SPRING CLEANING

We finally began our outdoor spring cleaning today. There is still a lot of brush and garbage around the place from the previous owner. So, we just started at one corner - loading the truck with all the debris. We also wanted the kids to get working on building the fire pit and benches to go around it. First of all we had to rake the area and pick everything up. Then Me, Josh and his friend started to dig the hole for the tire rim to fit into. It was hard digging because there is so much clay, but we got it done.

Hannah and Jedine picked up the shovel long enough to get their picture taken before they disappeared. As you can see by Hannah's footwear she is more concerned about fashion than practicality.

Just look at poor Naomi - she is working so hard. Slave-like really!

Meanwhile, Josh assumes the position of foreman.

Later on we decided to start working on making the benches. Hannah and Jedine built one and Josh and his friends built another one. It was getting very cold and windy so we stopped work then. But the wind calmed down enough that they were able to enjoy a fire over which they cooked hotdogs and marshmallows.
Just a taste of the work to come. Oh, Brian did help a lot, even though there are no pictures to prove it. However, he did desert us to attend a first aid course he was taking this weekend. He more than made up for it though by taking the last load of garbage to the dump all by himself while I sat here and wrote this.

I'M BACK!

The trip to Whitehorse went well. Too much time spent sitting in boring meetings, but other than that it was great. Naomi drove most of the way there and back and she drove around Whitehorse. At first she was really nervous driving around town. She has done it before but just needs more practice. After a while she got more confident and she was fine. Hannah is excited because it looks like she will get her braces removed at the end of the summer. We didn't really do anything exciting while we were there. I ordered materials to make our deck so we definitely have a lot of work to do. That's about all for now. Hope you all had a great weekend.

QUICK UPDATE

Just thought I would pass on a quick update before I head out to Whitehorse tomorrow. 30 pounds lost total! Woohoo! Feels great to be getting there at last. Haven't measured lately so will post lost inches another time.

Anyways, I will be leaving for Whitehorse with the girls Thursday after lunch. I am the union rep for our school and have to go to the AGM. It ended up coinciding with Hannah's trip to the orthodontist and Naomi's trip to the chiropractor. While there I will be ordering materials to build our deck. Lots more work ahead of us this spring!

So, have a great week and weekend everyone.

LIFE IS ONE BIG ADVENTURE

Just yesterday I was sitting on the couch thinking about my blog and I realized that I just didn't have anything interesting happening in my life. Or, I should say, nothing new that is interesting and worth blogging about. Then Hannah came along. I was innocently sitting at the kitchen table trying to wrap my head around this math stuff when Josh came bursting into the kitchen telling me that Hannah has a boyfriend. Tyrone was there with Josh so I asked him if it was true. He blushed and said "yeah." Of course, being the great Mom that I am, I had to go straight to Hannah. I just said "I hear my little girl is growing up." She just about died of embarrasment. She fell onto her bed laughing and Jedine and Naomi just laughed at her. Then they all went out to hang out at the swings. Of course they had to put up with merciless teasing from their friends. Josh thinks it's great - every little brother's dream - another reason to tease a sister. I also found out something else I had suspected for a while - one of Josh's other friends was going to ask her out, but I think he was just too shy. I asked Hannah if Luke was jealous. She said "I don't think he knows yet, but he probably will be." Nothing like having boys falling all over you. Anyways, Tyrone is a really nice kid. He is one of Josh's best friends and hangs out here quite a lot. All this time I just thought he liked hanging out here, now I know better. I thought I had more pictures of him, but I could only find this one. I will make an effort to get a better one.

Note: The funniest thing is that I've never seen them keep so much distance between each other. It is actually quite comical.

JOSH

A couple months ago Josh had strep throat, so I took him to the health centre to get some antibiotics. While we were there the nurse was asking about his penicillin allergy. So, I explained that when he was 2 weeks old I was on penicillin while I was nursing him. We both got a rash from it. She suggested that we do a tolerance test with him to see if he was really allergic to it. This is because the antibiotic that he has been taking is quite hard on the body, she wanted something that would be better. So, we met with the doctor and he okayed the test and told them how to do it. We needed to do it on a week when we could go to the health centre everyday Monday to Friday. This was the week. So, Monday morning before school we headed over to the health centre. The nurse gave him 1 tsp of penicillin and then we had to wait for about half an hour. She kept checking on him and about 20 minutes in he started getting a tingling in his throat, so she gave him some benadryl. We ended up staying almost an hour, then we left for school. The poor guy was totally wiped out after that. It took him the whole day to recover from it. So, too late to make a long story short, but penicillin in definitely out. Anyways, he is doing fine now. He has started coming to the gym with me lately. It is such a great time together. He wants to make sure that he is good and strong for the Bowron Lakes trip next year. No worries there, he is going to be big like his Grandad.

I'M LOSING IT

As of this morning I have lost a total of 27 pounds. I finally made it past the 1/2 way mark. The thing with "losing" pounds is that I really have no intentions of looking for them. They can just stay lost. I never want to see them again. The other thing about "losing" pounds is that they haven't just disappeared. It has been a lot of hard work to lose them. I've literally been working my butt off. Anyways, that's all for now. Just thought I would share the exciting news.

THIS AND THAT

It's official! Hannah was voting best looking. Actually it was her bridge at the Yukon Bridge Building Competition. Naomi went with some other kids from school to the competition in Whitehorse. They left Friday morning and returned last night. What happens is all the students from grades 4 & up build bridges made from wooden coffee sticks, glue and dental floss. They have certain dimensions to stay within, but other than that they can design their bridge however they want. Then they take the bridges to Whitehorse where they weigh them and see how much weight they can hold before they break. So, yes, all the bridges are broken at the competition. Brian is already starting to plan one to make with Josh next year. They will enter it in the open category. It is quite a large competition and some people take it very seriously. I think there are monetary prizes as well we other stuff.

