More From the Summer

Our summer was so busy and full and there are so many things to share on here... but the one thing that happened this summer, that I have never experience before, was a flash flood.

Living in Squamish and on the Island, I have certainly experienced floods. In those places sometimes it rains and rains and rains. It rains so much for so long that eventually rivers/lakes/ditches just overflow. This usually takes a while of heavy steady rain though, days or maybe weeks.

The flood here in Fort St John happened after we had had about two months almost without any rain at all. The day of the flood was actually, quite a nice day! But in the afternoon, as is often the case up here, a wind started up. This wind was soon blowing like crazy and the kids came running in from outside (you know it is pretty good when the kids come in, they have been known to chase little mini-tornadoes down the street). Then around 5 o'clock it started to rain... by 5:30 it was raining so hard I took a video of it. (** This video didn't work on here... it is a sketchy, video of RAIN so it isn't very exciting, but it was REALLY heavy rain you could see in a video!)

The only time I had ever seen rain that heavy was when hubby and I were in Florida. We went out for a walk around the South Beach area before we were to catch a plane to the Bahamas (I just had to rub that in a bit). Anyway as we were out for this walk in Florida, it started to rain. We watched everyone run for cover as it started to rain, and we just laughed to ourselves thinking what wimps these people were... We came from the land of rain, here we were in a warm tropical place, a little rain was going to feel nice! Nothing to run from! Well, then it started to rain harder and harder, within a few moments we were practically alone on the streets (everyone else had run for cover!) and we were starting to try to find cover under a palm tree... that was no good so we went for a doorway. It was like someone had dumped buckets of water on us, and was still dumping them from the sky. The edges of the road were full to the sidewalks and little creeks were running down the sidewalks too. Anyway, we wound up having to walk in the rain anyway because we had to get back to the hotel to catch a taxi to get on an airplane, by the time we got to the hotel they just laughed at us and gave us towels to dry off with in the lobby.

Back to FSJ! It was raining so hard and still blowing like crazy and then the lightning and thunder started. We get some pretty awesome thunderstorms up here, some last for hours, some are so close they shake your whole house. This one did both! I quickly cooked up dinner before the power went out and stood at the window watching. The power flickered off and on a few times before it finally stayed off... and then that was it. By 6:45 the storm was over, the sun came out and it was beautiful outside. Hubby gets home from work around 7 o'clock and he barely saw any of the storm (he works about 20 minutes south-east from home). They didn't have any of it at his work.

So once the sun came out and hubby came home, we decided to go outside and see if there were any problems... mostly around our window-well that doesn't drain very well (at all!). So we went and bailed some water out of it (it wasn't too bad though) and picked up the things that had blown around/away. My daughter then noticed that the back alley was a lake... so while we were out there looking at that, we looked over at the park a few doors down from us and saw a real lake.

There is not supposed to be a lake over at this park, although that would be excellent, so my hubby being male, instantly thought about toys and wheeled his inflatable boat over and took the kids for a boat ride at their park. They rowed around for about an hour, there is a large drainage ditch that is supposed to contain the water, but there was just so much it overflowed the banks... by a lot. Overall only a large field and the ditches overflowed, so it was great and they had a ball.

No damage to property, at least at our end of town. The other end of town didn't fair so well, some basements filled up and the movie theatre was filled up the the third row of seats. Also, one house was struck by lightning, although apparently they only had a small fire at their fuse box.

The city requested everyone get an assessment of the damages to make a claim for disaster relief and last I heard they didn't have enough damages to qualify. So overall it was more exciting than damaging. The truly strange part to me was the fact that the next morning, when I got up and looked over at the park, the lake was GONE. Our lake was only there for the one evening and then gone... Another strange thing that came out after the fact was that we got so much rain in those two hours (I forget how much now, but a lot) and yet to the east and west of us by ten minutes, they barely got any rain at all, only a light shower of rain. This included our airport which is where our official weather is documented. This means that according to the records, we had almost no rain for the month of July, well below normal levels...

