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Published: March 19th 2008
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Well once we sorted out a place to live and found paying jobs, there was only one thing left to do - start inviting people over! Mum was the first one to make her way over - she arrived in January and stayed with us for 3 weeks. Our house was still a little bare - we had no couch and for 3 weeks mum had to make do with a kitchen table and a chair during the day. But at least we had a spare bed!
Right around the time that mum arrived, we experienced a massive cold snap - temperatures in the minus 30's! On those days we just took it easy, or walked into town and huddled up in our favourite cafe. One day we did try to take mum tabogganing, but it was so cold and the snow was so heavy that we only managed one run and ran straight into town for cup of tea. Only problem was that mum had given me her glasses for safe-keeping, and in the excitement I had no idea what I'd done with them. Jamie bravely faced the nasty weather and went pack to the park and amazingly managed
to find them! Only the arms were sticking out of the snow - like a needle in a haystack. Mum's hero!
Mum has a wheelie-walker to help her get around, and while it's fantastic, it has made it hard for her on previous trips to get out into the wilderness. The woods are just not very disabled-friendly! So being winter, Jamie and I had a fantastic idea - buy a sled! Just like dogsledding, except instead of 8 huskies, Jay and I could do it. Despite being told it couldn't be done, we all took a trip to Hinton to buy ourselves a sled. We picked one up at Canadian Tyre and took it for a quick spin the car park. Success! It's large and long and can hold 3 adults (although I'm not sure that's what it was originally made for, but we all fit!). Mum and Jay worked hard to make some modifications (well actually mum spent an afternoon pulling apart her walker and using various pieces to make a comfortable seat) and we were good to go.
We had to walk out of Jasper before we could get to enough snow for the sled, but
we eventually made it and the fun began. It tuns out that even if there's only a slight slope, our new sled will go really fast, making it like a roller-coaster for mum! She had a ball, waving her hands in the air and screaming out 'Woo hoo!". We got some excellent video footage of it. Jamie was even strong enough to pull us both around! The views were amazing, and it was really special to be able to take mum out and show her things that she wouldn't otherwise have seen. The Athabasca all frozen over, Pyramid Mountain without the view of Jasper in front of it...it was great. Jamie managed to pull the sled all the way out to Jasper Park Lodge and we sat in the warm lounge drinking hot chocolates and (again) reminiscing about the wedding. We then made our way down to the lake for ice skating. We had brought bagels and cream cheese with us from home and we toasted them on the fire in front of the lake, and when we were ready, we took to the ice with mum in the sled. Luckily Jay is good enough at skating to manage himself
and the sled, whereas I just wobbled around the edges of the lake. When we had had enough, we went back to the fire and toasted marshmallows - we needed a sugar rush to get the sled back to town! Mum was a total trooper, and lay down in the sled all rugged up with blankets from home. We managed to get all the way to Old Fort Point before we got too cold and called a taxi.
We had a lot of fun while Mum was here - poker nights at home (turns out mum is quite the card shark, she kept taking all our money...lucky were only playing with pennies and dimes!), playing pool at the Downstream, movie night...we had so much fun and the three weeks just flew by. But luckily we're here for a while, and Jamie and I are going to keep practicing our poker skills, so next time you come back Mum, we'll be ready for you!!
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