More Atlanta and a Trip to the Zoo

I can't believe it's been a week since we've been home! Kind of surreal, but nice. It's so much cooler here than it was in Atlanta.
D in front of the Philips Arena. He was in heaven being this close to these sports places. (I would have rather gone to see something historic!) I must admit though, that seeing the Olympics stuff was very interesting.

The CNN Tour included a trip up this unbelievably high escalator. We didn't go on the tour - but I'm thinking that Atlanta folks are big fans of really long escalator rides. I think this one goes up five floors.

This was in the front lobby of the CNN building.

The Monday night banquet and some of the folks we sat with. The couple on the left were Canadians too from Ontario. In the middle is Jenny, our supervisor from our fostering agency. So sweet! Great food, great new friends and entertainment watching people do new dances I'd never seen before.

Here are the 3 from Calgary again. What a fun evening! If we ever get to go again, we'll remember to "dress up" for the banquet portion.

Did you know Coca Cola (can't say "Coke" in Atlanta) came from Atlanta? Me neither! But here I am enjoying a blistering hot bronzed version with it's inventor, John Pemberton. HOT! HOT DAY!

I guess if you take the "Coca Cola" tour through their museum, you can taste how different Coke is all over the world. We didn't take that tour either. Atlanta was REALLY EXPENSIVE if you are a tourist!

I took some cool shots from the plane rides home, but looking at them makes me feel all woozy all over again. I've decided I don't really like flying and I certainly don't like TURBULENCE! So I'll spare you the airsick feeling...

We had only been home a couple of days when we were visited by D's sister and 4 of her 5 + a friend. The kids were very excited to all visit with their cousins - while V and T were excited to meet their new cousins! We decided to drop a truckload of money again to take kids to the Calgary Zoo. D and I had forgotten that, while the Calgary Zoo is a world class facility, we don't really enjoy walking around with kids that don't listen and want us to spend even more money on the incredibly expensive food that they sell there. We've agreed we will not go again until we have grandchildren that are old enough to enjoy it, but young enough to listen!

We did see some great sights though. The peacocks are free to roam anywhere they'd like at the zoo. I'd never seen a mama with her chicks before. I do know that these things will chase and bite you if you get to close - so we let them pass without bothering them. Well, most of us did... back to the no listening thing again.

This is a picture of the last Ray to survive the mysterious Ray Deaths from last year. These are actually very cool animals! Beautiful to watch them gliding through the water.

Boy, did we get an elephant education this time! The male is "in musk" at the zoo and two of the females are "ready and waiting". You can imagine the kids faces when the male dropped what looked like a 5th appendage and proceeded to scratch his belly with it. I think the "big guy" was just showing off! The boys are still talking about it. (Picture X-rated - not available for showing on this blog.)

"Dinny" the Dinosaur first moved to the Calgary Zoo in 1937. I think he is still in the same spot! He was declared an Alberta Historical Resource in 1987. I remember playing on him as a kid and like me, he's showing a bit of his age.

This is a picture of all the kids in the Prehistoric Park. I think it was the only time they were sitting still and it wasn't for very long!

T posing for me with a cool bear statue in the North American Exhibit.

Just some good advice in the South American Exhibit. That place took me right back to Georgia with all the humidity and heat! Had to get out just to breathe again.

Thought I'd end with the picture of the glorious lunch my DH packed for us. Despite it's appearance - it was delicious and I love him for thinking ahead!

Three Things I'm Grateful For:

1. The cooler weather. I never thought I'd be so happy to be cool.

2. DD bought her first car yesterday! This means I get my van back!! YAY!!

3. Kids actually listening to our discussion about being respectful and showing us that they CAN do it when they try. Sort of...

Back from Atlanta!

We had such a great time! Despite the flights, my fear of flying and the turbulence on the planes... I took so many photos of really cool things its hard to narrow them down.

This was a very cool moving sidewalk under the tarmac at Chicago Ohare. Seriously! We were moving around under the planes!! Huge airport! Had to ride this one to get from our landing gate to our takeoff gate. We kept checking our gate numbers, because airlines have a way of changing gates without warning. We got to ride this ride twice - because they did change our gate and it was on the other side of the airport.

Loved this dinosaur in the airport too. We spent 4 hours on a layover there... I hate that it wasn't long enough to leave the airport and see more of Chicago - however, it was great if you are a people watcher... and I am!

From Chicago we flew into Atlanta. Rough ride!! I swear the plane dropped and I flew out of my seat. I hate rides at the Stampede so this was no fun for me! Once in Atlanta, we took the "MARTA" to the hotel. We didn't know that Atlanta is close to being the number one crime city in the US. At least that's what their own newspapers say. Thankfully the train took us almost to the front door of the hotel. I will also add that Atlanta had the cleanest subway I've ever been on - and that includes Calgary's! Beautiful city - really, really beautiful!

