Lovely Sky Outside our house

This crazy, pretty sky was all around us Friday morning and even this picture fails to capture the many hues of colour. Though this side of the road was the strongest. Love the big sky and dramatic colours we get here on the prairies!

Alberta Beauty and Diversity

Though I am from Vancouver, Beautiful British Columbia, and enjoy visiting my family there often; Alberta has been my home for the past 22 years. Over the last year I was fortunate to land a temporary contract position where I took visiting student groups to some of the highlight attractions around Calgary. Though we went to many amazing places,  just a few are depicted here.

Banff Springs Hotel

View from lookout Banff Valley

Lookout Summit Banff, Levis Vargas From Venezuela

Carburn Park

There is a lovely Bench here to sit and read and look out over the pond at Carburn Park

Took this shot again at Carburn Fall 2014, love walking here alone or with a friend

View of Downtown Calgary from Lynnview Ridge close to my House

This shot also of the river at Lynnview Ridge near my house, love our neighbourhood!

The Hoodoos, near Drumheller,  Alberta

Some of the students climbed to the top of the rocky ridge, what a thrill shouting to us below 

Some rented canoes on Lake Louise

Beautiful colours of this fantastic Lake Louise, Alberta

Johnson Canyon, Alberta

Lake Minnewanka, Alberta

My son and I love the drive from Calgary to Banff or all the way to BC on Highway 1, the scenery never fails to leave you amazed, brilliant in any season; my son even painted a picture of it.

Back of Banff Springs Hotel

This is a picture of my son in Springbank

Till next time hope you come back soon!

All of my photos are copywrited and require my permission to reuse, thank you!

Yesterdays walk along the ridge by the river

 There were actually people fishing in the river

 It was a balmy 8C so perfect for a winter walk

Compare these to last month before the first snow came

 Love the autumn colours

This time we enjoyed a long and warm autumn, only one early snow fall in September unfortunately broke many trees and power lines here in Calgary.  See the Chinook Arch in the clouds.

Sunset on the ridge so pretty!

Halloween fun, Falling Leaves and my latest Good Read.......

Here in Calgary we have enjoyed an amazingly mild Fall so far.  With the exception of a freak 3 day snow event in September that left our city's trees  broken and a mess of power lines down, up until Halloween, we even had 18C, the trick or treaters, normally put their costumes on top of coats, toques etc; this year a light jack was enough.

I enjoyed many walks with my friend including the above at Carburn Park in Calgary, one of my favourite spots.  The leaves around the small lake are particularly pretty.

One of my daughters costumes

Some spidey decor action and the treat bowl ready for the trick or treaters

Carved pumpkins with my daughter

Such fun decorating the front of the house and putting out orange lamps and lanterns

Need to work on the carving skills!

Another costume Minnie Mouse is in the House

Son and friends did a theme take on the Kokanee beer commercials with the Sasquatch and Kokanee girls, what a riot, they got third prize at Ranchmans!

Sample Beer Commercial 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Oac1y__jY

So what am I reading at the moment? Several books it turns out, but a biography that I am enjoying is Losing it by Valerie Bertinelli.

I particularly like the genre that relates to Rock Wives/stories. Like the book by Pattie Boyd Wonderful Tonight, there are many parallels like the wife not getting what she needs, drugs and booze, or some other addiction overtaking the rocker, and a thread similar to both stories of sadness despite the fame and fortune.

In Valerie Bertinellis case, a problem with self image and not feeling good enough, obsessing about weight (despite being very low weight) because in Hollywood, the expectation and yardstick for what is considered normal or low weight, is quite different to the norm for the rest of us.  By always being on camera, or criticised by the press or trash rags, theirs is a different hell or stressful situation, though still there are similarities that we can all relate to.

I can't imagine the pain from infidelity, mostly with the rocker in the circumstances of being on the road, women throwing themselves at them, the drugs, the booze, the stress of relationships and egos between band members, managers and contracts being unfair to the very hard working rockers, it seems they do pay a very high price for their fame in more ways than one. For the rest of us at least, suffering these things at least is private instead of being in the spotlight on top of the pain.

Happiness is short lived, and relationships, like in the real world are challenging. For the most part the same issues as with relationships in the non famous persons world are the same. Not paying enough attention to the partner/spouse, lack of intimacy, allowing the addictions to booze, drugs, their work or other things, or types of infidelity, plague the marriage. In Valerie's case, there is a happy ending in that they have a son who is now part of the band, what a gift for Eddie VH, and a great joy for Valerie, and she finds joy with her second husband, something you don't often see in famous people's stories, as does Eddie.  Also she realizes her battle with self image and weight has a lot to do with her needs not being met in her relationships, a lesson that many people need to learn, instead of blaming ourselves when things go array, we need to savour each moment, find the good in the lesson, see it for what it really is and try to honor each other, and try to find what is really going on.

Here are some great interviews and insights into Van Halen talking about their early years, as well as a neat recording of an "unplugged" type session with Wolfie VH, Valerie and Ed's son, together with Alex VH and David Lee Roth. L:ooking forward to Valeries other book, Finding It.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoXYiG0t_H0&index=4&list=RDEXeYL0zVDzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfW4O0IKM_U