Top Ten Thursday - July Photo Scavenger Hunt

Welcome back to Top Ten Thursday!

The last Thursday of the month is Photo Scavenger Hunt time. Here are the items we were supposed to take pictures of:

1. Clouds
2. Fly Amanita
3. Sunflowers
4. Peppers
5. Native American
6. Airplane
7. Ice Cream
8. Bridge
9. Letters
10. Bricks

Let's go! Looking up to the sky and snapping a picture is something I often do. So many fascinating situations up there! Blue sky, dark sky, no clouds, uniform clouds, diverse clouds.... As you can see I went for the latter with this shot. It looked like a thunderstorm was approaching, but a couple of minutes later everything had cleared up.

When I was a young kid this fly agaric top used to be the roof of a gas station a few miles away. I always begged my Dad to fill his tank there. Surely this gas must have been special! The independent gas station was taken over by one of the major global oil corporations, and the fairytale hut disappeared. It wasn't until recently that I found out they moved it to the Kindergarten's backyard, so for years and years to come, children can have fun playing!

There is not much that says midsummer like colourful sunflowers! As life has it, when I had time to visit an entire sunflower field it was overcast. 

This individual superstar lives in the garden across my street ;-) 
Is "why seek far afield when the good is close-by" something people say in English? We use this saying in German, and in this case it is particularly true.

I should have gotten some regular bell peppers so you are able to see that those are miniature ones! Oh, well. They're colorful, cute and tasty. Win!

Banff's visitor's center is being guarded by this gentleman. Obviously, in Canada they are called "First Nations" not "Native American". I do think he still qualifies for this photo challenge.

We were going to bid an Arctic explorer goodbye last week and take the airport tour later. If only the meeting time wasn't Monday at 7am. Instead I dug through my photo archive. We celebrated Colin's 9th birthday at the airport.  The birthday boy even got an opportunity to help push back an aircraft!

Colin cought an evil bug that caused him to rethink his lunch as we like to call it. I had planned to take him to an ice cream place that lets you create your own, but he honestly didn't feel like it. Poor guy. So it wasn't until two nights ago - hubs and I were celebrating our 14th anniversary - that we took a stroll after our delicious dinner at my favorite panoramic restaurant and got some ice cream.

Speaking of celebrating, I "missed" my Dad's birthday in June. It was his own fault, though. They spent it in the Southern part of Switzerland, and we all got busy after that. Last night I invited his brother and his wife and my parents to a surprise treasure hunt across Aabach Park - it's a former industrial plant where the painted drawer stairs and a playground can be found today. This is my bridge contribution to this photo challenge. Who needs Golden Gate if you can have this one..?
I do have an entire bridge post, just in case though.

I still haven't made my way to one of the LOVE sculptures, let's go for this giant C (C is for Colin, my son and Christian, my hubby) can be found on the premises of the Vancouver Canucks' Rogers Arena.

It's not that we don't use bricks to build our houses in Switzerland, but then we go ahead and cover them with concrete. Too bad. I do love yellow and red brick buildings like this one in Denver, CO, I understand it hosts a law firm's offices.

I hope you had fun with my pictures - are you linking up yours..? Please do.

What are we going to write about on August 2nd? I don't know about you, but at our house some serious decluttering is necessary. So please join me and list ten things you got rid off,  areas you cleaned out and re-organized...! Bonus points for BEFORE / AFTER pictures! Sign up here.

August 9 is already our last Thursday this summer break. Let's share our top ten things we did, enjoyed, read, ate, experienced,... this summer! Sing up here.