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Dear Calgary

On April 12, 2014

I’ve been catching a ride with N into downtown lately so I haven’t had my usual morning walk. This morning, however, I dropped him off at the airport before work and, as a result, found myself walking in.

My usual route takes me through Rotary Park, down a large wooden staircase, & across the iconic Center Street Bridge before I even hit the hustle & noise of the Core. For how close we live to the City Center, it’s incredible how tranquil the first part of that walk is.

Calgary is an usually sunny city, but even on this rare overcast day, this walk is beautiful. Walking through the park, sipping on a latte from one of my favourite shops, as the city collectively awoke, reminded me of how much love I have for this place – the cowboy town turned city.

As you reach the top of the stairs, the trees part to reveal the city, & what I personally believe to be one of the most striking skylines. While the spring air was moist & heavy in the park, it seemed to lift as I headed towards downtown. “I love this commute”, I thought, sipping my coffee. After this particularly harsh winter, this kind of spring morning was just what I needed. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect way to start my day.

Calgary has a bit of reputation as redneck, conservative, a little rough around the edges. But I love it. This little city in the West, bordered by snow-capped mountains on one side & wide open prairies on the others. This city is home. It’s had its share of growing pains, but haven’t we all? It’s still a young city & it’s got a lot going for it. It’s evolving & coming into its own & I’m so excited to be here to experience it.

If you’re looking for a nice way to start your day, grab a coffee at Luke’s DrugMart & head over to Rotary Park. Walk through the park to the stairs. Head down to Center Street & cross the bridge. Take the pedestrian ramp to the river path & walk along the river towards Eau Claire or the East Village – each have their fair share of perks. It’s worth checking out!

Enjoy the weekend!

for the coffee obsessed

By whoalansi

On December 10, 2013

In Uncategorized

I know I just professed my love for Fratello Coffee Roasters yesterday, but this is a little different. I wasn’t kidding; it’s still my favourite coffee. & they make a beautiful cup of coffee, in my opinion. I’ve always been a latte or cappuccino girl (how can you go wrong with latte art?), but they make an amazing pour over as well. If you really love coffee, I highly recommend checking it out.

Fratello posted a lovely little video yesterday, which is what had me posting my love of both their cafe (Analog Coffee on 17th Avenue SW) and their coffee. I regularly convince N to grab a coffee there with me on the weekend. It was even one of my picks for our engagement session with 3Haus last month. (I’ll do a post about that lovely experience soon, I promise – here’s a couple teasers shots from Analog Coffee for now).

Source: 3Haus Photographics

If Fratello were on my way to work in the morning, I would undoubtedly stop in from time to time. Sadly, my commute doesn’t venture anywhere near their lovely establishment. Luckily for me, Calgary’s got a pretty decent coffee scene so it’s not too upsetting (although I really wouldn’t protest if they happened to open up a cafe on the northeast side of the city…).

Enter deVille Coffee and their Nutella Latte. Yeah, you heard me right, Nutella Latte. Since leaving Starbucks a few years ago, I’ve lost my taste for anything overly sweet. When people get excited about Pumpkin Spice Lattes or whatever current Starbucks coffee craze (abomination) is going on now, all I can think is sugar. Much too sweet for me.

Nutella Lattes, however, are something I can get behind. The combination of a great coffee (deVille brews Intelligentsia Coffee from Chicago), steamed milk, and a bit of Nutella is a great way to start the day. Nutella is deliciously chocolatey without being overly sweet, so it’s the perfect treat for those of us who aren’t into super sugary coffee. (Now I know that Nutella also has a lot of sugar in it and is no more healthy than Starbucks in that regard. I just can’t stand coffee that doesn’t at least mildly taste like coffee and it seems like sbux gets more and more ridiculous every year.)

I once did the math on what I was spending per month and it completely turned me off buying coffee every morning. Even when I only spent $3 a day on coffee, it added up to almost $100 a month so I try not buy coffee on my way to work very often. With Calgary being so cold lately though, I’ve needed an extra little something in the morning, so I’ve been stopping in to deVille sometimes as I walk past.

