A visit

Stampede started July 2nd and we were there. Sneak a Peak night is Thursday and a friend of ours band "Seventh Rain" was playing at the coke stage. Logan and I met up with Jen and her cousin as well as Lindsay and Dan to watch the show. They were the opening act and after meeting up with Phil the drummer we moved into the Cantina next to the stage for a drink where we were met by Nicolle Montague, a friend from Regina, and her boyfriend Brad who is a friend of Dan's.

We had planned on going again a couple of times that week but the weather was so bad that I wasn't interested.

Matt flew into Calgary on Wednesday afternoon and we had an opportunity to catch up.

Mom and Dad drove in Thursday after work.

We all went out to Stampede on Friday night. It was busy as hell as it was the first nice day during all of Stampede. We walked about, checking out the sights, sounds and food. And ended up at that same Cantina by the coke stage.

Saturday Mom and Dad went to the George Strait concert (the reason for the trip). We took Matt out for a drink.

While everyone was together, something extremely rare these days, we took some family photos.

Sunday we had the entire Uncle Gord family over for dinner. We cooked up Rotisserie BBQ Roast Beef (that I marinated overnight and was delicious) and all of the fixings, including a spinach strawberry salad from my garden. Sangria was the cocktail of choice.

Did took it easy for the rest of the week. Matt went home on Monday. Logan went off to work. Mom and Dad and I hung out. It was nice, relaxing and different from most of the usually "jam it into 3 days" kind of trips.

On one of our days we went out shopping. I wanted to look at vacuums. Our current vacuum is broken. The plate on the bottom is plastic and broke off and if you aren't careful the bristles will burn into the floor (kinda like I did to the lino in the bathroom). I wanted something that I could use on the hardwood as our whole main floor is wood. But doing my research I learned that what most vacuums consider a "bare floor" function can actually scratch the wood. This function just lowers the vacuum to the floor, even if you stop the brush it will still brush along the floor. I wanted something that was just as good for floor and carpet. If you want that you are looking at $600. So we started looking at a hardwood vacuum and a carpet vacuum. Try to find something reasonable without bells and whistles. We were successful.

Bissell Versus for the hardwood. Build exclusively for bare floors and low pile area rugs.

For the carpet we found this Bissell Healthy Home. It was the floor model, no box and missing the bristle tool and "turbo brush". A $350 vacuum that we bought for $160. It was awesome that Mom and Dad picked this up as an addition to our Anniversary gifts. They also brought with them padded folding chairs (that we have used every day since they brought them) and a handmade (by mom) Afghan.

On Wednesday night Logan's Uncle Earl was in town. He came over, as well as Lindsay and Dan, and he cooked us BBQ Greek Ribs. It was another great meal.

On Thursday Leah and Marc and their little one Robyn joined us. They were just here for the night and Friday. Leah and I were friends from University and Marc and Dan were friends from University. Lindsay and Dan joined us for drinks after supper. We had a nice night of visiting.

Friday, My Birthday, we hung out on the deck. The first really hot day in weeks. We pulled out the kiddie pool and Robyn and Charlie had a great time. The birthday girls request of a classy meal of McDonald's was a birthday lunch.