~Hello from Grande Prairie!!!~

So I'm at my sister Mary's house in Grande Prairie for the night and thought I would take the opportunity to jot a quick note on here to bring you all up to speed!

So we left Calgary on Monday afternoon around 5pm. I had my final dr appt with the specialist re: my blood pressure, everything from all the tests came back normal, there is nothing medically wrong with me that is causing it so he determined that I have what is called essential hypertension. Not curable, I just have to continue to take the medication and watch it. So I'm a bit sad that nothing can be done but I guess I'll just be thankful that it isn't really impacting my quality of life, I could have worst problems. We got took on our damage deposit for our condo. They say that we didn't do a good enough job cleaning it (It was a pig pen when we moved in) so they are charging us for a full cleaning as well as a carpet cleaning. I have no numbers as to how much it will be but I'm guessing that it will run around $400-500, a nice little racket they have going on there. I know that no one will go in to clean anything, they will just keep the money and do nothing. It sucks. Oh well.

So we drove to Whitecourt on the first day and stayed at a seedy motel where we could sneak Tigger into the room with us. They give you a coupon for a free breakfast in the morning at the restaurant but I figured it would be a cheap one. You could either get the free breakie or $4 off any menu item. So we went in and she told me that the free breakfast was ham, eggs, toast and hashbrowns. I was suprised that it would include all that but still expected a cheap one. Nope! I got - get this - three eggs, two pieces of ham, two toast, and a huge pile of hashbrowns, I couldn't eat it all!!! For free!!! I was stoked!!!

We left Whitecourt and made it to Grande Prairie by 9:30am where we stopped at Mary's for a half and hour then headed out for Fort Nelson. What a Looooonnnnggggg boring drive!!! Not the most scenic and actually quite flat. I expected a scary mountain drive but it's all flat and gorgeous roads. We saw a whole lot of deer, around 5 or 6 elk and two GRIZZLY BEARS!!!! We were totally excited about the grizzlys' we've kept a look out for them for years and you never see them in the wild but we saw two!!! They were gorgeous and HUGE!!! I wish I had my camera in my lap because we were pulling the trailer and we couldn't stop fast enough to get a pic because the camera was in the backseat. Oh well, next time.

We pulled into Fort Nelson and a couple of strapping young guys off the crew came and helped Randy unload the trailer. Thank goodness for them!!! Randy was so tired and sore I was so worried that he would be stuck doing it all himself. It only took them like 45 mins to unload and I unpacked what I could as they brought it up. After we took them out to supper to Boston Pizza. It was so good. Mind you dirt would have tasted good after that long day.

We spent Wednesday unpacking and cleaning up for the most part. We went to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things. The prices on most stuff is reasonable but the meat is priced ridiculous!!! It is like $15 for a sirloin steak, $12 for a pack of pork chops and I couldn't even bring myself to see what the price of chicken breasts were. After groceries we picked up some movies, set up the tv, and sat back and watched 3 movies. It was so nice just to chill and watch movies. We had to stay up until midnight to do security on the building for Halloween so it worked out well.

So today we drove back to GP to return the Hummer and the trailer and pick up our Equinox. The plan was to go right back tomorrow but we want to hit a couple of stores and we didn't get a chance to tonight so we'll have to stay and do it tomorrow. We are definatly going to Costco to stock up on some meat given the prices in Fort Nelson and Randy wants to go to Home Depot. Tomorrow is my nephew Cole's 5th birthday as well so we can get to spend some of it with him.

We had Toyko Ichiban (sushi) for supper tonight. Well I had California rolls and tempura and Randy and Mary had sushi. We went to Safeway to get Cole's birthday cake and I had to have these huge dbl choc chip cookies so I've ate two of them since we got home and could throw up right now!!!

Ohhh I almost forgot the funny story!!! Well... I think it's funny...Randy doesn't. We decided that we should wash the Hummer and trailer before we returned them so we stopped at a large truck wash here in GP. Randy went in to find out how we could pay. The only door is on the far left side of the building and the office is on the far right inside the building. This means that you have to walk past all the trucks that are being washed and get sprayed as you walk by. Not bad...usually. Unfortunatly for Randy today was the day that someone decided to wash their manure spreader.... so a stinky splash and spray of water later here comes Randy.... with steam coming out of his ears. He was covered with cow crap!!! I laughed because I thought it was kind of funny...despite the fact that I almost puked from the smell. But I could see the humor in it. He didn't and strangly enough, still has not. He's still a bit bitter about it. He was ripe though, wooooo-heeeee!

The place in Fort Nelson isn't that bad. It is free after all. The carpets are green the walls are stippled and it's small but it's cozy. I have my own little scrapping nook I've made in the storage room. It'll work perfect. Once everything is unpacked I'll post some pics. It's a disaster right now. We had to buy a tv stand because the cart we were using broke, and we want to get a desk because the table we brought with us is too big to use in this apt. It'll come together, it always does.

So that's all i know for now. I'll post some pics and stuff when I get internet up there. Probably next week sometime. Plus I start my new job next week so that will be something to talk about!
Have a great weekend, don't forget to roll your clocks back on Nov 4th!!!