A flying visit to Vancouver ...

Granville Street on Monday evening

On Tuesday this week, I had a flying visit to Vancouver.  Since Calgary has no Australian Consulate and I needed a new passport, I had to fly to Vancouver to undergo the passport interview.  I was there for less than 24 hours (I flew in on Monday night and was home Tuesday night) but managed to fit in lots of my favourite Vancouver activities during that time.  I enjoyed breakfast at my favourite crepe restaurant, hired a bike and rode around Stanley Park, took a water taxi to Granville Island and enjoyed the amazing food at the public market.  I explored the boutique shops on Granville Island, caught a water taxi to Yaletown and finally, jumped on the Canada Line train to the airport.  It was a perfect day in Vancouver and gave me just the spring lift I needed ... how wonderful it was to see green grass and flowers blooming!  Here are some pics from the day (taken with my new Canon 60D) ... 

Lovely cherry blossoms in bloom

... and more blossoms

... and close up

Flowers ... 

... and green grass!

Watching the sea planes

This always reminds me of Huangshan in China!

Lost Lagoon

Lunch view on Granville Island

Lady Anna

Spring is (not) here ...

It's supposed to be spring.  The thought of spring conjures up images of green grass, blooming flowers and chirping birds.  Not this ... 

Deck chairs waiting to be sat in to enjoy the spring sunshine!

It was a very snowy weekend and although I do like the snow (as does Abbey), I am really ready for some green grass and sunshine.  Come on Calgary, there has been snow on the ground for the past seven months; surely we deserve some spring like weather?

Page views this month ...

As I begin to think about my second assignment for uni (last assignment ever!!), which will be a the planning and documentation of a class blogging project, I've been thinking about blog layout and different features.  So, I was just playing around with the features on Blogger and found this cool break down of who is visiting my blog (this shows page views for the last month) ...

I'd be very interested to know more about the readers from Slovenia and Romania!

A stroll in the prairies ...

Nose Hill is a huge park that is not more than a five minute drive from our house.  I've blogged about walking in it here.  I'm not sure why I don't visit it more often because it really feels like you are escaping city life and travelling back in time to when the pioneers were trudging across the prairies.  But to make up for it, I've visited the park with Abbey a few times over the past week because a) it's so beautiful; b) it's a great place to walk the dog (all those new smells!); c) it makes for a great study break and d) I'm getting over a nasty cold, so I've been spending lots of time walking as opposed to sweating in the gym.  Yesterday, Abbey and I walked for about 90 minutes and only came across one other person in that time.  It did kind of feel like we were all alone on the prairies.  Thanks to the 'visitors' we had a few weeks ago, I don't have a camera anymore, so the following pictures are from the internet ... 

Photo from here

Photo from here

Photo from here

I know these three photos all look vaguely similar but they give you a sense of what the prairies were like back in the day.  I also love the wide open Alberta sky.  These pictures show what the park looks like now, in early Spring, as opposed to the green grass shown in my previous post about Nose Hill when it was late Spring.

Writing about blogging but not actually blogging ...

I know it's been a while but life has been just rolling on by so quickly.  It's been a challenging few weeks with busy and stressful times at work as well as dealing with the aftermath of the robbery.  Now, it's Spring Break although you wouldn't know it from looking outside at the snow.  Spring arrived yesterday with a lovely 20 degree day but now it's back to the negative temperatures and snow on the ground.  Which actually works well for me given that I'm on a university deadline at the moment.  My first assignment for this semester's Masters unit, 'Instructional design harnessing educational technologies for learning', is due on Monday but I'm hoping to have it done by Friday so that I can have some kind of break over the (unfortunately very short) Spring holiday.  I've been meaning to get online and share the photos of my recent adventures (well, those that weren't lost thanks to our recent 'visitors') but I've been saving it as my 'treat' for when I've finished writing this assignment - a glass of wine and some blog updates.  Which is quite ironic given that my current writing topic is using blogs in classrooms.  I've always wanted to have a classroom blog but due to one reason or another, I haven't managed to get it up and running.  But I'm feeling particularly inspired after all this reading about how they can be used to bring out the best in student learning, so that is my goal for next school year - to get a classroom blog up and running!  But for now, back to the books.  Stay tuned for some weekend photos.