Date Night: Canmore Get Away

Life has been a little chaotic lately so Jordan and I decided spur of the moment to head to Canmore for a few days just to get away from everything. Up to now, we’ve never spent a night in Canmore, but thought it would be nice considering it’s so close. I got very excited so I made daily itineraries outlining what we would do each day (work was slow. haha).

First we drove to Banff National Park and spent the day there. It was a little drizzly, but it was still nice. A little rain can be quite refreshing.

mmm...fudge

Enjoying the fresh mountain air

Good thing we had our umbrella

It’s just not a trip to Banff without a stop at the candy store. We highly recommend the strawberry bon bons.

We then went to these falls nearby and viewed the Banff Springs Hotel

We then headed to our resort in Canmore. It was beautiful!

I think it was bigger than our apartment. haha.

Random bathroom shot

It was really nice to have the kitchen. Yeeeah tacos!

Before we left, we picked two hikes we would like to go on, but later we decided we didn’t want to go on either of those. It was a little rainy so Ha Ling Peak sounded a little too adventurous for the day and I’ve hiked Grotto Canyon before, so I wanted to try something new. We ended up going to Heart Creek which turned out to be a lovely hike!

At the trail head

Getting stoked for the hike

Pretty flowers

Cowabunga! (wow, when I typed that, no red dashes appeared...that’s a real word?...Ok I looked it up. “Used to express delight or satisfaction.” Sweet.)

Wilderness Superwoman!

Mastering the self timer

Melissa on the trail. Question: When does a walk become a hike? I think hike just sounds cooler. But basically it’s just a long walk in the woods/mountains etc.

We found another hiker to take a picture of us. There were several of these bridges along the path.

Waterfall at the end of the trail

Melissa

It’s kind of hard to tell from this photo, but we climbed up these rocks, and then found a sweet look out spot!

Jordan at the sweet spot

It was kind of scary!

That night we discovered that Jenna and Blake were in the area! What a coincidence! We walked down main street in Canmore, poking through the gift shops.

We didn’t buy anything but I was pretty tempted to get this wicked toque.

Strange large head

Cuties Blake and Jenna

By happenstance, we planned this trip during Canmore’s ArtSpeak Festival, which was super fun. We went to some of the art galleries, including a pottery studio, and watched street performers.

A “one-man-band” guy and juggling clowns

We had the opportunity to attend a free workshop on mail art. Jordan was a little unenthusiastic about this at first (note the face), but he was so good at it and really started to get into it. The lady behind him kept commenting on his work and telling him how good it was.

Handmade envelope

Jordan’s a great artist because he is so patient. He sewed the entire edge of this paper which took him like an hour.

It was so much fun! And I couldn’t believe it was totally free. We had access to a variety of materials and the lady teaching it was very knowledgable and inspiring.

Jordan is such an awesome artist. He is so creative. (You can see the teacher in the background with the blue top)

Jordan’s finished work

Close up of the stitching

He made this envelope from scratch. He added details such as stamping, magazine cut outs, printed paper, leaves, postage stamps, and textured paper.

Originally, the back looked like this...

...then he added a creepy baby face to it.

The rest are all mine. (I’m sort of a “power artist”..I’m not patient like Jordan...oh well.)

This one was originally an off-white envelope. I created the background color by rubbing in chalk pastels with bunched up paper towel.

I added details such as stamps, old-fashioned ads, patterned paper, and distressing ink.

This one was my favorite.

I made the envelope with double sided scrapbooking paper.

I then added details such as leaves, postage stamps, pages of books, and scrapbook paper.

I made this one with a classic blue and red envelope painted with watercolors and stamped with a purple leaf pattern.

This one is made from a CD envelope. I tore paper to go around the edge.

It comes with a matching card.

The back view

It was such a fun day!

We didn’t really take any pictures this day. It was our “Lazy Day”. I think we slept until 1 or 2!

We were hoping to go on a bike ride this day, but it had been raining quite a bit and we didn’t really feel like it.

We just drove around for a bit and walked down by a little river. (Where I skipped a rock for the first time!)

And before heading back to Calgary, we noticed the candy store in Canmore also had bon bons, so we got a good stash! Seriously, these are my favorite candies. We got lemon, chocolate, blackcurrant, strawberry, and green apple. mmmm...

Back in Calgary, we went to Over Easy for breakfast as recommended by a friend.

The food and service were really great but it was a little pricey for breakfast

I wish I had a chalkboard on my ceiling!

We then went to Heritage Park with the free admission coupons we received from our fake wedding shoot last year. (See below for ad in the Wedding Bells magazine)