It's a Marshmallow World In the Winter...

But it is too cold to go outside and take a picture... no really it is, my camera doesn't like to take pictures outside, it freezes (literally) up! Yesterday my van was showing temperatures around -34! It was so cold that when I started to drive, my tires were frozen in the shape they sat at all night and it took a little bit for them to "round up" again and stop thumping.... I thought I had a flat, but it was just a square!

Michael's union put on a Christmas party at the gymnastics club. The kids had a blast, they got to do gymnastics, have pizza and goodies, sit on Santa's knee AND get a present from the big guy too!

We have been having fun though. It is hard to not get into the Christmas spirit when you are surrounded by winter everywhere you go - so we have been busy with Christmas parties, skating parties, Christmas concerts and all other Christmas preparations! We had a nice evening the other day... Maria's school had their winter concert and Maria did a great job and we enjoyed watching the show. Upon arriving home we had the pleasant surprise of finding three deer in our front yard, eating what is left of our trees and garden (and maybe a few veggies that found their way into the garden after we had been seeing the deers hoofprints).

This is the best picture I could get as the camera wasn't doing that well outside and the noisy kids were scaring the deer away!

Chances are I won't be on here again until after Christmas, so I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

The kids are in hyper-active mode now that the countdown to Christmas is on!

This was one of the healthiest and nicest Poinsettia's that I have ever seen...

at least it was in the store! After I bought it and brought it straight home in -33 weather it wasn't so healthy looking!

You know you are talking to a "true" Northerner when...

Well first let me fill you in...

It has been a busy, but fun, week around here. Maria has been over to a friends house and has had a friend over here. We have made plans for Allan to have a little friend over too, so the kids are happy. On top of that, Maria has two birthday parties this week (one for twins!) as well as a skating party for all the grade ones in her school and the kids Christmas party put on by Hubby's work! My kids have a social life that puts most adults to shame!

Anyway, getting back on track... the other day we had one of Maria's friends in our van and Maria was telling her stories about how on the Island the snow didn't last very long and how last year she only got to play in a bit of slush...

Her friend laughs for a moment and then asks Maria "What is slush?"

The Days are Getting Shorter

Last week, I was telling myself that I needed to bring the camera along with me on the drive to take Maria to school in the morning. There were some of the most amazing sunrises that I have ever seen - and I have actually seen a lot of them! The entire sky was orange with pink clouds and a vibrant orange sun...

However, today I took Maria to school in the pitch dark. The sun finally dawned after I dropped her AND Allan off. A few more weeks to go until the winter solstice... how dark will it get?!?

On a side note... we had a funny conversation with Allan the other day. Allan was trying to describe one of the kids in his class and he was having trouble telling us what colour his hair was until finally he thought of how to describe it "it is the colour of a sweet potato!" A very accurate description actually! Much more so than "red"!

It Is Winter...

In every way except by the calendar!

We have had four more snowfalls since I last logged in here and the kids have enjoyed everyone of them. I haven't minded them either... now that I know my van will function just fine on the snowy/slippery roads, a lot of my apprehension about winter is gone. Shovelling has been WAY easier than on the coast since the snow is light and fluffy for the most part.


The part that hasn't been as much fun has been the freezing rain, apparently a common early/late winter occurrence up here... We have several times gone out to our van and found it encased in ice... it is almost impossible to scrape off the windows until the van has defrosted it... but first you have to try to get IN to the van to turn it on!


Anyhow, two snowmen later (we did get some snowman snow!) and several snow forts and sledding excursions later, the novelty hasn't worn off yet... mind you it is still warm enough that we can go out and play in it!

Guess What!?!

It snowed! We woke up this morning to about 4-5 inches of snow, and it was still snowing. The finest, smallest, flakes of snow... but it added up.

Maria's little fairies were too busy playing and forgot to hibernate for winter! My plants finally decided to pack it in too...

Hubby had a heck of a time coming home from work this morning, his truck is still a work in progress and the 4x4 part of it isn't hooked up. But my van did pretty well. I was concerned since my van was terrible last winter, to the point where we could not go anywhere if it was snowy or icy... and that just wouldn't do, living where we are now! So we got really good winter tires for it and so far, so good.

