If taking off to a campsite or a cottage isn't in your plans for this long weekend, there's still plenty to do in and around Calgary. Here are just a few suggestions to give you some ideas for the weekend.

Little Britches Parade and Rodeo

Head out to High River to take in the Little Britches Parade on Monday. Bring along blankets or lawn chairs and plan to arrive about half hour early to line up a great seat on the curbside. You'll enjoy the parade that includes marching bands and the Shriners and kids can take to the streets to get candy that's thrown from the floats. At 1 PM children between the ages of 6 to 14 years old can participate in events like mutton busting and barrel racing at the rodeo grounds.

Banff Children’s Festival

The Banff Children’s

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More Calgarians are spotting UFOs than other Canadians while Edmonton's right behind in second place. In 2012, there were 72 reported spottings of UFOs in Calgary while 63 reports came in from Edmonton. Next in line was Vancouver followed by Winnipeg, Ottawa and Toronto.

The Canadian UFO Report collects this information on a yearly basis and then puts it up on its website for all to see. According to the site, while the 2 cities in Alberta led the way for sightings in the city, Ontario overall took the top spot for provincial reports. There were a total of 683 UFO reports sent in from people across Ontario last year with only 249 coming in from Alberta. Across the province of British Columbia, a total of 337 sightings of UFOs were reported.

The

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White is the overwhelming color you'll see on window frames everywhere - but it doesn't have to be that way. White first became popular during the Victorian times. Since the windows were so small, the white frames made them appear to be larger. With the size of windows as they are now, the white frame is no longer a necessity.

You can now purchase windows on the market with different frame colors. There is new technology that has been put together to handle the peeling and fading issues. If you're thinking about painting your wooden window frames this year, you might want to consider something other than white.

The window frames can be used to create a completely new and unique look to your home. They can add a contrasting color that complements

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Recently, a Calgary landlord discovered the problems involved with his tenants subletting a property to another renter. The landlord had done his due diligence to find good honest tenants that he believed would take excellent care of the house. While there is no disputing the fact that they were great tenants, they ended up subletting the apartment to not-so-great tenants that used the apartment as a grow-op location. As a result, this landlord ended up losing the home because it was deemed unfit for human occupancy any longer.

There are various health hazards created with grow-ops from exposure to mold and chemicals and there are also safety hazards involved like structural damage, electrical problems and a higher risk of fire. All of these lead to

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The National Association of Realtors released a survey showing the priorities that people were looking for in a property. According to this survey, 67% of the home buyers polled said that the neighborhood quality was the most important factor, 45% said it was affordability while 39% cited convenience to friends and family as being the biggest factor.

 

Here are some of the other important features that people are taking into consideration when conducting their home search:

Easy access to transportation – According to the survey, 80% of home buyers thought that this was an important feature while the percentage escalated to 20% for people that were buying in a central location.

Close to work - 49% of the people polled said that they were

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Astronaut Chris Hadfield has accepted an invitation to be the parade marshal at the Calgary Stampede in 2013. Mr. Hadfield will be ending his 5 month mission on the International Space Station on Monday and will get his feet planted firmly back on earth again.

The speculation started on Wednesday evening during an exchange between the Calgary Stampede and Mr. Hadfield on the social media site Twitter. Stampede organizers asked him what he would think of sitting on a saddle at full gravity to which Mr. Hadfield replied that he'd be willing to ride anything that goes slower than 8 km per second.

Later, on Thursday, an invitation was extended to Mr. Hadfield from Bob Thompson of the Calgary Stampede asking him if he'd like to be the parade marshal for

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Home prices continued to increase in the city during March according to Statistics Canada. Prices on homes here in the Calgary region went up .3% in March when compared to the prices seen in February. This rise in prices sent the key index for new home pricing up .1%, which was in large part due to the booming market in Calgary.

While the biggest increase happened in Regina with a .7% rise in prices, this didn't have as big an effect on the home price index because it's a smaller market. Windsor and Saskatoon both had an increase of .5%, but Calgary's increase had the most impact on the index.

Statistics Canada also said that labor and material costs have gone up according to builders and this, along with market conditions, were the primary reasons for…

Calgary has made it to the limelight again scoring second on the Scorecard on Prosperity report. This report is issued by the Toronto Region Board of Trade showing the most prosperous cities in the world. The leader on the scorecard was Paris and in 3rd place following Calgary was London, England.

Calgary beat out London based on its labor attractiveness and economy. The report also said that Calgary's economic performance is consistent, which keeps it close to the top. Great results for Calgary were in the employment growth category where it placed second behind Shanghai.

Top ranking honors were given to Calgary in the section for human capital due to its robust employment. It edged out San Francisco in this category that considers education, safety,…

The number of building permits that are issued here in Calgary have risen again this year and so have the national numbers. This is always a promising and optimistic sign for all sectors of the real estate market since it is solid proof that the economy is moving forward and it's something that manifests into construction that everyone can see as they drive throughout the city.

It's easy to give out numbers and calculations about real estate here in Calgary but it's quite another to actually see the new buildings going up and the progress being made. Construction workers are out in full force putting up both commercial and residential buildings in a race for much-needed housing and industrial properties across the city.

In March, $553.9 million worth of…

Yes, real estate on the moon is for sale and at a fairly decent price too! For about $19.99 US you can purchase an acre of land and call it your own. Lunar Embassy Corporation founded by real estate agent Dennis Hope is a company selling this land and there's still time to get it on the bargain and own a chunk of the moon yourself. Parcels of land are for sale at lunarembassy.com.

Approximately 7.5% of the land available on the moon has been sold totalling about 600 million acres and there’s still plenty of land left to purchase. More than 1,800 different corporations have purchased a share of the land in space including 2 US hotel chains.

It's not only the moon land that's being sold!

Mr. Hope began selling his lunar deeds before deciding to

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