I haven’t been able to get into Christmas yet (does that make me a terrible blogger? I feel like all the bloggers are super into the Christmas Spirit and I’m just not there yet. I tried watching Love Actually on Sunday night to get into the spirit, but that only last until Monday morning.), but I can definitely always get behind good coffee on a cold day.

October in Instagram

By whoalansi

On November 6, 2013

In Uncategorized

We had a beautiful fall this year. It was amazing so I’m trying really hard not to complain now that the temperature has severely dropped and the snow has arrived. Here’s a little recap of what we got up to this month.

1. Fall colours and light on one of my walks home. This season can be so gorgeous.
2. Coffee and wedding planning with my mom. Things are coming together quickly!
3. Fall lunch runs are my favourite. I hope we get a few more warm days before winter really sets in so I can do a few more outdoor runs.
4. We spent Thanksgiving out at the lake with my family. The in between season are so relaxing! Good food, good company, good drinks.
5. A friend helped me make some beautiful cards to ask my girls to be my bridesmaids. We got wine and chatted. It was lovely!
6. Med balls at Fitness Friday? Might as well have been Christmas. (My coworkers may have slightly disagreed!)
7. Me and my King of Hearts. Dressed up as Rosie the Riveter and the King of Hearts for Halloween.
8. I’m back at the Y twice a month. A little extra income and a gym membership is worth a couple long days a month.
9. Doing some CrossFit style workouts at the Y. The 24″ box is tough, but it’s pretty satisfying to stick with it for an entire workout.

September in Instagram

By whoalansi

On October 2, 2013

In Uncategorized

September was a crazy month – a crazy, awesome, incredible month. We started it off on vacation. I’ve written a little bit about that so far (there’s so much more to come! It was a fabulous trip.) and a little bit about N’s beautiful proposal (more on that later too), but here’s a little Instagram recap that includes a little more than just the beginning of the month. There was more to September than vacations and proposals (I think…I’m still living in those moments a bit!)

1. Cannon Beach. I know I already blogged about it, but we just loved it so much.
2. Pok Pok’s famous wings. If you’re ever in Portland, eat the wings (but maybe not the green papaya salad. I loved it, but it kicked N in the mouth) and try a whiskey sour. Game changers.
3. Seattle and the famous Pike Place Market.
4. The recreation of N’s proposal, signs and all.
5. Checking out wineries on Lake Okanagan. Quail’s Gate is my favourite!
6. N heading to his first day of work, looking good!
7. Celebrating the marriage of two close friends (and taking awkward engagement photos cause we’re kind of awkward people).
8. Friday night drinks and toasts with both our families. Wonderful to all get together! It was a lovely weekend full of family.
9. We played tourist in our own city and went up the Calgary Tower for #doorsopenyyc. (It was my first time!) I’m not going to lie, it’s a bit scary standing on that glass bottomed floor and looking down for the first time!

Life is busy and wonderful. We’re getting into the swing of this whole planning a wedding thing (or at least I am…), Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and fall has officially arrived. Bring it on October!

Color Me Rad

By whoalansi

On August 19, 2013

In Uncategorized

Fun runs seem to be popping up all over the place lately. I can’t seem to login to Instagram on the weekend without coming across at least one photo from some kind of charity or fun run. It’s great! I love to see people getting out, moving around, and getting healthy.

A few friends and I signed up for Color Me Rad this year. You dress in as much white as you can and run 5 km while people throw packages of corn starch dye at you. It was originally scheduled for July Long Weekend, but due to the flooding it got rescheduled to August Long and a lot of my friends couldn’t participate.

Luckily, Color Me Rad is an easily transferable race, so a few other friends took their places. We met at Crowfoot LRT Station on Saturday morning and took the shuttle bus out to Canada Olympic Park for the run. There were so many people up there. It was great to see everyone dressed up and running around having a great time.

At the start line we were given our first colour bombs, which we proceeded to throw at each other. We couldn’t start things off with pristine white shirts. The race itself was up and down the hills and trails at the Park. It was a mix of pavement and trail running, but all in all a fairly easy course. We weren’t with many actual runners so we walked a lot of the hills and just took our time, laughing at each other as we got more and more covered in colours.

