Weekly Challenge #124

Happy Monday everyone!
First of all, as always - a few house keeping items:

• If you're NEW here (and there've been a lot of new additions to the party!) I'm working on creating some tutorials to help you out.  You can click on the links above or:  See "Getting Started"  and "Tutorials" 
• To see all the past weekly challenges - click the tabs above
• Please grab the button for the Weekly Challenge (on the right  sidebar) to display on your blogs! share the fun!
• The limit of submissions to the slideshow is TWO, but please feel free to post as many as you like to your blogs.  I will take the first two presented to each challenge. 

• I know that some of you have told me that the paypal button does not work, and some of you have had no trouble, i'm not sure why it's inconsistent, i've redone the code a few times... If all else fails you can donate to my paypal address which is madam_diva ( a t ) yahoo ( d o t ) com - also to those people who donated this week... THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Happy Monday.
Before i get on with my post today, i wanted to share something from Maria Vennekens, our guest blogger last week, in response to your submissions to last week's challenge.

I really was surprised by the different approaches to challenge #123. Some of you just started drawing and came up with lines that eventually became new patterns. Others searched for inspirations to create new patterns. All  these efforts resulted in beautiful drawings. Almost everyone struggled with the problem where to begin and what to draw. This was also my own experience. After that struggle you end up with a Zentangle or a ZIA.

So my answer to the question “Is it a Zentangle?” would be: The product is a Zentangle but the process to get there was not.

Thank you all for your willingness to try this challenge and share your thoughts about the process.
Maria Vennekens CZT

Thank YOU Maria for your challenging challenge!

Last weekend, i took the boys to Calgary, Alberta - to visit some friends and go to the zoo.  here's some photos.

Both boys loved the monkeys, but who doesn't love monkeys?

We did the zoo in the rain, and Chewie was happy to have a reason to wear his new raincoat.
 luckily there are enough indoor things to do at the Calgary Zoo that we still managed to have fun.

the zoo in the rain

This smiley boy enjoyed the butterfly house.

 This was the first time i had taken the boys on a long road trip, so i wanted to do as many fun things as we could, and the day after the zoo i tried to take them to Heritage Park but, literally, the minute we started unpacking the kids from the van the sky opened up and it started pouring.  So we decided to go to the nearby mall, which has a carousel in it.  They didn't really seem to notice a difference, and they loved the carousel.

what rain?

Artoo and Grampapa goin' for a ride

Driving home from Calgary, we stopped in Drumheller, AB to check out the DINOSAURS at the Royal Tyrell Museum Chewie had a pretty fun time - and at the end we were all happy to go back home.

"Mom, i'm not even as tall as his knee!"

so cool

This statue is hollow, and you can climb to the top and look out the T-Rex's mouth

Inside the dino, so excited!

It was a pretty good trip and the boys were excellently behaved during the 6.5 hour car ride.  It was a good time and i feel better about our upcoming trip next weekend, back to Alberta for my grandmother's memorial service. 

Weekly Challenge #124: "We Are Calgary"
While we were in Calgary last weekend, i took the opportunity to drive my family through Bowness - the community in the North West of Calgary where B-rad and i lived during the first few years of our married life together.   I showed my family my old house, the hill where B-rad proposed, all our old haunts and we all marveled at how much the community had grown and changed in the almost seven years we've been gone.

It's changed much more, now.

You may have seen some footage of the flooding in Calgary.
It's just heart breaking.


Bowness is the community shown in the beginning of this video.  The whole community is just destroyed... and it's not the only one. 

The water is on it's way to Saskatchewan - though i'm told the flooding won't be as bad.

As always, when disaster strikes - amidst the heart break you hear these amazing stories of how the people come together, how humanity rises to the occasion.  This disaster has it's fair share of stories - one we were following closely was the evacuation and protection of the animals at the zoo, as the zoo is on an island on the Bow River.  Luckily all the animals are safe and sound.

I was inspired by Maria Thomas' tile on the cover of The Book of Zentangle
- it reminded me of the people coming together like thousands of hugs

This week's challenge is an open challenge - i only ask that you keep Calgary in your hearts this week, and any part of the Earth where people are dealing with incredible struggles and tragedy.

If you would like to donate to the Canadian Red Cross' Fundraising Efforts, you can do so here.

If you have a blog, add the site-specific URL where your tile is posted to the linkey machine below! Don't forget to link back here so that others can join in the fun! (if you don't know how to find this, you can see my half assed tutorial here)

Also,  please feel free to come back often and visit the links of those people on the linkey machine - don't forget to leave a comment or feedback, everyone loves feedback. ;)

If you don't have a blog but still want to participate, you can email your tile to me and i will post it here. (please email to weeklychallenge(at)mail(dot)com).  I just ask that you put in the subject line:  Challenge # ________

The deadline for each weekly challenge is Saturday night so that i can round everyone up by Sunday. What this means is that i will stop adding tiles to the slideshow on Sunday. You're still more than welcome to do the challenges and add your name to the linkey machine.

I will be more diligent with the linkey machine - by editing out the ones that don't work, the doubles, the links that lead to nowhere, the links that go just to blog home pages (this is why we need those site specific urls), and the spam. And there is some spam.  PLEASE do not put your *home* page in the linkey machine... please? for me??