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!

Fun Stuff Always Happens When I don't Have the Camera

The other day we all hopped in the van and headed down to Taylor to check out the Peace River Campground (or something along those lines). It has a great playground that we could see from the highway and Hubby wanted to check out the boat launch. The kids had fun playing at the playground for a while but there weren't any OTHER kids so the playground fun didn't last too long so we headed down to the river.

The rivers up here are not lined with rocks like the rivers I am used to, they are lined with dirt - or more specifically... mud. The slipperiest, gooiest mud you can imagine. On this particular day the river was quite low - we found out later it was because they slowed the flow at the dam to look for a body... ewww.

Anyway, walking down the river bank is fun on its own as at any particular moment you could slip and fall in the muck. However, once you embrace the fact that you are going to be dirty and let yourself sink up to your ankles (knees sometimes) and just go with it, you don't seem to fall so much.

So we were walking along, checking out various animal footprints... pretty sure we saw wolf, maybe some sort of large cat, beaver maybe, raccoon, squirrel and a bunch of dogs... We played in the mud, squished it in our toes, crossed a small creek then crossed another to a larger, steeper, mud bank. By this point the kids were swimming, it was just deep enough to cover their heads in the middle but they could touch most of the places and then they were playing in a mud puddle that was warmed in the sun... which led to the making of a "river" down from the puddle to the actual river... which led to the "otter-slide"

Maria loves to play in the dirt and it took not long at all for her to try sliding down the bank into the river, but it wasn't very fast moving here and the mud was a little bit hard, so she moved on to the next slide site, better but still not fast enough so we all built the third slide further down in the softest glop you could imagine and she slid much better here, but she wasn't running at it so Hubby had to show her how it was done of course and they had such a blast. Allan doesn't like to get dirty so he rode down it on Hubby's back but Maria was in her glory... She was covered in mud from just below her eyes and all the way down. I wish I had my camera, but honestly it would have gotten in the way, we had too much fun.

Inspiration...

Well I finally have the inspiration to learn more about how to use my camera. I have been so happy with the various "auto" settings on it that I hadn't really felt any need to learn more. I played around with it when I first got it and fumbled, but I never actually made any effort. The pictures from the automatic mode are great and the the ones from all the pre-programmed settings have been more than adequate... until the other night.

Some friends of ours popped over and wound up staying longer than they expected. They were just about to leave when she noticed lightning flashes out our dining room windows, then we were mesmerized. There was no sound (we heard only a few thunderclaps) and no wind or rain so we went out on the deck and watched as several different lightning shows went on for over an hour.

It was stunning, I have never witnessed that much lightning before. We had an unobstructed view of the whole thing in two different locations and often the flashes were non-stop between the two locations... some of the flashes were so large they flashed from one storm site to the other... Only pictures would be able to explain how awesome they were but that is one setting my camera doesn't have, I will have to work on that.

Wow... who knew summer was so busy!

But nice too... There has been too much going on to have had time to post anything and how much do I have to post about anyway??? Not much, but the fact that we are so totally blessed and loved and whatever other mushy thing you can think of. We have had no shortage of visitors and not just visitors but friends and family who have driven a very long way to come and see us... well not JUST to see us, but they did come see us, and we had so much fun with them all.

Then we had our own driving trip and had a wonderful time going back to Squamish and then the Island seeing all of our friends and families and seeing our old home (it still feels like home)... I just wish we had more time to spend time with each person... our visits were quite brief trying to see everyone...

It was the strangest feeling driving off the ferry in Nanaimo though... even Allan felt it. It really felt like we were coming home Allan made the comment "well we had fun in Fort St John but we are going home now!" But on the other hand it was good to get home, to our new home after two weeks away... that also felt like "coming home".

We stopped at several tourist traps on the way home... the kids LOVED it!

The Grand Adventure on Charlie Lake!

So we gave up on Cecil Lake... Hubby has heard rumour that it is a swampy thing but I spoke to a friend of mine who said she and her family looked for it and never found it either... perhaps the people of Cecil Lake like to keep to themselves...

Anyway, we decided to take our little boat out on Charlie Lake instead. Charlie Lake is about 10 - 15 minutes away, a big lake, easy to find... but I wouldn't want to swim in it. Charlie Lake is icky... green floaty things are all through it as well as a lot of fish and ducks, but it is fairly big and has good fishing, lots of boating and (again!) easy to find!

