Alistair and Ramona's Wedding (Calgary, Banff, and Panorama)

Erin and view from Juniper Hotel
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We started off our journey with a trip to Canada for the wedding of our friends Ramona Corbiell and Alistair Hill.  It was a great time with a night on the town in Calgary, Banff for the wedding, and Panorama for skiing.

Our first night there we split up for our respective parties, Michael to Alistair's stag night, and Erin to Ramona's bridal shower.  While the girls definitely had a wonderful time at the Mardi Gras inspired bridal shower, enjoying yummy food and great company, the boys seemed to enjoy their night even more.  Everyone met up later in the evening at a bar where the boys were definitely having a good time!  It ended up being a very late evening for all, with many people getting lost on their way back to the hotel.  Definitely a sign of a good stag night!

Relaxing in the hot tub and communal suppers were the highlight though: great friends, food, and wine.

Michael sporting his new Scottish hat
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On the next day we traveled to Banff for 2 nights in the beautifully restored Juniper Hotel. The wedding and reception were held in the hotel on March 10th.  It was a beautiful setting with the Rocky Mountains as the back drop. The wedding went great, plenty of men in kilts, which will improve any wedding. We danced late and furiously with plenty to eat and drink. It was great to catch up with our old friends and make some new ones. We had hoped to meet up with Oz in London, but unfortunately that did not happen. We also missed Josie in Spain - she was in France by the time we got to Spain. We might well meet up with her later on in New Zealand though!

Mountains in Banff
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The day after the wedding we left Banff and it's lovely natural setting, and car pooled up to Panorama for some relaxing skiing. Being a novice, Michael took a lesson right away.  Erin decided to take a class as well, since it had been 6 years since her last attempts at skiing.  Despite Michael's cautious nature, he still found himself going down blue and black slopes, accidentally (the green turnoff was hidden behind a tree!).  So, 2.5 months later and Michael's shoulder and knee still hurts when used awkwardly due to the bad wrenching it got as he rolled and slid down the slopes.  Despite our poor showing as expert skiers, we still had a good time enjoying the surroundings and the sport.  Relaxing in the hot tub and communal suppers were the highlight though: great friends, food, and wine.

Michael and the Mountain
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We also had the great pleasure of learning that Erin's best friend Melyssa and Ahmed had given birth to a healthy baby boy on March 15th, 2007!  Welcome Mako Evans, can't wait to meet you.

After 4 nights in Panorama, it was time to head back to Calgary to continue on our trip.  We were kindly dropped at Michael's stepsister Jenny and Paul's beautiful home in Calgary for the night.  There we met their two wonderful boys, both were sweet as could be and a joy to play with.  After the boys went to bed, we hit up Jenny and Paul for advice on extended traveling, as they too had taken a trip around the world a few years previously. We had a good time discussing their travels and their experiences volunteering in developing nations. We described our frustration that many of the opportunities we had found to volunteer our engineering skills turned out to cost us quite a bit of money. These programs seem to be geared toward encouraging firms to share people and money, which is not something we can support on our budget.

Erin by a stream walking into Banff
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It was great to spend time with Jenn, Paul and their boys Alec and Kase, too bad it was only for one night.  The next morning we packed up and headed off to Vancouver.