As we rounded the last corner, they gave everyone one last colour bomb to use however they wanted. Of course, we saved ours and dumped colour all over each other at the finish area.

I really enjoyed the race. It was lighthearted and easy so there was no pressure running-wise. It was advertised as a 5 km, but I’d give it 3 km at most. Definitely manageable for all fitness levels. We got a lot of great photos and laughed a lot. If you have the opportunity to do Color Me Rad or some other colour run, I would definitely go for it. If you’re worried about the colour dying your hair (like I was), coconut oil seemed to keep the colour out and had the added bonus of leaving my hair super soft after I washed it.

Happy Running!

Hell or High Water

By whoalansi

On July 19, 2013

In Uncategorized

That crazy non-stop week of partying has come and come. This year wasn’t actually that crazy non-stop for me, but I did get my fair share of partying in. I skipped the first weekend of Stampede and went camping with friends, but I got right into things with our Spaghetti Western Stampede Party at work.

We usually host is on Princes’ Island, but due to the flooding it had to be relocated to Shaw Millenium Park at the last minute (well a week before). Everyone pulled together though and it turned out great. Our marketing team had pretty much everyone helping out in some way. It was a gorgeous, hot day and I think everyone had a pretty great time.

K & I ready for Spaghetti

Twins!

Busy Spaghetti Tent

We had this great Silly Booth Photo Booth and I just love the photos from it. They’re so high quality. I think geoLOGIC staff had the most fun out of everyone. There were a lot of red shirted photos.

Spaghetti Western is primarily a client lunch event, so we headed to a pub afterwards for some drinks. Later, a few of us decided it was patio weather and we headed to a new bar on Stephen Avenue. I love this time of year, not only for the Stampede fun, but also for the incredibly long days. We sat on the patio until close and I think it only got dark around 10:30 pm.

I took a little break from the party scene until Friday night, when we met up with a friend of mine who was down from Jasper. The night was really random. We went from a pub in Eau Claire to the Fairmont Palliser bar to a hotel room there, and finally met up with a few friend’s at Hudson’s. We packed it in pretty early though. We had big Stampede plans for the next day.

reunited and looking fine.

Fancy

Can’t leave without a Shotski

We managed to get a good start on the day Saturday and headed down for a pancake breakfast before hitting the grounds. We did all the usual things: pet the horses, ate artery clogging food, watching cool shows, and hit the beer gardens.

We hit the line for Nashville North around 5 pm and it was insane. It’s always crazy and we had come prepared, but I’ve never seen it as busy as it was. We waited and waited, but people kept budging so the line just wasn’t moving. Finally, we gave up, grabbed some mini donuts for the road and headed to Vagabond Brewery near the grounds. We made a plan to line back up at 11 pm. We’d give it one hour and if we still didn’t get in that would be it.

Vagabond turned out to be a pretty good place to hang out. The beers were pretty good and not ridiculously priced given their craft label and proximity to the grounds and the food was awesome! We had a great time there. When 11 pm hit, D, N, and I headed back to Nashville. There was still a bit of a line, but we managed to get through in under 40 minutes and headed straight for the dancefloor.

That’s a lie…we meant to head straight for the dancefloor, but we actually got beers (equally important?).

My favourite thing about Nashville North is dancing with N and we did a ton of it. Danel got a few cute shots of us, but for the most part, the three of us hung out on the dancefloor.

The next day, N and I slept in a bit and then headed back down to the grounds. We had passes for the day we didn’t want to waste, so even though we felt like having a lazy day, we decided to go. We ate a lot of food truck food, wandered to pretty much every corner of the grounds, and then finally went to the Chuckwagon Races. The final evening is pretty exciting since the last heat is racing for all the money. It’s a pretty close race. Those horses are incredible, as are the riders and chuckwagon drivers.

Beer gardens waiting on the race

Chucks

All in all, it was a really fun Stampede. And of course, we grabbed some mini donuts on our way out. Until next year, Stampede! Thanks for another great year!

