Only a month late

We are finally heading out for a camping trip this weekend- only a month late! The truck accident wasted an entire month, but we are now getting back on track.

Matt picked up the new truck last Friday and boy is she gorgeous!! I have to be careful driving this one because as my sister-in-law put it, "Your truck now has hips!" Our new truck is a dualie and it is definitely going take some time to get used to.

The boys and I are hitching a ride to Whitehorse today with a friend from Ross River. I have a dentist appointment this afternoon. Matt is coming in tomorrow and the truck will have camper bars installed on it. Then we will pick up the camper that has been repaired from the accident (just a broken mirror and huge mess). We had to get swing out jacks installed on the camper so we can load it on the new truck.

Once we are all set up, we are heading out to Haines, Alaska for the weekend. We are excited to do some exploring!

Happy Canada Day to everyone, especially the newly minted Canadian- Megan! Hope everyone has a fantastic and safe weekend.

Happy 4th Birthday, Hunter

On the weekend we celebrated Hunter's 4th birthday. We had all of his friends and their families out to FishEye Lake for the occasion. There were no organized games, no loot bags, and only a few presents (I had requested none, but of course some folks are just that lovely and had to bring something for the birthday boy). It was family fun- hot dogs on the fire, playing in the water and on the play equipment, and just enjoying the beautiful weather and the company of good friends.

Happy 4th Birthday Hunter!

Four years ago....

Blowing out the candles on his Dinosaur/Thomas Train cake:

Lord of the Flies: Yukon Chapter

Cavan is two years and two months old. He is fearless. Reckless. Wild. A perfect kid for the north.

We went out to a lake that is just ten minutes outside of Faro where he decided that pantless playing in the water was on the agenda. It was cold out! I am pretty sure he has antifreeze instead of blood coursing through his veins.

The photos that my friend took of him made me think of one of my favorite novels, Lord of the Flies. He even has a spear in hand.

Look ma, no pants!

Here fishy, fishy, fishy!

He went nearly waist deep and I think would have gone deeper if I didn't yell at him.
Fearless.

A Mouse

I have a rather large mouse in my house:

Happy Blogoversary To Me!

This month marks five years of blogging and I still going strong. I think it has become a slight addiction.

Plus having it printed out as a book each year makes up me being a neglectful mama and not doing up baby books for the kids.

This blog has led me to some of the most amazing friendships, random encounters, and tremendous support. Thank you readers, commenters and lurkers!!

The New Truck!

Matt came home from a week in Ross River yesterday afternoon and I met him at the door with news that I had found our new truck! Not only did I find it, but I was able to bullshit my way to a fantastic deal. Matt just had to give his approval and the deal was done.

We are purchasing a 2011 Dodge Ram SLT 4x4 3500 crew cab diesel pick up. We opted for the dually since we do put a camper on the back. It has heaps of doo-dads and doo-hickeys inside and outside. I was able to get a high rise canopy, spray in box liner, nerf bars, wiring for the camper and shipping to Whitehorse all added in for a price that blew the dealership in Whitehorse out of the water.

So thank you to Vince at Northland Dodge in Prince George. I was very impressed with the customer service!

The truck should be arriving in Whitehorse early next week. We are so happy that everything is working out fine after the accident.

The first question from Hunter (and Michael P. too) was if the balloons were included!

And I bet this truck doesn't smell of Eau du Barf!

My, what a lovely rear-end you have!

And now instead of taking up 4 parking spots in Whitehorse, I will be taking up six!!

Bad Luck Just Got Worse

News finally came today regarding our truck accident and it sure wasn't the news we were hoping for. Our truck has been deemed a total loss and we are being paid out.

Frack me.

Being paid out will only cover about half the cost of getting a new truck.

And more bad luck- I need a crown done on a tooth and dental insurance will on cover about a third of the cost.

Alright. This is three things right? Truck accident, truck deemed to be a total loss and dental misery. Is my bad luck over now?

Wolf Hat

The Great Northern Arts Festival is only a month away! I have been sewing up a storm to get ready for my first trip to the festival. If only there were more hours in the day kid free so I could sew more! The kids in Faro are done school this week, so I am hoping I can track down more sitters more often so I can continue getting ready.

Here is my newest creation- a wolf fur trapper's hat!

Kids say the darnedest things....

It has been an entertaining few days thanks to the boys. They have come out with some interesting comments that I have to share.

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Hunter: "Mommy I don't love you anymore."
Me: "Okay Hunter."
Hunter: "Mommy, I want you to leave our house."
Me: "Okay Hunter. And where should I go?"
Hunter: "You should leave here and go live in Carmacks!"

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Matt to Cavan as he sees him walking around the house with a container of dental floss: "Whatcha got there, Cavan?"
Cavan: "It's for mummy's bum!"

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Hunter to Matt while watching Bambi for the first time: "Dad, did a hunter shoot the mommy deer?"
Matt: "Yes Hunter, the hunter shot the mommy deer."
Hunter: "Did they eat her because she was so delicious?"

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And this last one is the best:

Mom, while holding the door closed from the outside of Hunter's bedroom while he is having a time-out for throwing a rather impressive tantrum before bedtime: "Hunter, get in your bed!"
Hunter, whilst wiggling the doorknob attempting to escape his time out: "Why won't this fucking door open!"
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I am thinking I might get a few calls from the school next year when Hunter starts attending!