It was awesome to see and witness such a powerful storm, it makes me realize that I can't even imagine what it might be like in a real hurricane. But there you go, we had a tropical storm... in the prairies!

Another sketchy video, this one showing the lightning flashes, hearing the thunder and watching the lights go out, come on and go out... as well as the kids and the dog!

Fossils!!

In my past life (i.e. before I finished high school!) I wanted to be an archaeologist. I had visions of myself going all over the world on fabulously boring, meticulous digs... I had no disillusion about the excitement level, I wasn't expecting Indiana Jones. I think I was pretty rational in my thought process. When I mentioned my plans to others, however, they brought up a few fairly valid points, one of which was particularly valid; my dislike (some would say phobia) of bugs, of which there are a lot of when digging. So I went in an entirely different direction after high school, but have always kept an interest in all things ancient.

Before we moved up north here we visited some friends who live in this area and he showed us the stone slabs he has at the base of his porch steps... full of fossils. I was captivated, where, when, how did he get these?! He said these particular ones came from a mountain nearby, but there were fossils all over the place up here.
Then we moved up here and I learned more and more about the fossils and finds that have been preserved in the clay that is everywhere up here. So many First Nations artifacts found that there is, in fact, a lot of work for archaeologists in this area. The oil companies (and developments of any kind) must first have the area sampled by archaeologists before they can dig and often items are found.

I have been on the hunt for a fossil of my own since arriving, we have scoured the riverbanks and found many 'possible' fossils, but nothing definite. Auntie Carol came and found a well deserved fossil at the slippery Beatton River, but I never did... until my sister was here recently.
We were again at the Beatton River and on our way down to the beach Allan came across a small pile of rocks with fossils in them, obviously gathered by someone and left behind. That was exciting enough on its own! After a while of swimming in the river though, and looking at the rocks along the banks, my sister, or one of her kids went into the grassy area up the bank a ways, and there were hundreds of rocks absolutely full of fossils. The grass was also absolutely full of ants (biting ones!) so we grabbed a couple of quick bucketfuls and left... perhaps next time we go the ants won't be out and we can look a bit more carefully! So we divided up the rocks between us and now... we have some fossils!!

How Did My Garden Grow...

It has been a challenge, to garden up here. I thought I was a pretty good gardener on the Island... not so good at weeding, but very good at growing things. It turns out that may have had more to do with the climate on the Island, than my abilities as a gardener!Slowly my garden is taking shape, slowly the trees and shrubs are growing. Apparently "slow" is the key word for anything perennial up here. My backyard garden which I was bemoaning the state of earlier this summer, looks quite good now. The trees recovered, somewhat, and the shrubs are looking great and my Mom and I added a bunch of new things (lillies, hostas, astilbe, and other plants) which have done really well over the summer. Still it seems slow, and we will have to wait to see the state of it next year.Annuals, on the other hand, grow like crazy! I have never been particularly fond of annuals, except for a little bit here or there... I still am of much the same mind, but they do have there places, and up North is one of them! I have a very plain, rectangular front garden which I planted with veggies and annuals this year.

Early in the summer

Mid-summer

Yesterday!

This front garden has grown amazingly well! I planted quite a lot in it, considering its size, but I figured I might as well fill it up. I was slightly concerned that it would look sparse, being a veggie garden... boy was I wrong! I planted tomatoes, carrots, radishes, kale, lettuce, spinach, peas, zucchini, beans, marigolds that Papa MacLeod started from seed before he passed away this year and sunflowers. The snapdragons came back, all by themselves!
Everything grew and grew and grew! We ate all the carrots and radishes, peas and beans. We are almost finished the lettuce (miniature Iceberg lettuce, it was fantastic!).
I am working us through the zucchini, we ate some spinach (I planted way too much).

