C.O.L.D.

It's cold up here.

I've been told,

"You ain't seen nothin' yet. 

This is a warm winter. 

Winter hasn't even begun."

Uh.  Thanks.

How comforting.

On Monday, this is what our front door looked like.

From the INSIDE.

It was -45 degrees Celcius with the wind chill.

You can imagine how excited I was!

Oh, well.

The girls have a different approach to surviving the Fozen Land.

Denial.  And, play.

One weekend, not so very long ago, Miss G created this "Ode to a Bun" picnic paradise for Twofour's snacking pleasure.  

Twofour thought it was grand. 

Miss G brought Twofour her Christmas singing puppies (in the red box... they bark Christmas carols, and will be out year-round... batteries have already been replaced once... or twice).

Of course, Fiver, the toy Mama Bunny, snuggled up, and the pet "walking" doggie in his cage came, too. 

Yes, the girls love Twofour.

And he loves them. 

And, why not? 

They keep him VERY well fed.

Now, Eli has ways to cope with the Frozen Land, too.

Often, it includes the snowmobile.

I know you are all sympathetic to him missing his Mistress, the Boat, during this very cold period. 

A boy must have his toys, you know.

Right.

Anyways...

Eli also promised me a DVD shelf for the living room, since our DVD storage solution in our house in Halifax did not work in this house.

So, one cold weekend...

TA DAA!   

The girls liked "helping" Daddy build it.

And, they supervised me while I painted it.

And, both girls were very enthusiastic to help us fill it up.

Please note the rabbit to the right of the shelf (still) eating carrots.

Best fed bun in the North!

I love the shelf. 

It is beautiful. 

It is eight feet tall, and I need a step stool to reach the top shelf.

Not that that matters. 

I need a two-step stool for most situations in my life.

For writing Math solutions and explanations on the middle school white board, for example.

(Another reason I miss teaching and learning with the Little Kids.)

Now, the big question is... where will I put any new movies I may buy? 

Oh, dear.

Anyways... back to coping with the C.O.L.D.

I will be thawing my fingers and getting back to more regular posts now that the routine of school is more settled.

Procrastination is a wonderful thing...

From Eli's Phone Camera

Today, I sorted though pictures from Eli's phone camera. 

Not surprisingly, there were a LOT of boat pictures. 

And pictures of fish. 

And pictures of the girls. 

And a few of me.

This one, I gather, was taken at the West Edmonton Mall.  Little A is on Eli's shoulders, and is loving getting her picture taken in the mirror, because she can see it on the phone screen. 

Apparently, there is one photo to commemorate me paying off my student loans, and this is it.  Me, as grungy as I get, with my bottle of wine (we had not located the wine glasses yet), with Wilhelmina and Daphne in the background.  They were congratulating me. 

Check it out!  There's a cowgirl on that boat! 

Little G was so pumped to get on the water with Daddy's fast blue boat. 

Here, Eli caught Little A having with costumes from the tickle trunk.  Moo! 

There are two brown cows! 

I think this was Eli's first official fish as a resident on NWT.  He said hello, and put him back, because he was not big enough.  He had some more growing to do. 

Now, Grampa's fish was big enough to keep (and to feed us all!) 

Sweet A was pretty amazed by the big fish. 

Eli took a picture of me taking a picture of the fish.  Snazzy in my gym pants and slippers, eh? 

One of almost countless boat pictures.  Seriously.  From every angle.  I'm so glad he loves this boat. 

More fishing pictures.  Oh, and I just skipped a bunch pictures of of Eli cleaning fish and preparing the fillets.  You can thank me in the comments below. 

Eli's self portrait at the beach.   

Here I am helping Little A with chalk tracing. 

Sweet G checking out her long shadow.  It's always there! 

The rest of these pictures are aerial shots from Eli's work day trip to Rankin Inlet,  and Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut. 

To help orient you, I've pulled this from Google Maps (thank you Google!).

The "A" marker is Yellowknife, NT.

The "B" marker is Rankin Inlet, NU. 

The "C" marker is Chesterfield Inlet, NU.

This is Chesterfield Inlet, NU. 

I asked Eli if he saw lots of sofas. 

He said, "What?" 

I asked again. 

He groaned.

See the airplane shadow at the bottom? 

Eli thinks this is looking back at Chesterfield Inlet 

(peninsula to the right). 

I see no sofas.

Eli and the crew dropped off gear. 

The guy picking it up had lost the truck.

They left the gear sitting on the side of the runway. 

Canada is a lot of water and rock.  Rock and water.  Eh?

This is approaching Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. 

Here, you can see the runway through the front of the plane. 

Bye, Rankin Inlet!  Eli says the pizza there was good. 

Isn't it cool how the clouds look like mountains in this shot?

The edge of the world... 

Look how the natural rock built a nearly perfect circle! 

Eli thought that the lakes were so interesting.  How some were clear, and others right next to it were muddy. 

Do you think that Eli was dreaming about fishing in all those lakes?

What We've Been Doing...

