Another successful tour in Arizona/California and we drove home in good time to make an appearance at Edmonton’s Earth Day Festival, which this year had a big snow dump after the tents were put up. However there was one huge tent in the middle and the entire festival moved in there so that stalwarts who showed up still had a festival – albeit on a somewhat smaller scale.

The spring season got going gradually with shows at the Nature Centre and Valley Zoo (Mothers’ Day), plus the annual ‘Day out with Thomas’ (the Tank Engine) at Heritage Park in Calgary, to which we look forward again in 2009. T.V. shows to launch the Fort Edmonton season on Victoria Day weekend, plus the Family Day at Northlands and the Northern Alberta Children’s Festival right in our home town, which we love, interacting with the children and so many friends. A great Festival!

Many special events at Fort Edmonton Park this summer including several private corporate evenings, also events at the Citadel Theatre, Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, and the family festival at High River. We appeared again for Canada Day at Fort Calgary, except that this year we did 2 full shows, plus Mary m.c.’d the entire day from 9am-4pm, and we took our own sound plus a couple of extra speakers and Peter did the audio for everyone, starting at 8am. The folks there kindly said it was their best Canada Day ever!

We managed to schedule a break in July this year, and the 2 of us, plus Meggie the dog, headed off to the West coast to see some special friends and catch up on a bit of r + r, including 5 nights camping on Vancouver Island. We were really lucky with the weather and apart from our last night in the Banff area, no mosquitos!! A great holiday and Meggie loved lots of dips in the ocean.

Because we were busy with so many other events we just did the one fair this year, at Vegreville, where it was very hot – up to 35c degrees many days. That brings us to mid- August, where we have a corporate summer carnival and the Fort Edmonton Harvest this week, then a major festival ‘Under the Big Top’ at Festival Place in Sherwood Park next week, followed by the Storytelling Festival at the Fort on the long weekend into September.

Various events coming up, including a visit to Britain, to see family. Then back in time for Free Access Day for the City of Edmonton, plus Mary is hosting a tour to Minot Norsk Hostfest at the end of September. The Halloween festival (Spooktacular) is coming up, plus several marketing conventions in October and early November, plus a fundraising concert for the St. Albert United Church on November 2nd.

The Christmas season is of course largely organized with corporate events. So far the only public ones are the Morinville Christmas Festival on November 29th and the Santa Claus Parade in Edmonton on December 7th.

Once again we plan to tour in the southern U.S. from January – March. Venues are all set up and there is just a little final ‘tweaking’ of the paperwork.

Next summer is starting to fall into place; we’ll keep you posted and hope all is well with you, wherever you’re reading this .