The tomato plant is absolutely loaded with tomatoes, however they are mostly green still (they better hurry, we had frost already!). The kale, however, was supposed to be purple and pretty, but it isn't either. It also isn't very tasty. So we left the kale for the caterpillars, who LOVE it! The kids love the caterpillars and the little white butterflies which come before/after the caterpillars! There seems to be another advantage of leaving the kale for the bugs in that the bugs have left everything else alone... including my lettuce which was right beside the kale! Fair trade I think! It has been fun having a veggie garden and the kids love picking and eating everything, which is great. It has also been nice just planting and seeing what happens, knowing it will only be for the year anyway... a bit more "c'est la vie" than I normally am when it comes to my garden!

The Next Step...

I love being a mom. I never particularly wanted to be a mom, before I became a mom. I never ogled over babies, or even wanted to hold them. In fact, babies terrified me... but biological clocks, being what they are - I changed my mind and we had kids. To my surprise, I found my calling - so to speak. I felt very at ease and comfortable with my role as Mom and my kids have responded beautifully to the point where I happen to think that I am a pretty good Mom... my kids think so anyway (but ask them again when they are in their 20's!). I haven't felt any desire to go back to work or do something outside the home, and I am fortunate to be in a position where I don't have to work.

However, this year my baby starts grade one. Grade one is big. Grade one means that they will both be gone, all day. My life is about to shift into the next chapter and I have been very uncertain where this chapter should go. On the one hand, I am pretty confident that I could go out and get a good paying job... a job that I would possibly enjoy doing. But doing that job means that now my kids would possibly need after school care and what about during Christmas, Easter and Summer breaks from school. Where do they go then. I also am very guilty of wanting to be included in many things... hubby does get a lot of time off, (but his schedule is all over the place) and if he and the kids are going to do something fun, I would much rather join them and make it a family affair, than be stuck at work. Hence my dilemma... what to do...

I am pretty certain that the first month of the kids being at school all day and me having time to myself, would be pretty much heavenly. I love them, but a break is always good! After the first month of school though, I think it would be very easy to get in a bad place, personally. To not have some"thing" to describe yourself doing. I could fill my time with this and that but when someone was to ask me what I do... how would I answer.

So after much soul searching about what I thought I should do, it occurred to me that I would love to go back to college. I thoroughly enjoyed college, the open-mindedness, the discussions, the learning, the discovery and the writing. It was a much more enjoyable thing than BCIT. BCIT was a means to an end, but it wasn't enjoyable. College was. I never got a degree from college, a thing which I would love to have, but not necessarily my goal at this point in time... at this point in time I need something to engage me, give me a purpose and a schedule, and something to keep me moving forward, so I do not stagnate. I will start slow and see where it goes from there... until my time is a bit more free for myself. So I started with an online English course which will give me the freedom to still be there if the kids are sick or have a pro-d day... maybe next semester I will take more but for now, this is all I can envision.

So it is back to school for the kids and me!

Home Again... and summer is nearly done.

We have had a busy, busy summer. We were blessed with having several rounds of visitors in the beginning of summer; Hubby's parents came up here at the end of May, my parents came up at the end of June and my sister and her kids came up at the end of July. I have had more friends up here make comment on how much company we get, and we are thankful for it. It is a LONG way to travel, and not a destination people would otherwise choose, but we have a wonderful family and friends who make the drive anyway... we are lucky!

Aside from company, the beginning of summer was also busy with outings. We went to the rivers, the Peace River was really low this year due to very little rain so the kids got to slide down the mudbanks again, and again I didn't have the camera! We found fossils at Beaton River, we explored Dawson Creek (which we hadn't done previously as we normally beeline to
the cousins house!) visited their museums and Rotary Lake. Rotary Lake was good enough that we went back again another time, it is a man made lake that isn't very deep, but it is perfect for the kids to swim in. We visited our museum and Charlie Lake for swimming (amid a fish fly hatch I think!), and another time to Charlie Lake for boating and fishing (still no fish for us!). We went to the fair, to the circus, to the movies and we had a flash flood!

Then in the beginning of August, we went on vacation. We decided this year to just go to Squamish, not include the Island as well. This was for several reasons, to be able to have a good visit with our parents, not rushed. For us to feel like we actually have a vacation, not rushing around. Also, to really explore Squamish, the town Hubby and I grew up in, with our kids and also do some of the neat things there are to do so close to Squamish.

