The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo Four

Well with our upcoming adventure to Winnipeg, I figure I should get a move on with posting the rest of our honeymoon adventure. So let us continue with the next leg of the Calgary Zoo: The Dorothy Harvie Gardens.

This part may have been my favourite of all; as much as I enjoy being inside... if I'm going to be outside, it may as well be in a warm environment with lots of pretty things to look at. Now this area was quite big on large areas of growing plants and things... in retrospect, perhaps I should have taken a picture of some of the beautiful areas and arrangements of flowers and plants and things; though to be fair, it was kinda raining and/or dreary at the time. If any of you live in an area where your city grows arrangements of pretty flowers and things, then you can just imagine that, only in the middle of a Zoo.

(As a side note: if you grow your own personal arrangements of pretty flowers and garden things, I would love to see your handiwork as I've been trying for years to grow even a single flower within my house and it never seems to work out.)

Within the Dorothy Harvie Gardens area there is a building which has some neat information on scientifical such as photosynthesis and how butterflies keep themselves warm using sunlight similar to how a solar panel works. Probably even cooler than that, is that there's a huge room inside the building which is kept at tropical temperatures so that they can grow real live plants of all sorts from different places as well as keep butterflies in there.

Let me share some of what I saw:

I could have taken so many more pictures of the plants, but with there being so many plants it would have been an almost endless stream of greenery that nobody would really be able to appreciate without actually being there. As you can see, I did manage to get some neat pictures of some of the giant butterflies that were there. Of course, it can be rather difficult to get a good idea of just how big some of these flying bugs can be; so here's a video to give you a much better visual of how huge these things are.

Isn't that insane? It definitely blew my mind. There are tons of these things flying around this greenhouse-type building. They also have a space for incubating butterfly cocoons as well where you can see through the glass rows and rows of hanging cocoons, all at different points of growth from beginning up to hatching. Of course... again... I didn't think to take pictures BUT IT'S REEEEALLY COOL YOU SHOULD GO SEE IT!

If you're at all a fan of animals, then you really should go to a zoo and check it out. Maybe some people would think it's cruel to lock up animals, but seriously... how would we get a chance to see this stuff and learn about them and appreciate them if we as regular people never have a chance to really see them in person?

Stay tuned for next time when I tell you about the Eurasia section.


~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure

=== A Neglectful Owner ===

     With being so busy over the past month of June with work and school and everything else, I've been a pretty neglectful owner to my blog. I'm definitely super happy to be done being so super busy all the time; finally I can actually sit down and think about things other than what work I have to get done at all points in time.

     Of course I'm still super busy these days. I have quite a bit of work to keep track of and a few projects I'd like to work on including finally getting my garden ready to grow something.... probably for next year at this rate. Obviously I really want to get my blog back up and running as well. There's so much I want to write about, but I just haven't had enough time recently. I wish I had just a few more hours each day... maybe if I didn't have to sleep all the time....

     Realistically though, I think I just need to work on having a better diet. I think most of my lost energy is actually because I don't really eat very well. I do have a habit of only regularly eating one meal per day. I guess that makes me a bit of a neglectful owner of myself. I really don't get plenty of exercise either; some days I only have the time to sit in the car, sit at work, and sit at home.

     This clearly says to me that I need to work on quite a few things. I need to work on my health, my time management, and I need to work on getting back on track to my goals of content production and successful productive use of time. Even taking the time to think about what I want to type next but not putting anything down makes me feel silly for wasting time.

I might have a bit of a time-problem. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

The Baby Is Finally Born!

     What an amazing event to finally watch our baby be born. She's here now and ready to explore the worl--... oh... she's asleep. She was pretty wide awake at first, probably something to do with being thrust into some alien world she's not used to. She's eaten a couple times and this morning she managed to have one of the biggest poops I've ever seen... compared to her body weight.

