A Journey of a Thousand Restaurants

Nathan, my parents and myself are down in the states on a little road trip. I would have to continuously drive around my Nunavut community for 3 years straight to cover the millage we did in two days getting down here. Needless to say now that I have been feeling better in the second trimester all I want to do is eat and oh boy there too many places down here to help me out with that. Yesterday we visited a WWI memorial museum that was spectacular and finished off the day with some shopping (how every good day should wind down really).

This is the first thing I purchased for the baby while in the states. It's funny how I'm so south and in such a warm place, but I am still finding little hints of Nunavut. This author traveled to Nunavut, mainly Pang and Iqaluit and fashioned the story of the Three Little Bears around the Inuit Culture.  I was so excited when I found this I almost peed my pants, and of course no one else in the book store understood at all. All the little animals in this book are wearing amuantis and the artwork is pretty nice. I hope I can find some more books like this for my future kidlets. It's just a shame I never saw any of these kinds of books floating around while I was working at the primary school back north. I'm almost half tempted to go back and get another one for those kid

In the land of Mcdonald's

We arrived safely to Ottawa and made our way down to try and catch the last of the Blue Jay's game we were supposed to see but were delayed by certain flights. Nathan caught the last 10minuets (we had booked one of those rooms that looks over the field) and I got to start back into my year off of driving right in down town Toronto! I am still alive. Nathan did go see another game the next day, so it wasn't too much of a disappointment.
I had an ultrasound done today, but couldn't find out if it was a girl or a boy because the baby was being difficult (truly Nathan's child). The baby was laying with it's legs extended and almost at it's head, almost like chilling in a hammock (again Nathan's child). The most important part is that we could see the baby was alive and more importantly there was only ONE baby!

Tomorrow we head down to Kansas City, Missouri with my parents for a road trip and I will pretty much be without a computer for the most part. I promise to take some photos of the yummy foods I will be consuming for Tina and any other northerner deprived.

Welcome to Beautiful Iqaluit

Heading out on yet another adventure to the south, a certain nameless airline had mechanical issues (again!) and we missed our connecting flight, getting stuck in Iqaluit. At first I was pretty bummed out, we were going to miss a few planned things down south, spending the time in Iqaluit instead. I was also upset that I had to wait yet another day to taste sweet glorious McDonald's. It all worked out in the end because we met up with Jaime from Nunavut Newbie, who has now made her home here in Iqaluit. Originally she lived in Rankin Inlet, so I never thought we'd meet her. Iqaluit has been experiencing super mild and lovely weather so it has been a nice stay and am glad we had this time to experiance just a bit more of beautiful Nunavut. Jaime, being the super awesome person that she is, offered to take us on the grand tour and we got to see it all. Here we are posing for only a 1 second in between trying to escape the absolute HOARDS of mosquitoes! I learned my lesson after this shot, trying to smile with my mouth open, ended up with some yummy squitoes in my mouth.
A good time was had, and I feel so much better about having missed our flight. Now I'm off to do a little Iqaluit shopping before we catch our flight to Ottawa.

Rain means.....

Sleeping inside.
Muddy paw prints trailing around the house that would put the
Family Circus Comics to shame.
Helping mommy cook.

Belly

Ok Kara and Tina, are you happy? Seeing my Jelly Belly on the internet? This is me at 15 weeks. Apparently ladies who haven't had babies before shouldn't really be showing. But this isn't just fat anymore, something is going on down there.

I'm trying not to feel bad that my belly is larger then the books say it should be. Especially now because I just received a very fun book (thanks Indigo!), written in the 1940's that gives me an interesting look into what was acceptable with pregnancy in that era. At one point it recommends that I should keep my cigarette consumption down to only 10 a day now that I am pregnant (for new readers I don't smoke, I just find this funny). I already have trouble breathing because pregnancy increases blood level to supply more oxygen to the baby. I can't imagine what 10 smokes a day would do to those ladies back in the 1940s! They wouldn't be able to walk a flight of stairs! Anyways I'm going to take everything written in a book with a grain a salt from now on. God knows what people 60 years from now are going to say when they look back on the books we wrote about pregnancy in this day and age.

Foreshadowing?

My dad just found this photo while cleaning out the basement. I hope this doesn't mean I'm having triplets. Nathan just looked at this photo and gave a disgusted look. And I said yeah I know triplets, and then he said no WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?

While no one else is blogging...I will

I was reading Kara's blog and she has come up with a distraction to help me stop obsessing over Mcdonalds. Little did she know that tonight I HAVE EATEN A QUARTER POUNDER WITH CHEESE brought up fresh (made yesterday and still oh so good lol) from Ottawa. The new member here has arrived and his wonderful wife brought me and Nathan a Quarter pounder as a little gift. Originally I had opened the bag, saw two quarter pounders and cried a tear, you have brought me TWO quarter pounders, then I was informed that I was supposed to share lol.

Anyways back to Kara's idea. She was tagged in a chain to blog about a certain topic. This topic being your spouse has to list 3 things he/she knows about you. And then your supposed to end your post with some random assortment of letters, which I'm going to skip out on. Nathan being a difficult person could not except the boundaries of this activity and gave me such answers as:

1. You are wearing a pink sweatshirt

2. You have Eyes

3. You are sitting on the couch

So I asked him to be a little more serious and he can't if I don't explain to him exactly what it is that I want. Well then aren't I answering for you then? He doesn't understand, he has given his answers, shouldn't that be sufficient?

And then I thought OMG I'm married to my DAD!! When I was a little girl in grade school I would have silly assignments about getting to know your parents. One question in particular used to drive me nuts "what's your dad's favourite colour?" in which he would reply "but I like all the colours" and then I would say (now in my adult head) "yes but I'm in grade two so could you not make this so complicated and just pick one colour?" and then he would say "But what if I didn't have a favourite colour?". Why does this have to be so complicated?

