And she is off....

It was finally time to take Cora to Edmonton.  I put it off as long as I could.  Dave and Blake went ahead of us in the Tahoe and Leah, Cora and I went in her car.  We had her drive so we knew she could go the distance and drive through all the traffic.  We got to her place a little after noon and started hauling things in.  Cora had never seen the place and didn't know what to expect.  Also it was a little smaller than I had remembered.

Leah colored on the way up to entertain herself.  Both the kids colored on the way home it was funny. I could tell Cora was a little down about the place.  There had been a girl in their room all summer and she had left a lot of stuff behind.  It was really messy.  And Maycie had gotten there the week before and had already cleaned up tons.  Can't imagine what they found.  We dropped her stuff, made up the bed and went to Galaxyland.  Thank goodness for Airmiles.  I couldn't believe how much stuff had gone up.  We did Galaxyland, Waterpark and 3 hotel nights all with Airmiles.  We would not have been able to do it otherwise.

Blake had really wanted to go back on Ropequest.  We didn't think we would be able to do that added expense.  He was so excited when we remembered that it had been moved inside Galaxyland and was part of the ticket.  They went all over that thing.

Leah was looking forward to the Giant Swing.

Cora was very determined that she was doing Mindbender this year.  They did a few other things as she worked up the nerve.  Blake was very unsure.  As he was sitting there I thought he was going to hyperventilate.  He had the biggest smile and thumbs up when he rode back in.  Cora could not believe it took her that long to get on it.  They rode it at least 10 times that day and really wanted to go back again.  Now that Blake is a little older, he enjoyed the space shot a lot more.  Also many rides on that one.

That night we dropped Cora off and went to our hotel.  I was a little sick inside, wondering how I could just leave her in a place she was so unhappy about.  I kept reminding myself that we had all felt really good about this place when we found it.  Unbeknownst to all of us, Cora, Dave and I had each spent a good portion of the night thinking about how we could make it better.  When we got back together the next morning we had a plan.  Dave and Blake got to work organizing some junk and hauling things out.  They moved the other girls stuff out of the way.  The Leah and I sat and talked to Cora until she was ready to go and cheered up.  We got the kitchen organized and helped Dave move stuff around.  We then headed to Ikea to get her a lot of organizing things, like desk and shelves.  She was feeling a lot more hopeful by the evening.  I had booked temple baptism and we went off to our appointment.  We were so glad Maycie decided to come with us.

It was a fun experience.  Very different than our temple.  You could tell that they don't do baptisms often.  Blake was the only male doing them (they put us in with a small group of RS sisters).  The guy in charge asked how many he could do.  I asked how many he needed done.  20 was the answer, but they found 5 more after.  He was so happy to do it all.  After the temple we grabbed Subway and dropped the girls back off.  Cora was more upbeat and ready to organize her things.  That night we were sleeping nicely and the fire alarm goes off.  At 3:45 a.m.  We snagged our phones and wallets and evacuated.  It was surprising how many just looked in the hall, not going anywhere.  We were out for about an hour.  The fire department determined it was a false alarm.  So we were able to go back in.  There were a lot of angry people the next morning.  Too bad, it was not their fault.  I was glad to know everything was working and if something did happen we would be safe.  

The next morning was some more organizing.  We loaded up the Tahoe with garbage and recycling that had just been thrown out of Cora's back door.  Dave took Cora driving around to find the recycle center and a few job places, grab a few things at Ikea they had forgot and just practiced driving around.  Blake, Leah and I went to the store to stock her up on groceries.

They found great hats while there.  We meet back and ate lunch at Cora's then off to the waterpark.  We had an extra free ticket, so Maycie came with us as well.  We stayed as late as we could and took the girls home after.  Thursday we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast. We went to Cora's to see how she had got all set up and say good-bye.  It is odd not having her here.  We talk to her lots and she is having a blast.  A little stressed about finding a job.  Keep her in your prayers, but she loves the YSA activities and is meeting tons of people.  She is happy and upbeat.  Quoting movies and sarcastic as ever.  So many great thing in store for her.  We miss her like crazy, but this is her next step and so far she is handling it amazingly.