A Very Strange Summer

This summer, Dad and Mom came up for a long visit, so Dad could do some work while he was here.  They arrived in early May, and were initially expecting to stay in a house, but plans changed and they stayed with us.  Towards the end of June, they had an opportunity to housesit for parents of friends of ours, and then Dad flew Mom home so she could spend the rest of the summer in her own house.  Dad came back in early July.

A Beautiful Autumn Day on the Water

It really was, by all accounts, a beautiful autumn day today.

We took the boat out. 

The wind was a tad strong, so we had big waves, but it was quite nice for short trip on an autumn day.

No, this isn't one of my posts that I didn't get around to until months later.

We did have a lovely autumn day today, only today is July 14th.

Give me my summer back, Yellowknife! 

NOW!  I've earned beach weather, damn it!

D'Iberville Untouched

Eli has been having a lot of fun with my new travel camera, and he's been sending me some more pictures when he has a chance.

Today, he had a bit of a break because the planes were not able to fly.

Too much snow!

These are some more pictures from his Father's Day day-trip to D'Iberville, which reminds me of Tess of the D'Ubervilles a little bit.

Eli:  D'Iberville was an arctic research station last inhabited in the early 1990s. 

The Top of the World

Eli is, quite literally, at the top of the world.

Until the end of the month, Eli is in Alert, Nunavut, which is the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth by humans (and not elves). 

Alert is on Ellesmere Island, which is a little hard to imagine as an island because the ice around it is a polar ice cap.

The permanent population is 0, however, it is a military and scientific base, and so there is always some personnel up there. 

All of the Canadian territories boast of being North of latitude 60. 

Yellowknife is precisely 62°30' North, and we are about 400 kilometres from the arctic circle, that invisible line where the sun is up for exactly up for 24 hours on the summer solstice and down for exactly 24 hours on winter solstice.

Right now, Eli is above latitude 80 (and just so you know, 90 is as far as the scale goes). 

Alert is at latitude 82°30'05" north, and is 817 kilometres from the geographic North Pole and Santa Claus, although Alert is actually North of the geomagnetic North Pole, meaning that compasses would behave oddly there.

The girls are beside themselves because Eli is SO close to the North Pole!

Ten Years Ago, Today

Ten years ago, June 16th fell on a Monday.

On Tuesday, my good friend Jody was going to have her wisdom teeth pulled out, and I was her chaperone.  She needed one, trust me.

June 2003 marked the end of my first year of teaching.  That year, I taught third grade 60% of the time, meaning that I only taught Wednesday through Friday, so helping Jody out as she lost her wisdom was easy to fit in.  We were both done report cards and looking at a sunny summer ahead of us.

I lived waaay out in Shad Bay, so I was planning to sleep over at Jody's apartment on Hollis Street Monday night so I would be able to get her to the hospital on time and not have to worry about inbound Halifax traffic.

Of course, as Monday evening approached, Jody wanted to go out to celebrate her last night being wise.  You know, just "in case" something happened and we couldn't go out until the weekend.

Catching Up: March, Part 2 AKA Family March Break Vacation

I'm not going to comment on my lack of blogging. 

I'm just going to write, because that's the best way to write.  One letter at a time.  Tap, tap, tap...

This is the Big Burning Thing (official name) on Great Slave Lake during the Long John Jamboree, near the Ice Castle (March Break).

The build it up and then light it on fire to watch it burn.  It was fun.

Catching Up: March, Part 1

In so, so, so many ways, this has been the longest winter I've ever gone through.

First of all, it really was the longest winter.  Winter has a cold, unfair, and icy grip on Spring.  Miss A tells me that Winter is so stuck to Spring, that Spring just can't come this year.  For the record, Winter also hijacked Autumn, which is typically my favourite season (typically = southern, southern = the Maritimes).  Winter began at the end of September, and was firmly in place by the first week in October.

We are finally in the "sometimes it's above 0 degrees Celsius, but that's not a promise" phase, but usually the lows over night drop well below 0, sometimes as far as -20 or more if you factor in the wind. 

