Edmonton in the summer

I do not usually have a lot of great things to say about Edmonton, but I will say that Edmonton in the summer is a pretty good place to be. We normally have pretty good weather, not overly hot, but definitely t-shirts and shorts weather. There does seem to be a tendency for thunderstorms, which are lovely in the evening, not so great when you are walking home from the mall and have left the stroller rain cover in the garage. Liam likes to think there is going to be a tornado, and is constantly looking for funnel clouds during any storm. Today is actually the 18th anniversary of Black Friday, a tornado in which 27 people in Edmonton died. I was in England and missed the whole thing.
Edmonton is called Festival City, and the name does fit at this time of the year. We have had the international street performers festival, Taste of Edmonton, Klondike Days, this long weekend is Heritage Days and in August there will be the Folk Fest, the Fringe, a Carribean festival, a blues festival, and a few others that frankly I have no interest in, but some people obviously do. What of these have I attended or will attend? Umm...just heritage days this year. And possibly the fringe because of the Scots. So while I may talk Edmonton up (and not very well) I very rarely do Edmonton things. So anti-social. Or poor. One of the two. Possibly both.

A few facts about Edmonton: -it is the largest city (in area) in North America.
-the river valley parks system is 22 times the size of New York's central park
-it is home to the world's largest mall, which includes the world's largest indoor amusement park and indoor water park (as well as the world's largest parking lot)
-it was the first city in North America to hold the Worlds.
-that is all I can think of off the top of my head.
-it's just my opinion but aside from the Liffey in Dublin the North Saskatchewan is the dirtiest river I've ever seen.