Calgary Strong

By whoalansi

On July 8, 2013

In Uncategorized

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while and then got wrapped up with other things. Story of my life…Sometimes I’m the best blogger!

I took these photos almost two weeks ago now, when Calgary first flooded. Thursday night, we’d gone to bed knowing the river was going to be pretty high the next day, but I never would have guessed that it would rise as high as it did. To think that so much of the downtown core was flooded still doesn’t seem real to me.

As we were all off work, we went for breakfast with a few friends Friday morning and then took a walk to check out some of the flooding and water levels. Here are some of the shots I got.

A block from our house, unusually full of cars

Lower Centre Street Bridge is covered in water

Prince’s Island Park was also under water

High River Evacuee

Flood pants and Keds. I really have no rain wear.

The Police coming to tell us to get to higher ground.

Water rushing under the 5th avenue flyover.

Very fast Bow River

The Langevin Bridge

One of my favourite building and favourite places to run

East Village

Langevin

East Village and Saddledome in the distance.

It was incredible to see the flooding in person. We are so high up on the hill that it was hard to understand how bad it was near the river. I still can’t get over the shots of the inside of the Saddledome – full of water past the 10th row.

In the days that followed, Calgarians came together to help each other out. I am so proud of how this city responded to this disaster. Mom, N, and I volunteered in Bowness the Tuesday after the flood and it felt so great to be able to help even if it was just for one day. My friends spent their long weekend helping strangers in some of the hardest hit neighbourhoods.

Things have slowly started to return to normal. There is still so much work to be done and it will be a long time before we’re back to where we were before this flood, but the progress that has been made so far is awe inspiring. The fact that the Stampede is currently happening, despite the ground being under water two weeks ago is crazy! (In the absolute best way possible).

Here’s to everyone who came together and helped out in whatever way they could. You amaze me.

July Loving

By whoalansi

On July 5, 2013

In Uncategorized

July is probably my favourite month of the year. For one, summer is finally here and Canada Day usually kicks off my series of long weekends on boats. I’ve spent the majority of my July Long Weekends in and around water and this year was no exception.

Favourite summer activity at the lake.

July also features the Calgary Stampede and my birthday. I love celebrating my birthday with friends. I’m one of those people who plans a party every year and invites everyone she knows. I love sharing that day with all the people I love.

The Calgary Stampede is definitely up there on my list though too. They kicked things off with the Parade this morning and, as usual, I’m so excited that it’s finally here. For ten days, this city is incredible. I truly love Calgary, but I find it really shows off during Stampede week. A lot of it is a big party, but it’s more than that too. There’s an energy in the city and I always look forward to this time of year.

Parade from my boss’ office window

This weekend we’re heading out camping with some friends in Drumheller. I’m excited, but I also can’t wait to get back to Calgary and start enjoying Stampede in the city. Tuesday is my work Stampede Party and then I’m hoping to head down to the grounds a couple of times over the weekend.

This year seems a bit more special than most since the Stampede grounds were completely underwater after the flooding 2 weeks ago. The Stampede announced they would hold the event Come Hell or High Water a few days after the flooded and started cleaning up almost immediately. Two weeks isn’t much time and I’m still in awe that they managed to pull it off. They originally had planned to even get the Saddledome up and running, but unfortunately the damage was too extensive and they had to cancel the concerts they’d planned on holding there.

Watching the parade with this lovely lady!

All this to say that I love July! I hope everyone else has a great weekend and, if you’re in Calgary and love the Stampede like I do, I hope you get out an enjoy it!

Yahooooo!

June in Instagram

By whoalansi

On July 3, 2013

In Uncategorized

I have been seriously neglecting this blog lately. I’ve taken so many photos and planned so many posts, but it just hasn’t come together for me when it comes to actually sitting and blogging. I’m even a few days behind on my Instagram recap here!

Calgary was recently hit with some major flooding. It was unbelievable. I never thought it was possible for so much of the city to end up underwater. Luckily, we live up a huge hill (as do most of our friends) so we were virtually unaffected. Instead we volunteered our time to the families who were and I’m so proud of our city for coming together in such awesome ways.