Tonight, for example:  April 28th, the low is -17 with a freaking -27 windchill.  I have nasty words in my head for you, Yellowknife.  Tomorrow's high is -17 with a -13 windchill.  It's almost May!  We want to pack up the parkas and snowsuits, people.

I will seriously karate chop someone in the head if they complain about the heat this summer.  Suck it up and get some ice cream.

So, with all of this wintering, you'd think that I would have loads of time to blog.  But, winter has won, and I don't have much fight left in me, or energy for almost anything above and beyond "getting through the day."  I think that Eli and I do a pretty good job on making the girls a priority, but I've done a crummy job lately of making me a priority (and the blog falls under "me").  In short, I think my brain has some permafrost, and is a little sluggish and stupid, just like the ptarmigan.

And, so, I bring you a jam-packed post about our March adventures, in three parts.

Part 1:  Birthdays

Daddy's birthday was the first day in March, and he had to work late due to some flights that got changed at the last minute.  On a Friday. 

The Reason I Was in Orlando

While Nicole and I did manage to squeeze in a totally awesome whirlwind two-day cousin retreat in sunny Orlando in January, the reason I was in Orlando was for a fantastic education technology conference for teachers, which started up the day Nicole left.

It was a really awesome tech conference!

The pictures from the conference are mostly of slides from presentations I attended, so I'll show you pictures "around" the conference.

Nicole and Shannon Take Orlando: Day 2, Conquering The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Universal Like Champions!

The main draw to make this whirlwind trip to Orlando, for Nicole -- aside from me, of course -- was the fact that we could visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Islands of Adventure.

For us Harry Potter nerds, nothing could be more wonderful!

Nicole and Shannon take Orlando: Day 1, SeaWorld

Nicole and I spent our first full day in Orlando at SeaWorld.

Our major goal was to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and we decided to do SeaWorld as a second choice, and are we ever happy we did!

It was the BEST DAY EVER.  Seriously.  After our respective weddings and the respective births of our children, I think SeaWorld is next!

From -40 to +30

Through some fantastic luck, a great professional development fund, awesome encouraging husbands and more luck again, I spent the end of January in sunny Orlando enjoying a technology and education conference in January, which also means that I am getting a wonderful break from the arctic temperatures and short days.

My cousin Nicole met me here for my first weekend, but to chronicle our adventures, I will need a few blog posts.

This post is about my flight and meeting my week long home away from home in Orlando, the Hard Rock Hotel. I love you, Hard Rock!

Eli brought me to the airport for my afternoon flight south. 

On the Deck after Dark

And, now it's the cousins' turn...

In A Tree

It's been over a month since I've posted, and lots of things have happened.

First, I think my brain, body and fingers froze in January, which explains the lack of postings... The darkness, and having perma -40 degrees for over a month made for an interesting and sluggish start to 2013.

Then, I had a glorious week in Orlando.  Oh.  So much to tell.  So, so, much... But I feel like I need to back up and take a running start.

So, I'm going to back up.  Waaaay up.

At the very beginning of my blog-- my first post, in fact-- I had a series of pictures from my family farewell before we drove across the country to move to Yellowknife.

In the past few days, one of my aunts asked for a photo from that day, which got me looking at the photos leading up to that particular photo. 

Let's explore the background story of the picture of my mom with her brother and sisters in a tree, shall we?

**All dialogue is paraphrased, completely made up, or otherwise totally accurate... I'm not sure, but it's what plays in my head when I look at this series of pictures.

Truths About the Cold

It's been COLD here for about two months.

By cold, I mean usually -30.  For eight weeks.

-25 with no wind is, regrettably, considered an awesome day for being outside.

-45 is just mean, and keeps happening with the windchill.  Over and over again.

It think we can all agree that temperatures beginning with "minus forty" should have "freakin'" crammed in the middle:  example:  minus forty-freakin'-five.

Here are a few truths I've discovered about the arctic cold temperatures:

Best of 2012

Happy 2013!

This is 2012 in review with my most popular blog posts from 2012.

Out of the 111 posts I wrote in 2012, these were the most popular...