Later in the morning the snow had all stopped and the sun came out and it turned into a fabulously, beautiful day. The sun also helped to melt the snow down a fair bit, although not too much as I think the high temperature today was about -3! I shovelled the driveway, which seemed like a piece of cake with the sun shining, the snow light as feathers, and a paved driveway to boot! I am sure I won't be too thrilled with it come March, or April for that matter, but for now... it is good.

I don't think there is a square inch of snow left untouched in our yard... the kids has a BLAST!

Hey, Wait a Minute!

Well, last night was Halloween... and it was FUN! BUT... the one thing I was not prepared for on Halloween up here, was RAIN. Snow, I was prepared for but I thought rainy Halloween's were a thing of the past. Well that is o.k. though because it was only drizzling and the kids had a blast.

My Beautiful Butterfly...

There were all the usual Halloween activities going on up here... parties in the kids classes (I made spiderweb cookies for Allan's class and helped out at the pool for Maria's class), and the costumes, trick-or-treating and of course the candy.

Spiderman explaining how he got his powers...

There was a little surprise for us too... the day before Halloween, upon opening the front door, there was a little package waiting for us. It was a pumpkin filled with some goodies and treats for the kids along with a poem. Basically a chain-letter, but a fun one. It advised us to anonymously leave small packages of goodies on two peoples door-steps on our street. You put a little ghost up on your door to let others know that you have already been "ghosted"... it was a lot of fun for the kids and to be honest, it was fun for Hubby and I too... It had everyone on our street guessing "who was it".

Our surprise package that we found on the front porch

Anyway, after the trick-or-treating and the following gorge-fest, we went up the street to a friends house to watch some fireworks and have a visit. We got home at about 10:30 and had kids who were exhausted and happy... what more could you ask for.

Happy Halloween!

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy...

Magpies are a common sighting up here. I had never seen one before coming up here, and on first seeing them thought they were quite beautiful with their long tails and striking colouring. They are still beautiful to me, but they are rascals... comparable to the blue Stellar's Jay and Crows for their naughtiness.

One thing I learned about magpies from my neighbour is that they often raid the nests of other birds, not the nicest thing to learn, so I kept that little nugget of info from Maria, who is somewhat sensitive about things like that. Maria has been fascinated by them and frequently has tried to get closer to one, but has never had any luck. Until recently.

The other day Maria was trying to tell me about her day and it was obvious something was bothering her. So I am trying to listen through her words to hear what is wrong. She and her friend were playing in the front yard and saw a Magpie nearby so the two girls snuck closer and closer. The magpie flew a little further away and still the girls snuck closer, eventually the bird gave up and flew away and it was at this point the girls reached the spot where the bird had been standing. There on the grass was a set of bird legs.

So Maria is telling me this and saying how bad she feels. I am trying to re-assure her that in nature things like this happen... and before I get much further than that she asks "but how will it land?" At which point I realize she thinks her friend and her scared "the legs" OFF the magpie. After I finished giggling and explaining that no, the magpie still has its own legs those were the legs of another bird, Maria giggled too and was much happier with the knowledge of canibalistic birds than birds with detachable legs...

I am still giggling though.

One Last Summer Adventure

Last week we decided to go out in the boat again, this time with the gas motor. We opted to explore the Peace River and put in at the Peace Island Park and went upstream.

It was very different boating in the river, the motor had to work constantly or you would go backwards, but it was fun too. Lots of different branches to take along the river and the need to watch the depth so as to not touch the bottom with the propeller... (we only did that once, but we did it good!)

We got to watch a train cross the bridge just ahead of us, and see people fly-fishing... we saw a lot of beaver evidence, several lodges and a few piles of sticks that I think were attempts at dams but I am not too certain. We went almost all the way up to the big lookout in Fort St John eating lunch along the way and then we floated back down.

