Blessing of Going to Church

Since our trip happened to go over the weekend, we decided to visit the Banff ward for the Sunday meetings. We literally received two blessings right away from going to church that day. There happened to be a special broadcast from Calgary with Jeffrey R. Holland as the speaker. The huge blessing was our surprise meeting with Cheryl and Lonnie. We didn't have any idea that they were visiting Banff as well. I don't think Cheryl and Lonnie even recognized Troy and I at first since I had my glasses on and brown hair now. We ended up spending the afternoon with them and loved every minute of it. 

I lived with Cheryl and Lonnie for two semester during high school after my family moved back to Finland and I wanted to finish high school in California. They are one of the most generous and loving people in the world. Just the fact that they would take two teenage girls under their care after their own kids were gone shows their kindness and patience:) I hope Anna and I didn't cause them too much stress! Being part of the Smith family for the last seven years has been such a blessing. We really don't see them often enough but enjoy any and every occasion to be with them. 

Not Quite the Smoothest Trip

Troy and I flew separately to Calgary since we had United frequent flyer miles and US airways credit. We were scheduled to land at midnight; Troy's flight about 2 minutes before mine. As I was wasting time at the Denver airport during my three hour lay-over, Troy calls me to let me know that his flight is delayed from Tucson to Phoenix. OK, not a big deal since it's only about a 20 minute flight. However, right before my flight is about to take off he calls me with the bad news. There happened to be a sandstorm in the Phoenix area and Troy's plane did not take off for 3 hours, which meant that his connecting flight to Calgary left Phoenix while Troy was still sitting in Tucson. I have traveled quite a bit and I think of myself as an independent person; however, when Troy's with me, I am more than happy to have him take over and handle the details. So I land in Calgary, turn my phone on and get a text saying that he won't get there until the next day and what the hotel name is that we(now of course just I) are staying. Luckily, Troy's parents were home and able to pick him up from the airport so he wasn't deserted there for the night. He ended up catching the "early flight"to Calgary, which landed at 3 pm.  At that point, I was just happy to start our vacation together.

On our way home, both of us missed our flights. Troy arrived at the airport little too late so the airline rep did not even let him check in. So his 7 am departure turned into a 2:30 pm departure. For some reason, United was having a difficult time with check-ins. The check-in line was so long that by the time, I made it to the desk, she said that I could try my luck and run to the gate or just take a later flight. Since Troy was stuck in Calgary until the afternoon, I chose to stay with him. What a sweet gesture of love. We ended up taking short naps one at a time and ate lunch before I thought it would be a good time to go and line up for the customs. Yes, you had to go through customs and passport control before your flight. So my one hour cushion before the flight was not enough apparently. I even passed about 20 people in line and I barely made my flight. As I ran to the gate, they were waiting for me and called me name as I approached the gate. 

We stayed in this cute cabin on the first night. It was very authentic and we decided to use the fireplace. The ventilation didn't work well so the smoke alarm went off twice and they had to bring a fan to blow the smoke out. Talk about spoiling the romance:)
We stayed at a hotel called "Fox" for our last night there. We loved how they had carried the theme in everything. Plus it was nice to have the hotel in downtown Banff after all the driving and hiking we had done on previous days.

P.S I know there is quite a bit writing on these posts; they are little bit of a travel journal for us. So I apologize if it's boring:)

Banff The Beautiful

Right now I just want to share some sweet pictures from our trip. We spent four days in Banff National Park, Canada. I will write about it tomorrow when I have little more energy. We got back yesterday around 8 pm  and both worked 12 hours today so we are pretty tired. And of course, Troy is getting his knee done tomorrow (ACL reconstructive surgery) so we'll have to be at the hospital at 6 am. 

View of Lake Louise from the mountains

We visited the "Upper Hot Springs" to relax our muscles.

The top of our 9 mile hike called "Plain of Six Glaciers"
I found a candy store with Finnish black liquorice
Lake Minnewanka--too cold for a swim but so peaceful to look at

Lake Louise-the pictures don't do justice to how turquoise the water is.

Random Facts

I ignored Starla's tag few months ago so I better not do it this time:) So here are six random facts about me.