The Chief...

Although it did feel a bit wrong being so close to the Island and not going over, but both of my sisters came to Squamish to see us, and it was lovely.

While in Squamish we went to Alice Lake, twice! We explored Nexxen Beach, which I had never been to before, as it was an industrial site when I grew up... I like it better as a beach!

View from Nexxen Beach, it was very windy this day and there was a sail boat race as well as kite-boarders out on the Sound.

We had a great time visiting with all of our family and letting the kids play, but we also headed into the city and took the kids to Maplewoods Farm, which was lovely and the kids really enjoyed. They particularly liked riding the toy tractors and feeding the ducks.

After going to the farm, we headed over to Stanley Park and explored all over the park, but the kids had the biggest memorable moment with the raccoons at Lookout Point. The raccoons there have learned that if they run at people, the people will drop their food and run away... So the whole time we were there the kids were slightly freaked out,as we saw this happen just as we arrived, but also intrigued. There were more incidents while we were looking around so it was quite exciting!

On another day, we took the kids to Science World, which was pretty awesome.

It was expensive to get in, but once you are in, all the exhibits are open for you to explore.There was a Pirate Treasure exhibit at Science World while we were there...

We spent hours inside there and we all had fun, there are so many things to see and do, I am sure we missed a lot, but we ran out of time before we ran out of interest.

On another trip into Vancouver (and past way out to Langley) we went to the Greater Vancouver Zoo. The zoo was also a lot of fun and we spent the whole day there as well...
One of our day trip we went the other way. We went to Whistler instead of Vancouver, with Hubby's Mom and rode the gondola's and chairlifts exploring the mountains. It was a wonderful day, we enjoyed it so much as something completely different. It made us realize how fortunate we were growing up to have been able to explore so much of the awesome mountains and glaciers of that area, and much of it was through the school... Hubby and I really need to stay in shape to give our kids the same experience.

On top of the Creekside Gondola, Whistler

Up on the very top of Whistler Mountain... see Black Tusk Mountain in the background (the pointy one), we climbed up to that in Grade 9. Hubby climbed all the way to the top!

The Peak to Peak Gondola took us from Whistler Mtn to Blackcomb Mtn... the little red things in the distance of that picture... are other gondolas, it gives you an idea of how huge this was!

So apart from all those things, we also met up with Hubby's family at Porteau Cove twice, for dinner. One of those times was with cousins, so the kids had a lot of fun swimming and floating on logs. The other time was after Hubby went with his Dad and the kids out boating on Howe Sound, all around Anvil Island and they saw lots of seals with pups and had a great time. I had been in West Vancouver that day visiting with one of my best friends and having a great time catching up.

I am sure that I am forgetting stuff on here, but it really has been a wonderfully busy summer. So full that it has flown by and it is nearly over!

Another Summer Solstice...

Today marks the longest day of the year, our third summer solstice up north. It has been feeling like summer already for the past few weeks and the kids and I are already brown (Hubby is pink)! We have been having weather in the mid twenties, which feels much warmer up here, again probably because of the dry... it is very dry. The little bits of rain that we have had haven't added up to anything, they haven't even wet the pavement, just made speckles. But I am not complaining!! It has felt heavenly, we are thoroughly enjoying this summer weather and are ready for a few summer storms that are likely to come our way over the next few weeks.

We are very excited to have the kids home for the summer, we can have them to ourselves again for a while. They have already finished their music recitals, their soccer tournaments (in which Maria received a special medal for being always eager, smiling and fun), and all that is left to finish up is school... I can't wait!

But today is the solstice and it is celebrated around the world by so many different cultures and religions, it feels as though there should be a bit more "celebration" here... but there isn't so we can just quietly say... Happy Summer!

I Don't Feel Tired...

Yet I am not going to bed lately... well not until it is quite late! The days are so very long right now, and we have been having such beautiful weather... it feels wrong to go to bed when the sun is still shining! Last night it was still bright out when I made myself go to bed at 11:30... Next week is the solstice... I think my body is gearing up to watch it!