Birthday X 2

This year, Roger and I started our birthday celebrations early with a visit from Mamma G.

She came bearing Swedish themed gifts and she was a good sport and let me "paint" her nails.

We made Kerstinkaka for the first time.

I learned a handy trick from Mamma G.  To keep your tulips straight and tall, put pennies in the water--We might be taking them out of circulation, but I guess those things are still good for something

On my birthday I celebrated with a long day at work and came home to this:

A handmade birthday card!

DQ ice cream cake (of course)

And spicy spaghetti--not a green thing in sight!  

Just the way I like it.

We celebrated Roger's birthday in Edmonton this year.

This is how he chose to spend his special day.

We started the day on a quest to find the Amorphophallus titanum

aka the "Corpse flower".

We did find it at the Muttart Conservatory, however it hadn't flowered yet (thankfully)

While at the Muttart, we checked out a couple other exhibits.

I think the last time I was at the Muttart, I was 15!

Afterwards, we went for Sushi, and then went for dinner at the Cajun House.

We finished up the day with the Cowboy Junkies at the Arden.

Here's a few shots from our walk in the woods yesterday.  I had brought my camera along to take photos of some moose tracks that were so clearly imprinted in the snow last weekend.  Unfortunately I couldn't find a good imprint this weekend.

  Still snow on the ground, but some definite signs of spring!

Just after we inspected those mushrooms, we were spooked by a skier coming down the trail.  

I guess I was a little premature about packing away my skis!

Look at that fresh corduroy!

One of my favourites: Australian wax flowers.

(just to clarify--we did not see these flowers growing in the woods!)

A few weekends ago, my parents and I did a little snowshoeing in K-Country.

On my parent's suggestion we did Penstock Loop, which I have to admit I wasn't thrilled about since they described it as flat.

In the end, it was a great little hike with perfect weather.  Even though it's flat, it has varied scenery, starting and ending in forest, and at certain points we left the forest which opened up beautiful views of the mountains.

An added bonus-you don't have to worry about avalanches.

We started at the Peter Lougheed visitor's center where I took a picture of the great room in case I win the lottery and can one day build my dream home.

The next day, Brendan kindly invited us to his Taekwondo Class.

The first part of the class gave me horrible flash backs to the boot camp class my sister had dragged me to at 8 in the morning.