     So far, Carley is super amazed with her. With all of the experience she has with children, she's terrified of newborns; She wants to do everything so gentile and to be sure she doesn't hurt the baby. Me on the other hand... I have no idea what to do with kids at all. Alright well... that's not totally true, I think between the two of us, we have plenty of experience to deal with toddlers... it's babies we're unsure about; we're plenty prepared for having a toddler. 

     A couple days later and here we are at home. I was terrified to bring her home and not have the support of the nurses at the hospital, but I think we're managing so far. She seems to sleep sometimes and then wake herself up every once in a while and get a little bit fussy. At the moment she's pretty much an angel during the day, then she becomes a monster at night. Last night in particular we had quite a few issues getting her to go to sleep until I found the swaddler and used it on her in place of a regular blanket. I don't know how other people do it, but neither Carley, nor I are capable of doing a great job of swaddling her with a regular blanket. At this point it seems totally insane and I'm absolutely looking forward to getting another one or two to use throughout her years.

     Besides that, we're holding on for now. I'm not looking forward to some upcoming drives to work where I'll be super tired falling asleep, especially considering the fact that I have such a long drive to work. I'm sure I'll pull through with a healthy supply of caffeine to keep me going on those particularly tough days. Between work, school, a baby, and our puppy, I'll have a lot to keep me busy. Oh yeah, and I have hopes that I'll be able to grow a garden, practice my dusty violin, and keep on blogging and streaming as we go along as well. I would love to find more time to stream and / or record YouTube videos because those I particularly find enjoyable, but that may have to wait for a bit depending on how things are going... I mean... I do have the recent addition of a baby in my family to take care of now.

Well, that's all for now, have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa



-- Check out my YouTube
-- Come watch my Twitch
-- Follow me on Twitter

5 Days Until Moving Day!

     For anybody who hasn't heard, Carley and I are moving out of our apartment which is currently falling apart. We take possession of our new house on the 25th at 11:00am. How exciting it is that we'll actually have a nice space of our own that we won't have to be embarrassed about inviting our family over to. Once we get some unpacking done, we have plans to invite some friends over for table top game nights, and we have plans to invite family over to visit and have supper.

     Maybe it sounds a little bit silly, but one of the things I'm most excited about is that we'll finally have access to fiber optics, so we won't be stuck on the awfully slow internet speed we're on currently. I'll finally be able to spend some time gaming with my friends without lagging out of everything. I'll be able to upload videos during the day so I won't have to waste so much power by leaving my computer on over night and while I'm gone to work. Also, if I can find the time to, I'll be able to live-stream once again!

     Now that I'm done my spiel on how excited I am for technological reasons... I think Carley and I are going to be super happy having a place of our own which isn't falling apart. We'll finally be able to have everything nice and organized just how we'd like it. There'll be a play room in the basement, a room for us and a room for Isabelle, an office space for us, and a nice backyard that we can actually use including a garden (if I can ever figure out how to grow a plant without killing it).

     I'm quite happy to be moving soon, and I think Carley is too, but she's also a little overwhelmed; she really doesn't like moving. Thankfully, this place will finally be a long-term place. We're already pretty much packed up; just have to pack dishes, the washroom, and food on the last day. Obviously we'll have to take apart the desks as well, but there's not much else to do besides that. We just have a ton of boxes filling our living room at the moment.

     Besides the excitement of moving, I've been at my new job for a little over a month now and I'm absolutely loving it. Working a salary is WAY better than working hourly; especially since my coordinator is so freaking awesome. I feel like I'm getting the hang of things quickly and she thinks so too.

     I still wish I could make a little more money on the side somehow, but I'm not really sure how I would go about that besides my long-term plan to maybe one day make a bit of money off my videos on YouTube and Twitch. I guess I'll just have to keep on making videos for now and we'll see where things go in the future. In any case, it's super fun for me to do and I hope others enjoy what I do as well.

-- Please check out my YouTube at www.YouTube.com/user/TheDaemonVirus
-- Please check out my Twitch at www.Twitch.tv/DaemonVirus1
-- Please follow me on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KyleWelykholowa

     Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

(Written Sunday, November 20th, 2016)