Beaver Lodge

Floating down was a lot more fun than going up. For one thing, it was easier. The kids rowed, which means we went in circles like a horrible ride at the fair, and even going in circles, you go in the right direction! So we took our time ging back, drifting and circling... looking to try and catch a glimpse of the beavers that were so busy around there (no luck). We did see some deer and a large eagle with a nest and a lot of game trails but no other wildlife.

We had fun

The Park Warden came by in his boat to make sure we were alright - it was probably hard to tell with all that spinning. We also saw a lovely beach with a river pool that we will have to go back to next summer to swim in. All in all it was a nice time, well Allan wasn't so keen at the end when he fell in the river while climbing out of the boat - but we all had a giggle at his expense, I think it was quite cold by the volume of his howling. Thank goodness I had a change of clothes in the van!

His boots were totally full of water and his whole left side was soaked!

Fall Comes Here Early

As is evident by the cool nights we are starting to have... but more obvious is the fact that all the fall fairs are already over. Believe me because we missed them all! We were really hoping to get to them as we have really enjoyed the fall fair in Duncan over the last four years and we had heard that the ones in Fort St John and Dawson Creek are really good. However, the one in Dawson Creek was the 2nd weekend in August - while we were away on our trip back home; and the one in Fort St John was the following weekend and we had just arrived back home from our trip and didn't realize it was on until it was too late.

We had seen some signs on our way home of another Fall Fair on the weekend of the 23rd in Hudson's Hope - about an hour away in the little town nearest the WAC Bennet Dam. Michael was working night shift that weekend so on Sunday the kids and I decided we would go and check it out by ourselves.

We headed out fairly early and managed to get about two minutes away from home when we noticed that the main street in downtown Fort St John was closed off... and not with the usual work crews but with tents and cars and people milling about... something to check out! So we went in and explored, it was a classic car show but it had all sorts of things going on to entertain those of us who can manage "ooh that is a pretty car" but are otherwise unimpressed by car shows.

The kids got to ride a neat little train that had barrels as train cars for the kids to ride in and we all got to ride in a horse drawn wagon, they had remote control car races and a big bounce castle slide thing, cotton candy and hot dogs (not to mention race cars handing out race schedules so Allan has been telling everyone that we are invited to watch the race cars, when are the race cars, we are going to see the race cars, race cars, race cars, race cars...)

Anyway we were there for an hour when we had pretty much seen it all and were ready to go - I was ready to go home but the kids still wanted to go to Hudson's Hope, so off we went. We drove and drove and drove - the kids were asking if we were there yet, I was asking if we were there yet... I don't know how long it took exactly but it was more than the hour away I was told it was... Along the way we stopped at a gravel pit to run around and stretch our legs - we actually had a lot of fun here, we collected a lot of cool rocks (my house is full of rocks) and the kids had fun climbing the hills and sliding down, not to mention inspecting all the different wildlife poop they found (oh joy!)

In the Gravel Pit... throwing rocks, sliding, exploring and running... what more does a kid need?

After about half an hour we continued on again and drove the last stretch to Hudson's Hope to learn that the Fall Fair was on Saturday only... not Sunday. So, no Fall Fair even after a long drive... quick what to do, what to do... Oh look kids, there is a museum with DINOSAUR BONES!!! That will be exciting! And it was pretty cool - they had an assortment of footprints and casts of skull bones that had been found in the area as well as a bunch of other small bones... it was interesting but it also only took about 10 minutes to check out the inside of the museum and about 5 minutes to check out the outside... we did find a snake in the grass which kept us occupied for about 15 minutes.

Maria in front of a Trapper's Cabin at the museum

Then we went over to the Visitor Information Centre and they told us to go to Dinosaur Lake for a playground and lake to play around. It wasn't warm enough for swimming but good for exploring and playing. Except that when we drove the way the girl told us to go to find the lake we never did find it... so after stocking the kids with some goodies for the drive back (it keeps them much more happy along the drive) we turned around and headed back home... It wasn't quite the day we had planned, but we had fun and it was an adventure... just ask the kids!

Snake in the grass, he was hard to follow he could hide very well!