move “downward laying dog!”, which is sometimes followed by “downward laying dog, chewing a rope!”

Ah yes, with Mungo’s help, we will be back in our pre-trip shape in no time!!

I have not started working yet, and maybe that is the problem. I will start at my “one day a week job” at the beginning of August, but somehow, I don’t think one day a week will be enough to fill the void.

My options therefore are as follows:
1. Find another job, one that I go to more than once a week.
2. Find another part time job to add to the one day a week job.
3. Start my own clinic.

I can’t even believe that I put that out there for everyone to see, but there, now it’s out, there is no turning back. I have always resisted the urge to open my own clinic. I am not sure why, didn’t want to take responsibility for all the headaches, I think. Yet, here I am, contemplating just that move. Maybe I have finally grown up. Maybe I just want to do things my way, for once. Maybe I am too lazy to look for a REAL job.

Whatever the reason, I am currently talking to bankers and checking out locations. Sounds kind of serious. So all you Calgary pet owners, start thinking about visiting Dr. McLean in the hopefully near future. Most likely, I will be very happy for your business!!!

In minutes hail can cover the visible ground, so you think you are in the middle of winter.  Alternately, the hailstorms can be very large and often property, like vehicles and homes can be damaged by the falling projectiles. 

Since I have lived here all my life, hailstorms are nothing new, and the only thing that bothers me is that sometimes my plants get a bit beaten up by the nasty ice shards.  Hail, however, is not normal in other parts of the world, and I remember a Peruvian friend calling on the phone once, to exclaim, with great PANIC, that there was “ice falling from the SKY!!!”

Today’s storm was a doozy!!!  I was indoors and could not see the hail, but the sound inside the building was deafening.  When I got home, I found that there was still evidence of the hail.  Sara had run out immediately after the storm, to gather hailstones.  I got home almost an hour after the storm, and still found Sara’s stones looking like THIS!

Crazy Hail!!

The kids have both started on some dry land training to get them back “into shape” for skiing and biathlon training in the winter.  They are both enjoying themselves, and Sara even was muscle sore for the first time ever in her life.  Good, good, nice to know they are both back to their active selves. 

Sean grew so much in the year we were away, that he needed a new bike.  He hasn’t ridden less than 3 hours a day since we bought it.  It doesn’t hurt that his buddy, a few doors down, is willing to cycle all day as well. 

This week, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association has their annual convention, and this year, it happens to be in Calgary.  I decided to volunteer, since I have a little time on my hands, and so for four days, I have been hanging out at the Hyatt for 8 to 10 hours/ day.  I get to sit in on lectures when I am not busy, and it is good to be back in a “vet” environment!!  I have met a few old classmates and other friends from vet school, and it is always fun to “catch up”. 

I have been running around town on my scooter and although it is GREAT fun (I really missed my scooter!), I decided I should buy a car.  It is kind of hard to carry home improvement and gardening supplies on a scooter!  I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to buy, except that I figured I should get something used (you know being unemployed and all), I wanted something AWD (I have had an AWD since I was 19), an I didn’t want anything big.  I ended up buying another Subaru Forester.  Call me boring, my last 2 vehicles have been Subaru Foresters, but they just seem to suit me!  They are zippy, fun to drive, not too big, but big enough for a large ridgeback (or 2?)!

On the subject of a second dog…it is a distinct possibility.  Some days I think a second ridgeback would be great, and then sometimes (when Mungo is a particularly naughty hound), I think…"What am I thinking?”  Yesterday, houdini dog figured out how to get out of the front gate.  None of my dogs have EVER even thought about leaving the yard.  Everytime we think we have the yard secured, good old Mungo finds another “way out”.  So maybe the decision on whether or not we get another Ridgeback, will depend on whether we can “Alcatraz” the backyard, because knowing Mungo, he would hold the gate open while he led the new puppy on a new adventure!  I will keep you posted…I promise!

Yes, believe me, there are flowers hidden in that mountain of crabgrass, and today I started working on exposing them.  The proper way to do this would be to dig out the whole bed, save the flowers, remove all the crabgrass and roots, and then replace the flowers.  Unfortunately, it is too hot to do this at this time.  The right time to do this is the spring, so for now, I will pull crab grass for the whole summer, and I will do the “right thing” come next spring. 

I worked on this bed for about 7 hours today, and this is what it looks like now.

You can see all the “stuff” I pulled out still on the sidewalk.  I told you there were flowers in there!!  The only problem is that there are not as many flowers present as I remember.  I guess not all flowers can survive being strangled by crabgrass…go figure!!  The most surprising missing item is a clump of chives.  I say it is surprising, because I usually spend most of the summer trying to keep the chives under control, they keep trying to start new chive clumps. 

So now what?  I don’t know if I should put in more flowers, or just wait until next year after the purge?  Oh well, I guess I will decide once the rest of the yard is cleaned up. 