I have some flood pictures so let’s move on to the recap. I’m sure we’ll be talking about the Alberta Flood for a long time, but there were so many other great things that happened in June so I’m going to focus on those for now.

1. We kicked off the month by climbing Ha Ling Peak. It was great start to the hiking season and I really hope it continues. There are so many great hikes in the area and sometimes there’s really nothing better than standing on top of mountain.
2. Fiasco Gelato opened a pop-up in the Bridgeland Market near our place. They gave out free scoops, so of course we had to check it out.
3. N and I celebrated 4 years together this month. We had a fantastic dinner at Cucina. I can’t say enough good things about this restaurant or about this amazing guy I’m with. Happy Anniversary!
4. Stumptown Coffee has opened up at Luke’s Drug Mart. It’s a stone’s throw from our house so it’s quickly becoming a Saturday ritual to stop in for some coffee and a treat.
5. The burpee challenge went on throughout June. I don’t love burpees. No one loves burpees. I hope I at least inspired some people to move a little bit more.
6. The flood. The photos are unreal, the damage is heartbreaking, the way the city came together is so inspiring. #CalgaryStrong.
7. I’ve been hanging out at Mission Fitness once a week, doing CrossFit. We did rope climbs last week and I loved it. (Obviously!)
8. Flood party with my Liver. She’s pretty freaking awesome. We played an #calgaryflooddrinkinggame cuz we’re…terrible people.
9. We spent the long weekend out at the lake with my parents. Lots of sun, boating, and wake boarding. I can’t get enough of it and am definitely disappointed to be back.

Alright, summer. Let’s do this. I’m more than ready for July, Stampede, my birthday, and all the awesome that comes with my favourite month!

Summer To-Do List

By whoalansi

On June 21, 2013

In Uncategorized

Columbia Lake

Considering yesterday Calgary and its surrounding communities and cities declared a state of emergency due to flooding from heavy rainfall, it’s hard to believe summer has arrived today. Inspired by a couple other bloggers and the first day of one of my favourite seasons (who am I kidding, I love them all!), I put together a little summer to-do list of some of the things I’d like to do.

1. Enjoy cocktails with friends. I want to host a cocktail party but I envision this being outside and that’s not an option for us due to our lack of outdoor space. Elsie of A Beautiful Mess has been posting a ton of amazing sounding cocktail recipes that I am dying to try!

2. Take advantage of the mountains. Go hiking and backpacking. The rockies are too close not to take advantage of!

3. Experience more Calgary events. Street Festivals, Food Truck Events, Fun Runs…Take advantage of some of the fun local things happening around Calgary. Play tourist at home a little bit.

4. Take a road trip. I can’t wait for our trip to Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, and Kelowna. I love a good road trip and I love visiting new cities.

5. Attend an outdoor concert. I bought tickets for Folk Fest. I’ve heard great things about it so it’s about time I did a full day at Prince’s Island.

6. Nail a handstand. I’ve been practicing and I’m determined to nail a decent handstand. The summer I was nine, I had a similar goal, but with cartwheels. What I’m saying is that I’m an nine-year-old at heart.

7. Get away with the girls. Boys will be boys, so let’s leave them at home and have our own fun. I’m thinking some lake time is in order. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone and make up some cocktails too!

8. Rock a flip flop tan and some freckles. Nothing says summer to me better than sunkissed skin and tan lines from my havaianas. Come on Calgary, bring on the sunshine!

9. Bike to work as much as possible! We live in the perfect neighbourhood to take advantage of biking to work. It’s such a great way to start the day.

10. Spend time outside daily. Summer always flies by. I’ll save my hermitting for winter, when darkness sets in before I leave work and the ground is frozen for months.

Enjoy the first day of summer! What do you plan to do this season?

Nashville North

Wedding Shower

Wakeboarding

WHOA lansi

francophile, oenophile, logophile, turophile

Tag: calgary Page 2 of 4

Dear Calgary

for the coffee obsessed

Color Me Rad

Hell or High Water

Calgary Strong

July Loving

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