a final look at alberta

this past week has been an adventure in and of itself, never mind all the little trips taken in between job interviews and packing. however, we have managed to make our way up to southern alberta bible camp, where a lot of the youth from the church are serving for the summer and then out to calgary to meet up with our friends shauna and scott for a day at the zoo.

lets start with sabc.
camp for myself has always happened on the island...which means trees, water (ocean or lake) and, well at least trees! our visit out to sabc had me with my mouth wide open and saying "what do these kids do here" by the time we arrived. about an hour out of lethbridge this camp offers week get aways for youngsters of all ages...and they love it. regardless of the different landscape, it was neat to watch another camp in action and remember how much i have been taught in my own camp years. the youth who knew scott were really excited to see him and it was a great opportunity to say goodbye to them and encourage them in their ministry.

the waterfront is the water hole for the neighboring farms.

so that was our day trip to the camp...

next was the day at the zoo zoo zoo (if you can imagine i sang this little song all night before we went...going to the zoo zoo zoo, oh the zoo zoo zoo! i am sure that scott loved it)

anyway, the zoo.
a place that i was a little surprised to see myself so excited about attending, but i really was. be it for the fact that i was looking forward to showing sophie the animals, or for the fact that we were able to hang out with some really great friends...or just an escape from the stresses of our little life, whatever it was, i was truly glad to have the chance to go to the zoo. a place that i have discovered offers refuge for many animals that are threatened in their real habitat, such as the tiger. as of right now, there are more tigers in captivity than there are in the wild and it is estimated that within the next decade that there will be none left in the wild. how crazy is that, that we as a people are willing to lose one of the greatest wild cats in history...are you serious...perhaps we are just uneducated...but i don't think that is the case...and i know that we care...what are we doing?
my lesson from the zoo...that camels hold water in their humps...i had no idea, scott thought that was pretty funny considering he knew and i didn't...in regards to the water packs that many hikers carry, he said "thats why they are called camel packs cor... hee hee hee" who knew...
scotts joy came from watching the gorilla sit and eat rice with his fingers. it was truly amazing to watch this huge gorilla scoop the rice chunks to the edge of the dish and then pick them up and place them into his hand to eat...crazy how like our hands they are, how they move and look.
and sophie, well, she was awake for the whole day and i would say that her least favorite...or perhaps mine...was at the cougar cage. when she started to cry and the cougars who were asleep until now, perked their ears up and then opened their eyes and came as close to my little girl as possible with eyes fixed on her...and they would not move...they held their stare on sophie for as long as we were there...a little uneasy...time to move on...!
we really enjoyed our day with scott and shauna, we have been blessed to have friends from our past close enough to play with. they truly have been a great couple for scott and i as we enjoy them as individuals and as a couple.
so, these have been our days...
tomorrow the movers come and by friday we will be packed and in our car heading for the coast. i am afraid that means no blogging for the next few days. so until then my fellow readers and writers.