SO, Wednesday night I got a call from my sweetie and he asks me if it would be possible to take 24 hours off of work and meet him in Edmonton... the next day! "OF COURSE!" I said and with that my spur of the moment trip started. Turns out that Rod (Jo-Ben's boss) and Jo-Ben were able to get the afternoon on Thrusday and the morning on Friday off (they moved around some jobs so they worked on the morning on Thursday and the afternoon on Friday... and late into the night) but the point is they were freeeee for less than 24 hours but hey, we will take anything that we can get. They are working about 4 hours north of edmonton so as soon as they were done their morning job on Thursday they drove down to Edmonton and as soon as my lunch break hit I drove up! Rods wife and kids drove up too but they had to leave for somthing really early on Friday morning so I drove up on my own this time. It was only a two and half hour drive and the weather wasnt too bad compared to the days preceeding. It was actually a nice drive.
I met up with my man at the Holiday Inn near the West Edmonton mall where we stayed at a great rate because my company painted and vinyled the hotel a few months back. It is a gorgeous hotel, brand new. Jo-Ben was already there when I arrived and when he opened the door to our room I was so excited to see him... Jo-Ben however was excited for a different reason...
he was excited to show me his new moustache! eeek! I think I let out a frigtened little shriek when I saw him... or rather "it". Jo-Ben usually has facial hair but it consists of a neatly groomed smallish goatee and "soul patch" and maybe a little bit of stuble... very rugged but also cleaned up looking as far as facial hair. Apperantly out in the oil feild you arent allowed any facial hair that would constrict with an oxygen mask (some H2S rule because they work with poisonous gasses or somthing) so "all the other inspectors" (yeah, right) grow big moustaches. So Jo-Ben and our friend James, who is also working up there with them, have decided to grow these things... all i have to say is SICK. I hate it. Maybe its just cause I'm not used to it, I dunno, and if your husbands have moustaches then take no offence but I don't like mine with one. I mean I
like him... I LOVE him... but I don't think I will ever LOVE the moustache. Anyways, Jo-Ben and James think its like the funniest, coolest thing ever. They even have a secret hand shake involving the moustaches. So weird.
Our time together, although MUCH too short, was SO fun. I was saying it was almost more fun spending less then 24 hours with him in a fun place like that than when I got way up north to see him for three days. We did a TON of stuff. I first got there and we got settled into the hotel and called James and his girlfriend Cori-lynn who was up there visiting him too & headed out to meet them at the West Edmonton Mall. The four of us stormed the mall for a few hours (I was just window shopping but it was still fun) We went to the amusment park in the mall and I'm not a big scarey rides kinda girl but the other three were pretty pumped for them so I went along... we started off with the smaller roller coaster which was a little bit scarey but mostly fun. Jo-Ben, James and Cori went on this ride called the space ship that shoots you up in the air... it was pretty intence, I screamed and I wasnt even on the ride. THEN it was
time... we went on the BIG roller coaster. (ps- right before we went on James tells me about the time he went on it and the wheels started smoking and they had to walk down from the top... ummmmmmm) It was probably the scariest ride I have ever been on in my life. Apperantly its the biggest indoor coaster in the world... I'm proud that I did it but Im never doing it again. EVER. We were all a little shakey afterwards so we diceided no more rides. We shopped a little more and then headed to Tony Romas where we all chowed down on some fabulous ribs. Then we all headed back to our hotel for a hot tub... BEST hot tub I have ever had at a hotel. It was actually HOT. We haev stayed in alot of hotels that have luke warm hot tubs, so disapointing but this thing was H-O-T. It was really nice. After a very brief swimming lesson from my hubby (I don't know how to swim & I'm not very keen on learning (mostly because I dont want to get my hair wet :)) but Jo-Ben love to try to teach me new things and never lets me give up so its always funny when he gets me near a pool, hes pretty determined) we headed up to our room where the 4 of us just vegged and watched some tv. The next morning Jo-Ben and I went for some breaky at Tim's and I dropped him off at the company head office in Edmonton (where I got to meet the owner and snatch up a snazzy company hoodie) and then Jo-Ben and Rod were headed off back up north. I'm going to go up and see him again on Feb. 12 for 3 days but it was pretty cool to have an impromptu "day" with him in Edmonton. OH so funny- while we were in the mall we ran into a family friend of ours from Abbotsford... Jo-Ben had to explain the moustache. HAHAHA that was priceless. Serves him right.
Here are a few pics of Jo-Ben and James in H&M pretending to be European models... I call them Hanz and Franz.



Here is James lovin the eskimo hat... We were in Marks Work Wearhouse... gotta try on the hats. The funny thing is last week during our cold snap here in Three Hills (it got down to -50 with the windchill... coldest people have said in a looong time) I saw people actually wearing these things- no joke!

Annnnnnd finally me getting personal with some of the statues in the mall... we all posed with them in funny ways and then noticed the big plaque on the floor that said "keep off the statues" oops!

Cori-lynn inspecting the statues pipe... Only in Alberta are there huge random oil feild worker statues in the middle of the mall! How do the welds look on that pipe Cori?!