It occurred to me this week that this is my third official Calgary winter and I do not own a proper pair of winter boots.  Sure I have some dressier looking calf-high boots, but their tread is just not meant for braving the slippery sidewalks of town, which currently are also covered in heavy snow.  This realization became apparent to me this week especially due to the fact that I started my kindergarten teaching job on Monday and now I walk 11 blocks from the train to school and then 11 blocks back to the train every day. And let’s face it: my old boots from Indiana just weren’t cutting it.  Not only were they …

Happy October!
It seems like if you blink, several months can just fly right by before you even notice!  Here it is October, and our last post was back in July.  You’ve not missed too much, though there are a few new things going on in the Karpiuk family.
Oliver is still Oliver, and Winston is still Winston.  Oliver has turned six years old today, can you believe it?  Also today happy anniversary wishes go out to my little brother and his wife as well as our friends Joe and Jeri.  Congratulations on your first year of marriage!
Lucas recently switched jobs completely and is now working happily at Shell in web development at their big Shell Canada …

Today Lucas and I took a day trip out into the Canadian Rockies to see how pretty they are now that more snow has fallen. We wanted to see something new, so we went to Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park. It was a really quiet, beautiful lake in the mountains with a small hiking trail and signs everywhere warning us not to feed the mountain goats. We pulled into the parking area and a little family of mountain goats greeted us. We pulled over and got out, and they walked right over to us and started licking the Neon — apparently they love the salt the car has collected from the …

I have become one of those business suit and tennis shoes members of the downtown core.
Over the weekend we had a tiny wave or two of very light snow; enough to dust the ground and cold enough overnight to form little patches of ice on the sidewalk. As proud as I am of the fact that I am quite capable in heels and haven’t fallen or tripped since re-entering the business world after becoming a Permanent Resident, I don’t really want to tempt fate. There’s no sense in ruining my perfect record, right? Heels and ice with as much walking as I do back and forth to work doesn’t sound like a …

I’ve blogged on this topic before, so it’s no surprise I’m bringing the subject up again. Let me first reiterate that I love the CTrain and public transportation in general. Maybe it’s because I grew up not really having it so easily at my disposal, or maybe I’m just more of a tree hugger than I appear, but I am fascinated by the Calgary CTrain, so I was elated that my job allows me to leave the car behind and part walk, part train into downtown and back each day. It never fails; there’s always a wide, colourful variety of people on at any given point of time, so it’s easy to …