I Love a Good Vacation!

Well it has certainly been a long time since I posted anything. June has been a very busy month with a new position at work (the office job), the end of school for the kids, and a fabulous vacation to Calgary to visit family, friends and a little bit of the Stampede. I am currently on my second week of vacation, the time to recover from the first week of going away for vacation. I thought I would have cleaned the house more at this point, but the fact that 'I am on vacation' is preventing from being ambitious about it.

Our trip away was fabulous! The kids stayed with their grandparents and we stayed in a hotel, alone. That in itself was a vacation. Alone time doesn't happen much for us. My better half had never been to Alberta before, so taking him and showing where I'm from was great. Though I was born here in Ontario, I spent the better part, well more like all of my 20's in Calgary, and to this day I still feel that I am Calgarian. Re-visiting the old hangouts, showing where I was once held up at gun point (yes...gunpoint) and taking him to the breathtaking mountains was so much fun. The poor man even had to attend a luncheon and a birthday party with my ex-in-laws which in my opinion deserves a medal. They are lovely people, but how comfortable would that be? We went to the Stampede for a day with the kids and took in a rodeo. That night we went to an Our Lady Peace concert - it was LOUD and forced better half to walk only on my right side the next day so he could hear me. Of course, if we weren't so close to the stage, we wouldn't have had that problem - it was self inflicted. We toured Calgary, saw the zoo, had dinner with wonderful friends, toured both Lake Louise and Banff, took in the chuck wagon races and the grandstand show - which was incredible! We also ate out....A LOT!

My favourite dinner outing was to The Grizzly House in Banff. Though I have visited Banff often back in the day, I never ate here.

Fondue was popular in the 70's and it seems that the front door to this restaurant was like a time machine. We entered into 70's decor and the best of 70's music. We were lucky enough to be seated right up front in the window seat. Perfect for people watching and it gave us a great view of our surroundings.

Our meal started with an appetizer, salad or soup. I got the salad and my better half picked the onion soup. I regretted my choice after having a taste of his soup - it was to die for! Next was the cheese and bread fondue, it came with a side of roasted garlic which we added to the cheese. It was fun, but not overly flavourful, that is until it got near the bottom of the fondue bowl and the server scraped the bottom of the pot for us (she said it was the best part). She was right, it was yummy! Next was the main part of our meal, I decided on the beef and scallop and my better half went with the beef and lobster. Instead of oil, you can have the 'hot stone' option. Our server explained that the hot stones are heated in the oven for hours but then only last about 20 minutes or so. She delivered it with garlic butter to help cook our food, went over the cross-contamination rules and away we went. It also came with four different dips, all were delicious!

For dessert, we had melted Toblerone fondue with fresh fruit. I could have scooped the chocolate up with a spoon (I think I might have actually) it was wonderful! It was so fun to eat here, the wine, the food, the atmosphere, and the best part was the company. It inspired me to start having fondue party's at home. Why did this die out anyway?