So I am going to play this game and list three things about myself that are slightly more interesting then what I'm wearing and where I'm sitting.

1. I check my e-mail, blogs and facebook way more then a normal person should. I would say at least 10 times at day... AT LEAST....I won't tell you the most, that would just be embarrassing.

2. I hate the sound of someone rubbing their hands over carpet, it makes me cringe like nails on a chalk board.

3. I am a closet messy person. I don't tidy or clean until I know someone is coming over. That way they have no idea how lazy I am and I can still be lazy most of the time. My new slogan is
"A clean house is the sign of a wasted life"!

There you have it 3 stupid and random things. Since I have now changed the name of the game and have removed the uncooperative spouse from the mix, I'm going to tag:

Kennie from TALES FROM THE ARCTIC
Jaime from NUNAVUT NEWBIE

and spouse optional
Matt from CAPE DORSET NEWBIES
Clair from THE HOUSE & OTHER ARCTIC MUSINGS

Hopefully this will give me more to read about as I check to see if there are new posts way too much.

Dog Days of Summer

It was a hot day, a gorgeous, sunny, hot day. Ok it was only 16 degrees, but up here that's top heat. We were feeling it too, the heat made all of us groggy and tricked us into some daytime snoozing.

We had our front steps repaired today, so Mr. Tally Bear was stuck inside for most of the day. You can imagine he didn't appreciate that much and made my life difficult for it. Tallinn likes to be outside. I can think of no place (other then petsmart) where he would want to be indoors over out. The other night we were watching the Dog Whisperer and they were saying they have a law in California where if your dog is chained up for more then 3 hours a day outside then you can be fined or serve up to 6 months in jail. All I can say is thank god I live in Nunavut! Tallinn would drive me insane, he doesn't want to be inside! I can see how that law can protect a lot of dogs, but it would also put a lot of Alaskan Malamute owners in jail. Here is a rare shot of Tallinn napping, in between moving like a ninja sampling both the garbage and cat food. Everyone else joined the nap train too.

Flowers and the Gremlin

It was a beautiful summer evening in the arctic, cold as heck and windy. The sun was setting and the waves of the ocean crashed gently into the ice on the shore. I journeyed out taking some photos of the local flowers, the ones that peek out the 10 seconds between winter ending and winter starting. Tallinn of course would have nothing to do with me until I was in the middle of trying to focus on something and in deep concentration. All of a sudden there was a giant paw swatting me on my face. "Uh hi, you've managed to creep over behind me like a disruption ninja". Tallinn just looks at me and smacks his mouth, licking his lips. I go back to focusing. And then some how Tallinn's tongue is in my ear. "Ok, some attention for Tallinn". Belly scratching follows, then he seems satisfied enough to go and lay down. I return to the camera. This is apparently unacceptable as he returns to start flavoring and sniffing the flower I am trying to shoot. And before I know it I have given up, having taken more photos of Tallinn then of any of the flowers I was trying to shoot.

Happy Nunavut Day

Today this 9 year old territory was celebrated with a parade, games and a traditional feast. This time I did not ride in the parade, but chose to walk and take photos. I was mentioning to my friends that we must look like tourists walking around town with our monster SLR cameras. Just as I said that a huge group of tourists, that we had no idea had arrived in town walked over the hill. A group of about 50 government employees from the south were up in Iqaluit having a conference and decided to day trip it over to our community. They chartered 4 planes to get here and stayed about an hour. Um can you say most expensive day trip ever!! Hey lets just spend thousands of dollars and pop over to another community. I'm assuming the government picked up that tab. Anyways I think they thought we were part of their group at first and were giving us weird looks when we were asking why they were here. Even worse I spent the rest of the day having some local people greet me and welcome me to town. I had those big shady Paris Hilton sunglasses on and a giant camera, so I guess I fit right into the charter plane crowed. Meanwhile this has been my home for 2 years. One lady said she didn't recognize me because I cut my hair. Oh by the way I cut my hair, but that's for a different post.

This is what Fireworks look like when night time doesn't exist. It was a day time show, hey why not? You can barely see the fireworks, but you could've made them out if you were there. The camera only picked up on the left over smoke.

Another Year

A few days ago I celebrated a birthday. I wasn't expecting it to be any better then the year before where I spent it on a plane by myself coming back up north. I also spent 5 extra hours in the Iqaluit airport that day. But this year was completely different. First of all Christina was making me dinner AND a cake, AND then all these people came out of the closet. I was completely fooled, I had no idea that I was getting a surprise party, my first ever! I don't know why anyone hasn't tried it in the past because I am terribly gullible. If there is an entire case of pop missing from the sealift room? Oh that's just Nathan drinking a lot of pop no party planning here. The van parked outside of Christina's place, that's different but hey I'm sure there is a good reason and then BAM there is party, and it's a surprise! It was so fantastic and I am terribly lucky to have people that are willing to share their food and company with me.
This is my cheesy portrait pose. It helps get rid of the chin fat.
This is also something amazing that happened on my birthday, massive icebergs from the bay breaking up. The really big ones only lasted a day and that day was my birthday, so that must mean they were my icebergs! They were massive and beautiful and ever so incredible. Just after the surprise party, a flock of us photographers migrated down to the beach to shoot the bergs at low tide. I guess I don't have to worry about the ice being too "thin" when I'm out snowmobiling next year. It was a good visual example, me vs. the iceberg. Hey I don't feel so fat anymore!

Spirit of the North

Jen: I wonder if they are going to have fireworks tonight?
Christina: How would they have fireworks? 24 daylight remember?
Jen: Oh yeah, southern brain fart!
Happy Canada Y'all!