Mid-May Updates

It's May. 

This is a wonderful thing, because the snow left this month.

Fare-freakin'-well!

You know, when I got here I heard a great many... shall we say? "Northern Myths."

For example:

"It gets cold in the winter, but there really isn't that much snow."

Riiiight.

"The darkness is really short-lived.  It's kind of nice.  You'll like it."

Hmmm.

"Spring happens, and poof!  The snow just evaporates and disappears.  It hardly rains in the spring."

Let's just say that I think the arctic temperatures may affect Northerners' memories of Northern winters a tad...

We can call it survival.

Maybe it will happen to my memory!

It sure is nice to be back outside playing without layers and layers. 

Admittedly, we are still in favour of winter hats and wool socks on many days. 

And, boots.  We love boots. 

It's been rainy, lately, which reminds me of Halifax, except that Yellowknife has a very COLD rain, not the humid, foggy rain of Halifax.

Wait?  Do I miss the foggy fog?

Daddy has been diligently observing the ice melt in the lakes. 

He's a wee bit anxious to take the boat out on the water! 

Not much longer... but, not yet. 

He has been tempted to take the boat to the boat launch just to launch it and take a picture of it in the lake with the ice around!

He saw this fellow in the Canadian Tire parking lot...

Ah!  Yes, Canadian Tire... the universally accepted location for Canadian men to bond, grunt, and talk about ways to trick big fish with teeny tiny brains into biting onto bait... a multi-billion dollar industry.

I think Eli felt some hopefulness when he snapped this picture.

Yes, life is good in May when you can play on the equipment with no mittens on. 

No mittens makes scaling the big rocks in the playground much easier, too. 

We hope you are having a great spring, where you are!

We're Just Ducky

We are melting, melting, melting!!

I snapped this picture of the girls playing in the puddle at the bottom of our driveway.

It makes me happy for a number of reasons. 

Reason #1:  Miss G is feeling much better in the picture than she was two nights before.

On Monday night, just as Eli and I were thinking about going to bed, Eli helped Miss G down from the top bunk for a preemptive trip to the bathroom. 

There was a suspicious, deep couch.

I ran to the bathroom, "Did she just get sick?"

Eli was looking at his shirt (suspecting a repeat of spec-gross-ular), inspecting it, "I don't thin..." and then it happened.

Poor Pookie Loo was so sick, we gave her a quick bath, and then I braided her hair to keep it out of her face. 

She snuggled with Daddy (above) in the big chair, watching The Princess and the Frog, until the Gravol made her sleepy, but she continued to be sick for the next 24 hours.  Eli stayed with her on Tuesday. 

I stayed with her on Wednesday, which is when this picture was taken.

She didn't have a massive appetite, but she was able to walk to school to pick up her Sissy from preschool with me, and play outside for a little while that afternoon. 

Reason #2:  Duckies and rain boots. 

We love duckies, as is evidenced with our numerous duckies, and

the Big Ducky. 

That picture is snatched from my Thanksgiving blog post, on October 10th of last year, so we've officially had snow for more than half the year. 

Reason #3:  It's Spring. 

This cartoon is on the girls' calendar, hanging on their door, which I write on every night as an ongoing journal.

It makes me think of Halifax, and the rain, rain, rain.

And, the fog, fog, fog...

The fog that would roll out around noon, and back in by 4 pm.

I officially miss it.  Well.  Only a little.

It rained yesterday, for the first time in over half a year, and the girls were so excited!

"Rain, Mommy!  Rain!!  It's rain!  Get us umbrellas!!" 

Reason #4.  The sun. 

Yeah, I might miss the warmer, less snowy Spring of the East coast, but I must say that the long lasting Northern sun with no fog and very little rain is making up for it.

Yay for long shadows!