THE LAST STRETCH OF OUR SUMMER VACATION

I decided I'll put all my summer vacation in different parts.

Reasons:
1. I don't want my single entry to be loaded with ten thousand pictures. Personally, when reading a blog, I don't really appreciate an entry with frigging thousands of pictures in it. Even with high speed internet, some of the pics will still take forever to load.
2. I want it more organized. All the randomness in one part and the places in other parts.

So let's just start from the beginning.

My parents and sister drove from Manitoba to Alberta (12-14 hours I think or maybe even 16 hours max with the stops). The original plan was them to be here by Saturday afternoon but because of some happenings the past week, we had to adjust and try to fit our time offs in 5 days, so they were here Friday evening. You know what? 5 days is effing short but it was all worth it, I spent it with my family so I ain't complaining.

Ok. I COOKED!!!! haha and I'll provide pictures ;)

I bought a whole chicken! lol! that's new haha

and obviously, I did the chopping myself even the garlic and onion.

boiling the chicken to cook

added that long green veggie called upo and malunggay plus the chicken cube boiled it some more and it was done.

MY TINOLA WAS A SUCCESS! I honestly thought that cooking real food was complicated =)) my tinola proved me wrong. pwuahaha It's really effing simple! haha I had to cook another food coz my sister is a vegetarian and no pictures for that coz I forgot haha I got excited more with the chicken ;).  That was it for dinner last Friday. The next day, I cooked for my family again.

Fried rice

grilled beef

My sister ate her fish and shrimp from last night for her breakfast.

After breakfast, washing of the dishes and baths, we then headed to Banff which is 6 hours away from here. Where is here?ahmm somewhere here =))

The pictures from our Banff and Calgary trip will be blogged tomorrow. Maybe. If I get the time. I'm really busy this week and I am expecting some friends over tomorrow night, so major major cleaning. ;)

And before I end this first part of my summer vacay, I want for everyone to know that I moved on. I moved on from Nokia to BlackBerry. I've been a Nokia user since I was 14 so I know Nokia phones inside out haha and since they don't really make Nokia phones available here, I decided to just switch to BB. I was planning on getting the new BB torch but it's not yet available in Canada, not until fall or maybe in December (for Rogers), hence, BB bold it is.

I am getting used to BB now haha

ZEBRA PRINTS for the skin.

Last randomness for this entry.

We went to the bottle depot the other day for our bottles and guess how much our 5 black garbage bags of recyclable bottles cost?

 $41.80

See, it pays to be earth friendly. ;)

MOTHER NATURE

Did you actually watch the video?haha Well, don't worry, I am not blogging about our monthly "gift", and no this is not a review about tampons lol! so carry on, read until the very end of this post. (:

Mother Nature - or Mother Earth, the precious planet that we live in, the planet that we, most of the times tend to neglect. I know, I understand coz just like you, I am a human being, our life are just so busy most of the time that we just "ignore" simple things that we can do to save our planet.

Seriously? Being "busy" with our everyday activities is just a lame excuse to do an act to help keep our planet clean and green. We don't have to join any environmental organization to take part of the clean and green act, a simple throwing our trashes/cigarette butts in its proper waste bin is step one, mother earth isn't asking for too much now, does she? Next step, RECYCLE. I've said this before from my previous home blog, but I'm gonna say it here again one more time, I am happy that our province charges for deposit now for every bottle, cartons, jugs of milk etc. This way, everyone will think twice now before tossing those out with their regular trash. Because I care for mother earth and the other people and other living things living in this planet and for the next generation, I recycle. I got $25 last December for bringing my bottles and cartons back to the bottle depot. It may not be a lot but that's still $25, a hard earned one, and I am not gonna throw that away in the garbage.

Go Paperless, I've been doing paperless for about 2 years now, I get my bank statements and bills online. Another point, I know it's annoying to get emails that are not really important right?The emails that we consider junk or spam, instead of subscribing from the weekly paper flyers, subscribe to email flyers, deleting them afterwards is not a hard thing to do. We all know where papers are made of right? By going paperless, we just saved a tree from being cut down cruelly.

So what other steps are there to save this planet from pollution and barbarism?

1. Buy products that are eco-friendly, there are thousands of products to choose from in the market now that is eco-friendly and budget wise.
2. Be old school. When cleaning your house use vinegar and water as your cleaning solution. They clean the same way anyways, plus it's harmless.
3. Use recyclable bags when shopping.
4. Reuse. Whatever container that is still good to use, use it to store food, sugar etc.

When I went to the grocery store the other day to buy detergent, I looked for of course, an eco-friendly product.

contains no phosphate




biodegradable, again when recycling, make sure that it is collected by licensed waste disposal company.

I am actually ready to wrap up this entry now as it is really getting long when I was struck with reality, that most people are not disciplined enough, maybe respectful but not disciplined enough to even throw their empty candy wrapper in the waste bin.

So not unless you're respectful, disciplined and you care enough for all the living things here on earth, this entry is pointless.