What is this??

It could be frost. It *could* be. But it isn't. It's totally snow and fell two days earlier than last year! This was what was waiting on the ground for us in the morning on Monday, and more fell while we were at work. None of it was around much past coffee break. Turns out those white bunnies knew what they were talking about afterall.

Breaking News

Every once in awhile, we think it's nice to reward those that check our blog often. As such, minutes after booking our plane tickets south for Christmas, I logged on here to break the news.

We'll be arriving in Toronto in the evening of December 15th, and departing after all the festivities on December 29th. We haven't firmed up our schedule... but let's be honest, there will be a schedule. Luckily, it won't be as strict as the pre-wedding schedules.

As now savy north-dwellers, we patiently waited until FirstAir was running a seat sale. We saved over $1200 compared to what we paid for our last Christmas trip. Sounds like I freed up some budget space for a shopping spree.... but don't tell him!

Return of the....

...... white bunnies!!

Looking for a sure sign that winter is around the corner? I watched two white bunnies playing on the tundra today, and last week while walking to work, a white bunny escorted me all the way to the office.

Apparently, it's a little closer to winter on the north end of town, since our friends who live on the south end, say their bunnies are still brownish-grey!

A bit about everything

Its September now, and summer is fading fast...what we saw of it anyway.

I think we may have had one day where the temperature really reached 30C. This is in contrast to several days we had last year, if I recall correctly. But that's not much of a big deal when you always hated hot days as a kid anyway, now is it? (

Ok, I admit, I wouldn't mind just one scorching-hot-lazy-day....maybe next year?)

Honestly though, I'm looking forward to the snow. Its purty for one thing when the land is a blanket of white. Its also fun to get all snow-geared-up and wander around. Bring along some hot-chocolate, watch the dog go nuts...great times, and looking forward to it again!

We miss our friends and family a lot, and we're especially sad that we're missing out on so so much of niece3's childhood (who smacks her forehead any time she says my name for some reason.) For the record, niece1 and niece2 live in paradise with nephew0 (hahah take that, M.B.) so we don't feel too guilty about missing their childhoods.

Speaking of friends, here's a bit of irony: she and I were relatively quiet people back in "civilization". Surrounded by literally hundreds of thousands of people in southern Ontario, with all the clubs, bars, culture, restaurants, whatever...we kind of liked to stay at home, watch movies, play a little guitar-hero, read some books, cook good food (well, She did anyway)...we had to come to come to a town of 1800 people to develop (relatively) active social lives.

Its a rare month where somebody's not having some sort of social gathering. We play poker most weekends (She wins more than I do, lucky $@#!$). And in a small town, if you go anywhere, you're going to bump into people you know and end up hanging around to chat for a while, possibly arranging a social gathering or card game.

News and items of interest:
* We may be inheriting a friend's dog for a week later this month. Chester's a small yippy dog, but very friendly and pretty smart. He's spent a few days with us before and other than a few "accidents" we had a good time.
* New blu-ray player. YAY! (We didn't earn this in any kind of worthy way...apparently we're 1-year Baker Lake survivors?)
* She has a new important project at work keeping her very busy. Congrats to Her, and expect to find her pretty tired after putting in some weekend time.
* Dog has a critically important new project to catch the local sik siks. Oh and a friend in town gave her a new ball-and-rope toy, which in turn is her new best friend ever. This week.
* I have a new programming project at work, too (although I probably won't be working weekends...that's important computer-gaming time, thank you.)
* I've been playing Euchre a lot on our laptop as some of you know (I'm training hard for our next tournament in Mitchell/Stratford...don't be shocked/offended if my first thoughtless words walking through the door are "Where's the Euchre?") Well, lately I've been switching to Bid Euchre (sorta like Whist apparently if you know that one). I hear her Grandma plays that, so we might have to get a game of bid Euchre going too if the opportunity presents itself!
* We are hoping to see our sealift soon. It was supposed to be here just this last weekend (already pretty late at that point) but nothing yet. We have 3 skids coming in (instead of just the one we had last year in addition to our initial Costco supplies). I think it took us 30 minutes to unload the skid last year...I'll be timing us on this run to see how we do with three!

Labour Day Weekend

I think this long weekend was the most enjoyable of our summer! The weather was fantastic, and there weren't so many bugs.

Squire and I went on a couple of Epic Walks (note the use of capitals, as each was almost two hours long.)

On Sunday we walked out past the east edge of town to a little waterfall we drove out to when Mom was up here. At that point, it was really gushing, and the sides of the banks were still covered in snow. Now, it was barely more than a trickle. Quiet enough that Squire decided to take a dip amongst the rocks.

Today, we decided we should wander down and see what was up at the 'beach'. On the west end of the lake, there is some sandy areas which are nice and shallow for our swimming-phobic dog. I even waded in, up to my knees, since the water wasn't too cold. There was a nice long sandbar, so for the most part, the water was at most ankle deep, but we were a long way from shore.

We're still patiently waiting for the barge to come in - but we've been assured that all food stuffs will be on it. I'm also hoping to get out and try to take some pictures of the northern lights before its too cold to bother. And yes, that means it is now dark enough at night to see them. We've joked about having a contest to pick the first day of snowfall in Baker amongst our friends, but I think it's pretty much guaranteed that we will have had snowfall accumulation before the next long weekend in October.