1.I love shopping with gift cards. I am all about saving money, but I spend my gift cards so quickly. Some of our friends have gift cards from their weddings few years later. Mine were gone within a month from our wedding. So I used to say that I don't like shopping but it's not true. I just hate spending my money. 

2. I used to have a fear of ordering at restaurants because of all the follow-up questions that come with ordering. This obviously goes back to the time when I didn't speak English completely fluently.  So my friends would order for me and though I have gotten over this "fear", Troy still likes to order for me.

3. I hate doing dishes. I don't mind cooking, cleaning or doing the laundry but doing dishes after dinner just annoys me. 

4. Before Troy and I got married, I only knew how to cook one meal. When we were dating, he used to cook for me all the time. So Troy was pretty worried about how our meal situation would be after we got married.  

5. One of my summer jobs during college was (Do you like I talk as if I have graduated:)) working at a cheese factory. To make the story even better, I worked the night shift and I cleaned the cheese machines with pressure hoses. I wore rubber boots, overalls and gloves and I was still always soaking  wet and found cheese in weird places when I got home. 

6. I was 5 feet 1 inch when I was in fifth grade so I have only grown about 3 inches since then. I went from one of the tallest girls to an average size. It must have been those years of gymnastics...

I tag Emmy,Camille and Hottie and I won't be offended if you ignore the tag:) 

Making My Vote Count

No I am not talking about the upcoming presidential race though it would be interesting to find out what people are thinking about the different campaigns and platforms. Since I cannot vote for the president of the United States, I wanted to make my vote count on So You Think You Can Dance. Troy and I have watched it since the beginning of the season and tonight is the first night that I am actually calling the toll-free number and casting my vote. Let's hope it will be worth of all this dialing:0

Lazy and Productive Saturday

I know lazy and productive are contradictory to each other. However, that is exactly how I would describe how yesterday was. We slept in, played Play Station 3(Troy) and read books (Eevi) in the morning. We also finished painting our guest bathroom and cleaned the house. I even took a two-hour nap and in the evening went for a 3.5 mile run. I have really missed running this summer and it felt wonderful to run again. Troy biked next to me to make sure that I was safe:) I did watch an Iron Girl race on TV and wished that I knew how to swim well so I could go and do one of these races. 

So we decided to paint our guest bathroom with dark red color. We still need to do some touch ups with the ceiling and corners but I love the way it looks. Of course, now we have to buy new shower curtain and bathroom rugs:) Gotta love the cost of decorating.

I also thought that I would share an amusing conversation that I had with a patient's spouse. 

Spouse: "Do you have an accent?"

I: "yes, I'm from Finland(I get this question quite a bit)."

Spouse: "I thought it must be either an accent or hearing impairment."

I: "Yeah, it's an accent"

I am not thrilled when people point out my accent but I am very used to it; however, I would have never thought that it sounded like I had a hearing impairment. Some people just surprise you with comments that should never be said out loud.

P.S few people have requested for me to share some of the books that I'm reading so I will do that in few days

 

I like my job but I love my off-days

I feel blessed to have a job that on most days makes me feel happy and satisfied. The perk of being a nurse(or working with a nurse for the summer) is that you only work three days a week. Obviously our shifts are 12 hours and you are exhausted by the time you get home, but you have four days off. I have been enjoying my off-days so much since I discovered that I can reserve books online on the library website. Yes, I am so nerdy. I reserved 11 books at one time and happily started going through them. So far I have read almost four of them in the last week. 

I have also gone to the high school pool and Troy has joined me for swim workouts. Today I swam 800 meters and he did 500 meters. It's lot more fun and less embarrassing to have someone there with me. I always feel like I'm trying to escape the Arizona summers and hide inside my house with A/C on and it feels great to actually enjoy the heat while swimming.

I also met up with one of my nursing school friends at the Reid Park Zoo. She was babysitting so I tagged along for some animal watching.  We got there around 9 am and I was shocked to see how many moms/grandmas and few dads were there that early with their kids.  It must be the place to be!

Elephants used to be my favorite animal, but I'm thinking that Giraffes are ever cooler. I haven't seen a live one for few years and I had forgotten how beautiful they are. Two of the giraffes were doing some hugging and "dancing" with their necks. They have some flexible necks.