We've been here for three weeks, so far.  Most of our time has been spent in setting up the house, visiting, and playing.  Sometimes running errands.  Sometimes happy errands, like the day I paid off my student loans!  That was a great day.  I didn't take any pictures, though, because I darted out of the house in the midst of our major unpacking day to do it.  I did celebrate by cleaning and organizing, and having a glass of wine that my buddy Danielle gave us as a house warming... warm.

Here is a glimpse of some of the things we've stumbled upon in Yellowknife.

Fansastic playgrounds.  Isn't it interesting how the "old" play ground equipment made of wood and tires attracts and entertains kids sometimes more than the "new" equipment?

Meeting Daddy at the park. 

Having Grampa come to the park just to say hello. 

And because he CAN. 

We live here now! 

Exploring Daddy's fast blue boat. 

It's fast. 

And, it's blue. 

It's every one's favourite toy. 

Here, Little G is an explorer.  Maybe a Viking.  I'm not sure, but I do know that she was VERY enthusiastic. 

Unloading day was exciting.  The girls were very happy when their bikes were safely unloaded here.

It took us until the next day to find their helmets, so they were to go slow and stay close to me.  And they did. 

While the furniture was being unloaded, we went visiting.

Gramma had collected some costumes for the costume-loving girls, and there was a giraffe one.  Little A was so excited to dress up as Patchy-Patch! 

When I saw everything unloaded but not unpacked, well, I stopped taking pictures. This is the only one I have.  There is an ominous void in my photographic legacy on these days.  When EVERYTHING is in boxes, including pictures that go on the wall, all the kitchen gear and linens, it looks like A LOT of work.

So, we did what any family would do with that kind of pressure.

We procrastinated!

We took the girls on the boat for the first time. 

Eli was just a little bit excited.

Oh, and behind Eli and the boat is a new house boat being built!  I'm sure we'll see it in the harbour before too long. 

The girls love their life jackets.

G is looking for buoys. 

It was a little chilly on this boat first day. 

Eli showed them all the cool toys and buttons. 

Back at the house, the girls were happy to help out with any task we were doing, no matter what it was! 

And they always manage to find time for fun.

I think adults need to do this too.

Maybe not with a tricycle, but, you know... 

Grampa went out early one morning with Eli and came back with this big Northern Pike (39 inches or 99 centimetres).  The girls were impressed! 

And I think Grampa was proud. 

Yikes.  Pike.  

For the official record, Little A is exactly 99 centimetres right now.

The fish are not the only large animals up North.  Check out this dragonfly.  That's Little G's hand, for reference.  The dragonflies are the size of small birds. 

Speaking of birds:  the ravens...  well, let's just say that I will not be letting Twofour the Bunny out of the house.  They are massive!

The fun and play has paid off.  The bedrooms are set up now. 

One challenge we've had is with lighting in the bedrooms.  There are no overhead lights in any of the bedrooms, so I've had to get a lot of new lamps.  The girls' room is still not fully lit, and Auntie Kelli is sending up a few, so it will be lit in no time! 

The girls really love their new room.  It's amazing how we almost do not notice the white walls once our furniture and memories are moved in. 

This is how the girls' room looks as you enter.

I've managed to squeeze two book shelves in their room by the door, and it's not terribly congested. (The other one is to the right, nestled by the door.) 

I fit the dresser, the tickle trunk full of costumes and the girls' doll house along the main wall.  Their puppet theatre is there, too.  My dad built tickle trunk while he was in trades school to become a carpenter.  He also built the puppet theatre for me before I had our girls, for my Kindergarten class at the time.  I love puppets! 

Here, you can see the other book shelf and the girls' bunk bed that Eli built.  He's going to paint it pale purple this winter. 

If you look carefully, you can see that Cinderella is sleeping in bed. Strawberry Shortcake has also moved in and has put her dresser in Cinderella's room, and her bed in the kitchen.  I wonder what Cinderella will think of that when she wakes up. 

I think that taking a photo of the doll house each night might be quite a soap opera!

All in all, a very cozy little space for my monkeys. 

Just today, the new drapes for the girls' room arrived.  Monique helped me to order them online over the phone before I got the Internet.  They are the same as the ones she has in her girls' room, and they make the room perfectly black.  I love them.  

This is our room.  We had to buy the dressers when we got here, and in the interim I had a leaning tower of clothes.  Maybe several leaning towers!  Eli is going to stain the dressers this winter.

My dad made this cool triangle table with the leftover wood he had when he built me the three giant bookshelves (in the living room).  They are so functional and handy!  I'm using this one was my dressing table.  The other one is in our room, right over... 

... there!  We have patio doors in our room to a little balcony, which faces the rocky back yard.  It's quite private.  Monique also ordered us new darkening drapes for our room to block out the midnight sun in the summer. 

Here you can see doors to the hallway, closet and little bathroom. 

Is there anything you would like me to write about?  You can let me know in the comments if I'm glossing over something, or if I haven't mentioned something you've been wondering about.  In the meantime, I think I'll just keep on posting about whatever pops in my head when I sit down at the computer once the girls are tucked in bed.