Floods, fights, friends & canola fields.

Oh hey there! 

One of the most humbling/amazing things about marriage that i’m discovering is our ability to forgive each other and move on. Saturday was just not the best day. It just seemed that we both were having bad days individually and together. The day kept ebbing and flowing - small argument, tense hours, start talking again, small argument, ignoring each other, slowly start talking again... repeat, repeat. It was so frustrating! The day finally ended in us watching some Parks and Rec - which was good to just laugh side by side, if not totally together, and forget the day. I ended up feeling completely exhausted by 9:30 and I was eager for tomorrow so I went to bed and Mark had his own time. The next morning I woke up super early, walked and got coffee and enjoyed the sunshine and early morning neighbourhood sounds of birds chirping and squirrels jumping from fence posts to branches. Once I got home I realized all the built up tenseness from the day before was gone. We hugged in the bedroom and said things like ‘What was up with yesterday?’ ‘Lets not do that again.’ And proceeded to have a much better day of treating each other with patience, analyzing the day before only slightly, singing in the car and lake swimming. It wasn’t a perfect day, it seems like every day we are apologizing to each other for our tone or hurtful words. I especially need to work on my tone and what I want to communicate to Mark - the other day Mark said (and I quote) ‘Your words can either be the tops to my towers, or can corrode my foundations’ ... I don’t know if he was quoting something or if he came up with that on his own, but it was a good visual for me and kind of scary. It’s crazy how much power we have to speak into this one person’s life - and we can speak truth and love or ... corrode their foundations with hurt and lies. There is a lifetime of impact there. It’s.. such a scary honor. And on a daily basis, I just can’t get over how unreal it feels to have someone who sees me in my ugliest, meanest, most frustrated days and who moves past it wordlessly with me. Whenever Mark and I have a particularly good conversation where we feel like we were dealing with root issues we kind of get giddy and say things like ‘We’re getting better at this, huh?!’  or ‘We have so much to learn! Haha!’ We can’t help but feel so excited with progress and it’s amazing because you just know you have so much time to learn it all, together. 

Our friends Andrew and Tessa came to visit last week. It was such a great visit. Almost too good. When they left I felt their absence acutely. How eeeassy it was to be around them. How much we laughed. Last friday night Mark was working and I knew Amy and Aaron were out of town and I almost just had to laugh (bitterly) to myself cause I literally had no one else to call. I had a pretty decent night at home, in fact it was my first night alone in some time. But it made me just miss people in B.C so much. Anyhoo. That’s a bit of a sob story...  The truth is I can feel myself starting to like Calgary more and more. It is seriously beautiful here right now. And there is a gritty Albertan strength that I admire and respect, especially since the flood and all the loss people have experienced. They all just love this place so much, you almost can’t help but start to love it too. And now that I have a job (I got a job!!) I will probably start to meet more people and have tons of work friends, just like Emilie ;) 

Here are some pictures from lately... which should probably be split into three different posts.. but who has time for that, right? Here they are in one go.

The day the flood got really bad Mark and I both had off work and so we went walking around the neighbourhood. At this point it was still raining like a banshee. 

We were a little flabbergasted and completely soaked to the bone. 

So, a couple days ago, we went to some of the areas by the Elbow River to see how bad things were. Remember Mark's favourite bridge pictured below? (a month or so ago) 

This is it's current condition. :( So sad! It was such a great bridge. 

Some of the oldest neighbourhoods in Calgary were affected the worst. So, so sad. 

Most of the houses we could see completely through because they were gutting the entire bottom floors, hence all the wood in their front yards. 

Trying to dry some rugs out.

Mark and I were both so shocked walking through these neighbourhoods just because there is no damage in our own neighbourhood and so were a little bit removed from the whole situation... also we have no TV so we weren't watching all the News reports. This was a reality check. And then thinking about those in High River who still aren't back in their homes... Unbelievable what water can destroy.

Tessa and Andrew arrived in the midst of the flood. 

 

While we were out for lunch, a gigantic tank drove down 17th Ave. Totally normal.

We all piled in a car2go. 

Tessa was at peace with it.

Things got weird with the Gourmet Grilled Cheeses. 

Anyone want the stubs? 

Everyone wants chips when there's a disaster. 

Sunny neighbourhood walks. 

Mini road trips!! 

We drove to Brooks to go to Lake Newall. It was lovely. 

