~ University of Alberta Botanical Garden Visit ~

On a spontaneous whim my wife and I went on a trip to the University of Alberta Botanical Gardens near Devon. We had a great time, it was a sunny and hot day. It was great to see a lot of the flowers in full bloom. We have gone before but later in the summer when flowers were not as healthy as they were in July. It's great to see these gardens and the updates they have been doing to the grounds since the last time we went. I love to photograph flowers so it was a lot of fun, by the end of the visit I was drenched from the heat. I still have a ways to go with my personal health. The exercise we got from walking around was much needed on my end.

Here are the photos from our visit:

~ Summer 2021 Update ~

 SUMMER 2021 Update

Here it is summer of 2021 and I have not updated this blog in ages. I have been working on a post that goes into more details about my year of 2019 but for now I'll just give a quick overview.

September 2019 I was diagnosed with cancer, I started aggressive chemo and was hospitalized for about a month before they let me go home to finish chemo. I took the year off of teaching to recover and of course during that time COVID19 hit hard and the planet went into survival mode with people not allowed to gather. 

I started teaching in the fall of 2020 and now here I am finished one of the hardest years of teaching I have ever had. Thankfully I am vaccinated x2 with the wonderful phizer vaccine. It has been stressful at times and I did have to quarantine once because I was a close contact with a covid positive person in my class.

I have not touched my camera much, I am hoping this summer I can start shooting some new pixels and doing more photography!! Really going to try and get more physically active as I packed on some serious covid pounds....also due to a thyroid issue too. 

Anyway, this wasn't a super exciting blog post but glad I was able to post something. These aren't new photos, just some I have shot since recovering from cancer. Posted from my FLICKR. First pic is my ringing of the bell to celebrate finishing my chemo.

So if anyone that's reading this wants to shoot some photos with me, please contact me and let's create something awesome. I need to get out and adventure with a camera again!

-Randy