By the way, we have added a few new creatures to the house.  Sara and Sean are the proud new owners of two mice, Onyx and Titch.  Mungo is not quite sure what to make of these new creatures.  He watches them sometimes, but he also spends a fair amount of time inhaling them and licking the cage.  Needless to say, the mice are not left alone with him, YET!

So how is it?  First of all, I have to say that I really missed our own space.  Even when our own space was only the size of a little tiny camper, it was ours only.  I don’t mean to say that I did not enjoy my time with our family and friends, I did immensely, but there is something to be said for having your own “stuff” and your own space!!  I am very grateful to be back home. 

The house is in pretty good shape, and nothing seems to be damaged at all, which is a relief.  The house was in a “lived in “ state when we left, so we really didn’t expect too much damage.  We had to reorganize a bit, obviously another family may have their own ideas about decorating and organizing.  I think everything is more or less back in “place” now. 

I am quite sad about the state of my yard though.  I am pretty meticulous about my yard.  I have tried to make it as low maintenance as possible, but there is always things like weeding that need to be done.  I am sad to say that I have ALOT of work to do in the yard to get it back up to it’s former beauty.  I told the kids I would pay them a nickel for every dandelion plant they remove and I fully expect to dish out more than $20.00 for this.  I have one flower bed in the back yard, which is now nothing more than a bed of crabgrass.  I will have to dig out any saveable plant, destroy all the grass and replant the flower bed.  It will be a heck of a lot of work.  There are other maintenance things to do in the yard that I knew I would be coming back to, like trimming the hedge and pruning the trees.  All in all, I say I will be very busy this summer. 

On a good note, Mungo is in heaven.  He cannot believe that he is allowed to run around outside, without a leash, heck without even a human watching him.  We generally leave the back door of the house open all summer.  I like the fresh air and the dog can come and go outside as he pleases.  Apparently, he pleases, because the first day he kept running in and out, all the time wearing this foolish expression of GLEE.  There is a small part of the yard which is only “fenced” by a rather thick hedge.  Mungo had figured out a way through the hedge when he was young, and low and behold, he still remembered the escape route.  So on my list of things to do today, is to somehow prevent his escape into the neighbours yard. 

So all in all, not a bad homecoming.  I am glad that I am not rushing off to a job this morning, because I think I have enough to keep me busy for a while, but still, it is good to be HOME!!

We do have good news though, and that is that we will get back in our house on the 26th, instead of having to wait until July 1st. Yippee, only 3 more sleeps!!!

In the mean time, I have been able to start chatting with and seeing some of my friends. Some live close enough to walk to, and some I have only reconnected with by phone, but once I have some transportation…watch me go. My “summer ride”, a Yamaha scooter, is waiting for me in the garage. I can hardly wait to hop on that cool machine and go for a ride.

Kevin is working from home at this time, and next week he will start driving into the office. A year ago, I left two part time positions and I was hoping to return to these positions when I got back. I will be working shorter hours at one clinic and it seems the other clinic does not really require my services anymore, so I am very near unemployed. I am no really sure what I will be doing. I think I will worry about it once we are settled into the house again.

The kids have started reconnecting with their friends again. Sara was at her school at 8:30 the first morning back. She wanted to make fun of her friends, because they had to go to class and she didn’t. Trust my children to get in trouble in the shortest possible time. After she made fun of her friends, Sara decided to follow them in to the classroom to see what would happen. The school the kids attend is very small and so most people recognized her, except for her classmates’ teacher, who is new to the school. She noticed the “new girl” standing in the class and she asked Sara, “Who are you?”, to which my truly clever daughter replied, “I’m Sara!”. She probably rolled her eyes as well!! She was kicked out of the classroom at that time. She tried to hang around in the schoolyard, waiting for recess, but she was asked to leave here as well. Troublemaker!! Thank God she is going to junior high next year.

Anyway, just a few more days and the process of getting back to normal will be underway. I can hardly wait!!

Actually, I am kidding about the food!  We won’t be going back to our own house yet, but we will be in our home city.  I can’t wait!!!

We have spent the last few weeks on Kelowna reconnecting with family, and it felt more like home than anywhere we have been in the past year.  I have to admit, that I generally HATE the drive from Kelowna to Calgary.  I find it long and tedious, and actually stressful.  There are a lot of crazy drivers (you know…for Canada), along this road.  Today however, I was happy to take the drive, so I could see MY mountains (okay, maybe OUR mountains).  Man I missed these peaks.  My mom thinks I am a little nuts.  She says, to her, they are “just mountains”.  But look…, they are high and rocky and there are trees all around!!!!! 

We met a German couple when we were in Guatemala, that had already travelled through the Rockies on their overland journey.  When I asked them what they thought about the Rockies, they said that they got a little tired of seeing “all those trees all the time”.  One man’s “those trees”, are an Albertan girl’s “THOSE TREES!!!”.

Okay, maybe not everyone feels this way about the Rockies, and admittedly, before I was away from them for a WHOLE YEAR, they were just nice mountains to me too.  Now however, they will forever be know as the FABULOUS ROCKIES, in my eyes.