The end. 

Mosquitos Want My Blood.

Whoa. There is a thunderstorm happening right now. Why am I always home alone for thunderstorms? It's my curse. I can't complain though… Mark and I have spent a heck of a lot of time together over the past week and it's been quite lovely. Yesterday we went to the Community Bike Shop in Kensington to try and fix Mark's bike together. We were pretty much about to give up and take the bike off the stand when this kind man, named Mark came over and basically offered to take the part home and fix it. We happily agreed and later on he told us we could come over and he'd help Mark put the bike back together and pumped his tires up, told him how much the bike was worth, etc. Mark payed 7 dollars for his Bianchi, back in the day. Cray! We were so grateful to this guy! When people from Calgary find out we've just only moved here, they seem to be extra nice to us. He was like "Any time, especially for newcomers to Calgary!' Later that day, we went to buy Mark a tennis racket so that I could inherit his old one and we could get playing already! It was a success and later we dragged our recycling and cardboard and tennis rackets and went walking to the courts, where the recycling bins are conveniently located... right? What a crappy experience. Mosquito's were OUT FOR BLOOD last night. We had no arms free to bat them away and it was infuriating. Later when we were waiting for a court to open up, I was getting SWARMED! I smacked at some on my leg and when I moved my hands there were four dead mosquitos on me! Mark was swinging on the swings as I was losing my mind and he kept calling out 'come on the swings! they won't get you if you're moving' ... Later he admitted there was a cloud of bugs around me. Some kindly ladies let us have their court and we tried to play, but the swarm followed me and after swinging my racket at them I gave up, near tears and we ran home and locked the door. We hadn't even opened our tube of balls. What a bummer. I had about 16 bites and countless mosquitos remains on my legs and arms upon inspection. I said to Mark 'I could feel myself going crazy and it only took about 2 seconds.' Friends, mosquitos are the worst. 

The other night Mark and I watched 'The Sandlot' (my first time) and ate popcorn, but before we did, Mark made me watch a fifteen minute youtube video of famous Arnold Swartzeneggar quotes… they weren't even good quotes! Some of them included 'Let's kick some ICE' or 'I eat green berets for breakfast' or 'well that hit the spot' … I guess that last one is pretty good. Mark was like a little kid watching it and sat frozen, entranced by Arnold. It was a weird sight. See photo below.  After the movie we played Quiddler late into the night. Mark loves word games and he schools me at them er'ry time. 

I worked my first day of work in Calgary today! It was for a temp agency, but a really fun company. I go back tomorrow. It feels good to work again! I can walk or bike it's so close! Yay. Trying to be thankful and not stressed about decisions that are imminent and those freakin' online courses that are always looming, looming… 

This was my face in a moment of pessimism regarding my job search. 

We went for a picnic before work. A thunderstorm was rolling in. 

As you can see, it was sunny at one point, which was why we were lured outside. 

One night after Mark got home, we wandered up to the park and shot off this little rocket thing I brought him home from France two summers ago. We ended up breaking it and it snapped back and hit us both in the hands at different times which was surprisingly painful, but it was a good time. 

It's a bit hard to see... but my face is filled with joy. 

I don't want to brag, but I am a bit better at taking photos at night then Mark. :) 

Walking home. 

Haha. This was Mark during Arnold's youtube vid, mouth agape, hand frozen. He's so cute!! Mark, not Arnold.

Playing games against this shirtless dude. 

We light candles to make it feel more datey.

The light is so bright in the morning these days. 

This is our place from the front and our unit is the one on the side there. Our neighbour went away for a week and lent us her parking space. Mark says he feels like a real man now. It's so nice having somewhere to park!!

Around the neighbourhood. 

This was such a cool place! There was like three people in there just threading rackets. So neat. Also around our neighbourhood. Don't ask me what my hands are up to. Mark never says anything when he's taking a pic of me.. so I'm always internally like.. did he take it? Keep smiling? Move? Different face? It's such a mystery with that guy.

You can't tell, but he's sitting at a table in a car. McDonalds date!! 

You guys... this really irks me. This is my favourite popsicle... and they just decreased the size by like 30% and it's the same price. What the?!! I seriously got all up in the clerks face at Macs about this.... not in a meeeann way.. just in a 'I've been wronged, we've all been wronged' kinda way...  It's just not right. They're so sneaky.

I'll go fold some laundry now.