Brian spent this afternoon on an ambulance call. They were thinking that it might involve a trip to drive a patient in to Whitehorse, but thankfully they were able to get the medivac plane to come. The last thing anyone wants is to drive to Whitehorse and back in one day.

I have been working dutifully at my math course. It is actually pre-calculus. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Actually I spend a lot of time just staring at it, trying to make sense of everything. I am working very hard to get it done before summer holidays. When I complete this course I will have my first year of university done. Yay! The race to the teaching certificate is on. Hope I win!

Anyways, that is about all for now.

JEEZ, I'M GETTING OLD!!

Another name for this post would be "Happy Anniversary to me!" As of today Brian and I have been married for 17 llllloooonnnnnng years. Actually it has been wonderful. There's nothing quite like being able to spend everyday with your best friend. I won't go on and on, I just want to say thanks to Brian for putting up with me. I love our life together and I love you.

A QUICK UPDATE

Just thought I would post a quick update on our lives. We are now on the big count down to summer holidays. As of Friday we will have 9 weeks left. WooHoo! Brian and I have actually spent some time now with maps and ideas and began mapping out our summer vacation. We need to make some reservations, so are hoping to do that next week or the week after.

Easter was fun here. I hadn't planned to do an Easter egg hunt with the kids, but Brian figured they would enjoy it. So, on Sunday morning I unpackaged some of their mini eggs and started hiding them around the house. The kids had so much fun - they were just like little kids again looking everywhere for their eggs. Hannah was the champion! We cooked a turkey dinner on Sunday. And it really was "we". Everyone did something to help out and it was delicious.

It seems that spring has really arrived here. That isn't to say that we won't have anymore snow or cold weather, but I'll take what I can get. We have been above zero since Friday and the snow has been melting fast. The worst part is the water everywhere. Hopefully we will be thru this muddy, wet season in a couple weeks. In the meantime we just try to contain all the mud in the back porch. Hannah and Jedine (her best friend) have really been enjoying the water. They keep donning our rubber boots and wading through the deepest puddles they can find. In fact the water is usually well over the boots and they come home soaked.

So, that is about it here. Hope you are all enjoying your spring.

A LITTLE HUMOUR

American Tourist Antics!

The following are actual stories provided by travel agents:

* I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

* A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

* I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. "Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.

* A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

* I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map."

* Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

* A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of llinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

* A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

* I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

* "A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever."

* A businessman called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."

* A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"

SPRING

Do I dare to hope that spring is here? We have finally had some spring-like weather. That could be a sign. Yesterday and today we even got into the double digits - on the plus side that is. In fact, Brian and I even started doing a little bit of yard work. We had a huge pile of brush that we needed to get rid of and it was much easier to light a match than haul it all to the dump. Here is the start of it all. It ended up being a huge fire for a while. It was mostly branches and scrap wood left by the last owner.

Now, take a good look and guess who was really doing all the work while someone else lazed around in the wheelbarrow.

LOOKING BACK

I have been doing some scrap booking this weekend and with that comes reflections. It is neat to look back and see how far everyone has come. How much we have all changed. While I was sifting through pictures I came across these gems. They are a reminder of Gary and Sonya's yearly visits to Kitimat and all the fun things we used to do together. One of these was going crabbing in the ocean.

Too bad they don't make a yearly pilgrimage to Ross River. You know we could find fun things to do here too!

MAYHEM

Well, we just survived three days of utter mayhem at work. We had Kaska days at school. So Monday was incredibly busy getting all the schedules finalized. The kids all got to choose which things to participate in. They could choose archery, making dry meat, arctic games, dene games, dancing, or making prints for stamping. After all the work of sorting everyone out we found out a couple of the workshop leaders couldn't make it and had to schedule everything all over again. Tuesday was busy with just keeping everything under control and getting all the kids where they needed to be. I was busy taking pictures of everything too. Then they had lunch at school - boiled hotdogs! Mmmmm! (gag) I knew what was coming so I had brought my own lunch thank goodness. Wednesday was more of the same - kids everywhere. We had lunch at school again but today was caribou soup which was delicious. Tomorrow is another crazy day. I will be busy cooking all morning for the Easter lunch at the school. I am always exhausted after a day of cooking. I will really need the long weekend to recover from this week.

MAKING DECISIONS

So, here goes. After much deliberation (years) I have decided to go ahead and continue working on my BA degree. I have just poked along at it so far, and completed almost 1 year (1 more course to go). So, now I will make the plunge and continue the marathon to finish 4 years. After that I will get my teaching certificate. The plan is that next year Brian will apply to take the deferred salary plan - save some of his paychecks so that he can take a year off with pay. We are thinking of doing 3 years at 75% and taking the 4th year off. This 4th year would come after Josh graduates, so it is really ideal timing. The reason he needs this is that I have to leave the Yukon for a year in order to get the certificate and I don't plan on being away from Brian for a whole year. So, today I jumped right in. With much fear and trepidation I ordered a basic math course (pre-calculus). I need one and looked for the easiest one I could find. Good thing Brian is a math-whiz! I will need all the help I can get with this one. This is going to be a very busy few years for me, but I am determined to do it. Part of the reason for doing this is that I just really want to be a teacher - go figure! That is something I never would have guessed would be in my future. I will basically be doing what I am doing now, only I will get a permanent position instead of continuing on a temporary basis, and I will get paid twice the salary. I know that the principal here will hire me for the next available job once I have the piece of paper because he already told me so. It really doesn't get any better than that.

OFFICIAL STATS

So, here it is. As of April 2 I have lost a total of 24 pounds and 17 1/4 inches.