Allan's usual spot

So we take the boat to the lake, hubby inflates it (a Zodiac type boat) and we put in with the electric motor. We had a very nice time putting around checking out the waterfront properties, looking for places to visit from shore, enjoying the views... The canola is all in bloom so there are huge expanses of yellow patchwork, it is really quite beautiful... although I haven't got a picture to show it well.

A strange hollow in the rocks... if this was a Rorschach test what would you see?

Anyway we cross the lake to check out some neat rock formations and start back when Hubby mentions that the motor is having trouble finding its gear. I assume he means we are running out of battery and tell him to point us for the dock then but we keep putting along slowly and keep getting closer to the shore. Eventually I realize that by "having trouble finding gears" means the motor is barely working... so eventually hubby sets to on the oars and I use the motor as back up for him. It is working a smidge but with almost no strength, it can find 1st gear and 2nd is weaker than 1st... 3rd and 4th are gone... and of course it is windy, it is always windy, but the wind is blowing the wrong way for us.

We get to the dock and hubby decided he should get out with the kids and I should take the boat to the ramp because "he can catch the front of the boat better than I can" (Meanwhile I am thinking that I caught the front of the boat every other time we went out in the boat...) Anyway I limp the boat over to the ramp, painfully slowly and the once empty ramp is now full of people putting their boats in... great. I am getting there but I could seriously swim and pull the boat faster but I am not getting in that yucky water! So I get within feet of the ramp and of course a big gust of wind pushes the boat and I try to correct with the broken motor and it does nothing so now I am drifting towards the other boat at the ramp but I am withing 2 feet of the shore and there is hubby standing there just watching... well he is also scowling at me mouthing at me to do something . Apparently he doesn't understand that to catch a boat you have to put your feet IN the water and CATCH it. I stick the oar out to try and stop bumping into the other boat and manage to stop getting any closer but I am still not getting any further either... thank goodness a woman from the other boat realizes that sometimes you are in the water and she nicely pushes the boat over to our ramp. Eventually hubby catches the boat, once he can reach it without touching the water, I hop out slightly P.O.'d and take the kids over to the park (so I can calm down) and hubby put the boat away and this is the first time that "event" has been mentioned since!Damn Man... good thing he is cute...

We want neighbours, we just don't want to see them...

So, one of the things we aren't crazy about with our house is the lack of privacy. Our yard here in FSJ is considerably smaller than our yard in Ladysmith and we are mostly ok with that (especially when it comes time to mow). The one thing we are not so good with is the low fence in the back yard so that we have to look at our neighbours if we are all out in the backyard... Although for those of you who recall our backyard in Ladysmith, it is not as bad as having "Tom" looking down on it!

The fence is a nasty chain-link thing which we will get rid of, but probably not until next year as there are other things we have to figure out first (one of which is how to tell the neighbours that we are going to take down the chain link and put up wood!) . So the one thing we wanted to do this year was make the deck better. We have a really nice sized deck, but again it had no privacy... So we took down the benches that ran the edges of the deck and put privacy panels up on the one side, pushed the hot-tub over to the other side of the deck and got a natural gas BBQ that plugs into the house and fits into the corner and now we have a lovely deck. We are not quite finished as we have to take down a few more benches and put up one more panel (we think) but the bulk of the work is done and it is soooo nice... for the first time ummmm ever(!) we are actually eating outside! Maybe I need a outdoor table & chair set... hmmm.














This is the only "before" picture I can find... see how much it sucks with all that white stuff on it!

This is after... much better, not white and much better! Just don't mention the shaggy lawn, we were busy building up the deck!

I've Got a Peaceful, Easy Feeling...

The Beautiful Peace River Canyon...

Well, July is coming near its end and so far... we have been having a lovely summer. I can't say whether it is the result of Hubby having so much time off (with his schedule it feels like he is never at work!) or if it is because for the first time in a long time we haven't had to worry if his job is secure, or because we have more money in savings... but we are really having fun and relaxing.

The other day we were speculating, as we always do, about some "what if" scenario's and for the first time our automatic response wasn't "move back to the Island". It took me for a surprise actually because I wasn't aware that I felt that way... Hubby's job is so good, our house is great - not perfect but just fine, the kids are doing great and their schools are awesome, we are making friends and exploring and there is so much to see and do that I am not ready to leave at this point... Really.

Now if we were to win the lottery and be billionaires or something I would probably change my mind, but the fact is that Hubby's job is really good and I am really enjoying spending time with him again... although ask me again in the middle of winter!