We left The Fort on Saturday, August 26, after Art got off work and drove to Edmonton for the weekend. I had neglected to book a room at the Ramada Waterpark Inn so it was fully booked and we had to stay in Leduc. There was a pool but we kept pretty busy and Hannah didn't seem to mind missing out on a swim. The next morning, we went shopping at Ikea which we found easily this time and did a bit of shopping. It had actually moved locations, we were not crazy. The store is gigantic and I wanted to buy a million things. If they don't open one is Nova Scotia at that new shopping complex I will be upset. It was the last weekend of the Fringe Festival so we went downtown to check it out after buying one thing for under $10 at Ikea. As usual, I had great parking karma and we found a spot less than 2 minutes from the Festival. Josiah had not yet napped and I knew this was going to be a challenge because he isn't one for falling asleep in the stroller but I was optimistic. He did not fall asleep and remained cranky for the entire day. The heat didn't help matters either, I think it was about 30 degrees. We saw a few outside performances for kids that Hannah seemed to enjoy. We tried to get in to see a puppet show based on some of the Munsch books but it was sold out. Hannah and I went and checked out a really weird sideshow act, Scorpion Girl. It was a combination circus performance/optical illusion. She had the head of a woman/body of a scorpion and was she sassy! I kept trying to peek under and around her to figure out what they had done with her body and she gave me the gears. It was pretty amazing stuff actually, I don't know how they did it and I had pretty good laugh. Hannah seemed uncomfortable as if she was verging on believing it to be real. Very entertaining. We had some good eats, Hannah got her face painted for an exorbitant amount of money, we checked out all the great kiosks and then headed back to the hotel for a pretty early night. All day in the sun and we were pretty tired. Chris called first thing in the morning and after breakfast we loaded up the van again and got on the road to Red Deer. Art had to be back to work Tuesday morning so after he dropped us off and had a short visit he got on the road again. Chris' husband, Reid, works with Art in Fort McMurray. They have both worked on and off for Ledcor over the years and we've spent time with them in Northern Ontario as well as Cold Lake. Chris and Reid have two children, Abbi and Ashton and Hannah was so excited to finally get to hang out with them. Ashton, as Hannah will tell you, is her boyfriend and she has been calling him that since our Cold Lake days. Chris actually heard him at one point calling her 'the girlfriend'. The kids are having a great time and it seems as if no time has passed since we last saw them. Chris has been kind enough to let us hang out here until we head back to Nova Scotia. Reid begins days off next Thursday, so he will take Hannah, Josiah and I to the Greyhound Station and we're going to take the bus into Edmonton and spend our last few days in a hotel. Art is off on that Saturday, so he will come into the city and meet us for a day and a half. I booked a hotel downtown close to the West Edmonton Mall and I believe the plan is to hang out there on Sunday. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying my time with Chris and we are planning on taking the kids to Drumheller, the Alberta Badlands, this weekend. We're all pretty excited about it, no one more than me! We've rented a van and booked Saturday night at the Badlands Motel. Why did I rent a van you ask? Well Art sold our van to one of the guys at work because he bought a new (to us) van on ebay last week. He was getting worried about ours not lasting much longer and this guy from work was just looking for a junker to drive back and forth to the site. So he had to get the van back to The Fort to this guy who was also bringing our new vehicle back from Vancouver. So, I think I'm all up to date. Stay tuned...