Kickball!

This past weekend we challenged our friends and their families to a kickball game in the snow. (Kickball is like baseball, but you kick a soccer ball instead of swing a bat at a baseball.) We had about 10 players and 5 fans, so not a bad turn out. We were able to walk up the snow dunes over the fence behind home plate. The trip from home to first was downhill through soft snow and caused more than a couple falls. Going from third to home, you had to run through knee deep snow. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and we all lasted two innings. For those keeping score the Baker Lake Rockettes beat Baker Lake Kablamo 12 -4. Both 'he' and 'she' were on team Kablamo.

We all then headed back to our place for a bbq. 'He' bbqed hot dogs and hamburgers, and we had all sorts of salads, chilli, and carrot cake and macaroons for dessert. One young'un ate two hamburgers and three hotdogs!

We had to throw people out before 8 so that 'he' could watch Game of Thrones on HBO. We've read the books (a few times) and have been looking forward to this for awhile. There's even been a countdown on at our house for atleast the last two months: "Hey, did you know only 47 more days til Game of Thrones?" then "Guess what? Only 29 more days to my show!" and finally "Can you believe it's only 24 more hours til Game of Thrones?" The show was fantastic, we highly recommend it... and the best part? No more countdown!

Ice, Teeny Snowmobiles and Baby Girl Cake!

So, for the first time in our Baker Lake residency... we ventured out onto the ice this weekend. The photo is my artistic attempt to show how clean the ice is in certain spots and the cracks going through it. According to the Environment Canada data for last year about this time, the ice is about 6 feet thick right now. Interestingly enough, based on the data on that site, the ice will continue to grow in thickness until the end of May. Our friend was nice enough to pick us up and drive us out onto the Baker Lake 401 (the stretch of ice everyone uses to fly from one end of town to the other. I gotta say, it was completely eerie taking a Jeep out onto the ice, and even eerier walking around, thinking you're gonna fall through any moment. It was a pretty neat experience, but now we wish we'd brought our skates! We limped through the weekend after hosting the farewell party for our friend who returned south, but I was quick enough to grab the camera when the teeniest snowmobile went past! I figure the kids on the back are about 4 or so! And yes, they were driving themselves!

I got to do the girliest birthday cake thus far, when a coworker asked me to make the cake for her daughter's 1st birthday. I was pretty concerned, because I couldn't do a teddy bear I'd promised (complete lack of anything to make a nice brown coloured icing - everything I tried looked like something I might've stolen from a diaper!) but I ran into the proud mom and dad at the Northern, and they were over the moon!

We're looking forward to a possible kick-ball game in the snow this weekend, followed by a potluck bbq. I'll be sure to snap some photos!