Have I mentioned the heat! I've never experienced humidity like that before. It was hard to breathe. I loved the air conditioned buildings and spent most of my time indoors.

THIS was the escalator we had to take to get to street level from the train. I swear 4 or 5 stories high - it took a very long time to get to the top. The walls were freaky too. They were parallel to the angle of the escalator and if I looked at them riding up or down, I got dizzy. Turns out we were about 80' to 100' underground. Yikes!

I don't know if this shows up very well, but behind us the whole tunnel was rock that had been carved out for the train. Very cool! I mean very hot... the temperature was hot even that far underground.

This one was at the arts centre stop.











This is just one of the cool views from inside the hotel.

I guess I should mention the actual conference we attended. We were representing our agency at the Foster Family-based Treatment Association (FFTA). We took classes on The Hurting Foster Child, Building Rapport with Adolescents, Conflict Resolution through Trust Building, Behaviors, and FASD Placements and Supports, as well as 3 keynote speakers. All were EXCELLENT and we learned so much! It was great to network with people from Ontario, all over the US, Scotland, Australia, Bermuda and Hong Kong.

I know that I walked away with a completely different perspective on many issues, as many of our presenters had been foster kids at one time. Some fail, some succeed - but that was all dependant on the influence of their foster parents. I hadn't really thought about what happens to these kids after they "age out" - but now we know! We actually felt like we had some insight and experiences that could be shared with others in our workshops. All in all it was very empowering.


We came home with a wealth of information, highly motivated and inspired and ready to take on a new venture... we have decided we want to work toward becoming trainers/presenters ourselves! We want to be the kind of parents and foster parents that influence kids for good. We're already working on our first presentation for our agency that we will give this fall - and we're so excited for this chance!

I've got more pictures - but I'll save them for another day. I'm beat!

Three Things I'm Grateful For -

1. Getting back home safely and being met by my ever-lovin' family at the airport. I'd missed them!
2. The chance at a great education opportunity (for fostering AND diversity) in Atlanta. I almost perfected my Georgia accent while there too.
3. A loving and supportive husband. It was so nice to spend a week with just him.
   

Lazy Days of Summer... NOT!

Ah remember the lazy days of summer? Being a kid and watching as much TV as you want... playing outside, riding your bike... I remember doing all those things as a kid. We had cable, but that meant 12 channels and 2 of them were French. You could hardly find me anywhere near my house! How things have changed...

We have over 200 cable channels - and nothing worth watching is on. We have video games, which appears to be a great source of contention and name calling. Note on this one - girls are not nearly as interested in participating in this one as the boys are - at least at our house. The bikes are sitting outside, ready for use and no one wants to use them. Sigh...

How many more weeks until camp #2 takes place??!!

Yesterday we spent a grand total of 3 hours in Urgent Care! 3 hours people!! For a toe!! V bumped it (he doesn't know on what) and cut it open. It looked worse than I could bandage up so we took him in. This system has got to change!

First you have to STAND IN LINE for triage. Hello! If you are sick or injured, how can you stand and wait your turn??!! And since we had blood dripping all over the place, shouldn't we have taken precedence over the headache person??!!

Once someone has assessed you, you get to sit in a waiting room until you are called to be "admitted". Then you get to sit and wait until a bed is available. By this point we've been in there for a half hour already.

We get called into a room and wait who knows how long before a nurse shows up!!! Good luck on the stitches if you need them - we've already started the healing process by now!

We wait another 20 minutes for a doctor to show up. She spends a grand total of 1 minute looking at his toe, decides no stitches (no kidding!) but wants him bandaged up before we leave. Wait another 20 minutes for the nurse to come back.

They bring a big bowl of water and want him to soak his filthy foot in it. By this time, I'm losing it! Too bad - we can't leave until it gets bandaged up and that's not going to happen until he soaks his foot. THEN we have to wait for the ortho specialist to come wrap him up!

Here is what we got out of the morning in ER. Little bit fuzzy at V took it himself. Poor little guy was in so much pain and is still hopping around on one foot this morning. Super strong! I've never seen someone hop up and down stairs on one leg like he does. As expected though, the bandage didn't make it through the night.


Countdown has begun for our Atlanta trip. Kids and sitters are all lined up. Packing has begun and the tickets are waiting at the airport. I've always wanted to see the deep south US and this may be my one and only chance! Woo hoo! We're taking the camera so hope to have oodles of pics to show when we get back.


That's also when we start phase two of the painting projects in the basement... back to work...

Best part of my day - Sleeping in until 9:00 a.m.! I never get to do this! :)

Worst part of my day - Picking up my mother at the airport at 1:00 a.m. (Why I got to sleep until 9:00 a.m.)

Three things I'm grateful for -

1. Mom is home safe and sound.
2. Carpet is down and we're loving the new digs downstairs!
3. DD's crap is out of my living room and moved to the new digs downstairs.