Truck Accident Update

It has been just over a week since our accident and we are still waiting to hear back from insurance. Matt has been in contact with the autobody shop in Whitehorse and they were submitting a repair quote for at least $14 000. Ouch! That is about half of what our truck is worth. We haven't heard what the quote is for the damage to the camper, but we are expecting that to be minimal.

I have my fingers crossed that our truck is not a write off. It is a 2005 with really low mileage and we would like to keep it around for a few more years.

Hopefully we know what will be happening by the end of the week. I am really looking forward to getting out of this itty bitty rental car!

Just another one of those great days

Today was just another one of those great days.

Part of the 20lbs of moose meat I cut up to put in brine. Tomorrow I will be making jerky:

We went to the pool in the morning for an hour. Cavan has taken off just like his big brother. Today he told me, "No touch me, Mom. Me swimmin!" And he was, with the help of the water wings. He bobbed around the pool, kicking his legs and flailing his arms. I am pretty sure he gulped a couple of gallons of pool water as well.

Hunter's Kindergarten teacher dropped off a gift pack which included a pair of scissors! That entertained him for nearly an hour.

After the pool we had company over for lunch. Hunter and Cavan played with their friends while their mother and I attempted to keep our toes intact during the tricycle rally.

Little brother enjoyed scissor time too. Here is that tongue of concentration hard at work:

I had an extra kid for the afternoon while her mother was at work. We played inside. We played outside. We had a great time as usual.

Chicken breasts were in brine most of the day and then smoked for three hours to make an absolutely delicious supper:

Cavan napping with the essentials: Marno the Martin, dinky cars, blanket, and ketchup and cat hair stuck to his face.

While Cavan took a late afternoon nap, Hunter and I hung out in the sewing lair. Hunter was finally introduced to the bins of loose buttons and he was in love. He called himself a pirate and was digging through his buried treasure. He was entertained and I got to craft.

New broach pins! The top two are lynx and the bottom two are wolf:

And now we are just chilling together as a family. The boys are in pj's and cleaning up their toys, Matt is watching the hockey game and I am finally putting my feet up. Just another one of those great days.

Off To School

This week Hunter attended his orientation day to Kindergarten. Our community runs Kindergarten for children aged 4 and 5 and it is just half days for four days a week. Hunter has been talking about school for the last year. Many of his friends are there this year and he has been incredibly envious of their experience.

I am excited for Hunter to start school. Hunter is an avid reader and very inquisitive. I am sure he will do just fine there!

It looks as though the class will be bursting at the seams with 10 children. Pretty impressive for Faro! And our lovely neighbour works with the kids in the classroom as an aide for the Child Development Centre. Hunter adores her and will love seeing her there everyday.

Cavan is going to have some much needed mommy time. Although he is begging to attend school as well. When I tell him he has to be bigger to go to school he stomps his feet and insists that he is a big boy! And while I love Hunter dearly, I am happy to have someone else listen to his incessant talking of trains. Good luck teachers!

Hunter in his smock doing a bit of finger painting:

Of course he will love Kindergarten; they have trains.

Hunter and one of his school-mates, Ryan-Rose.

Well that didn't go as planned....

So our camping/lumber hauling/shopping trip to Whitehorse this weekend didn't go quite as planned. We were involved in a motor vehicle accident and are just thankful that no one was injured. The situation could have been a hell of a lot worse.

We were just 15 minutes from Carmacks on the Robert Campbell highway. Up until this point the highlight of the trip had been the smoke from nearby fires:
We came up a hill, around a curve in the road and WHAM we hit a truck. A smaller truck came out of a pull off at the Columbia Disaster site and pulled right in front of us trying to get into the other lane to head to Faro. We didn't have much time to react at all. Matt was able to swerve to our left (thank god there was no oncoming traffic). So instead of hitting the other truck on the side, we destroyed the front of his truck and the corner of ours. At the top of the hill we figure we were only doing about 80km and Matt was able to hit the breaks, so I think we were only doing maybe 50 or 60km when we hit him. That is still quite the impact. Both trucks were moved to the sides of the road after the crash.

You can see our skid marks in this shot. There is the truck we hit. When we hit him, he was right in our lane.

The camper looks alright, but a mirror broke and there is glass everywhere:

More skid marks:

I am pretty sure this truck will be a write-off. But you know, no airbags went off in this truck or ours.

Our damage:

There was another couple at the pull-off that saw the accident. You would think that being just 15 minutes from Carmacks they would offer to drive in and call for assistance. But nope. They asked if we were okay (they were from southern BC), and then when I told them we had friends in Carmacks that were RCMP and we needed to get a hold of them, they buggered right off!! I wonder what they were running from....

So we waited another 20 minutes for the next vehicle to arrive. The boys were fine this entire time. They had no clue what happened, they just wondered why we had stopped! They were upset that our truck was hurt. But they loved all of the action over the next couple of hours. A vehicle pulled up and it was a hunting film crew! They were making space for me and the boys to get a ride to Carmacks when some of the Yukon Wildland Firefighters arrived (oh they are nice to look at!). They had a radio system that worked and they called a dispatcher in Carmacks. We had them tell the dispatcher to get ahold of our friends in Carmacks. As luck would have it, the dispatcher office is right behind our friend's (also an RCMP officer) house and she just walked over and told him to come out for us. We got a great fly-by from the Wildland Fire helicopter too! The boys loved that.

In the mean time, the RCMP officer from Faro drove up on his way home. And I am pretty sure half of Faro and Ross River drove by after that. We had a lot of offers of assistance- thanks everyone! The RCMP member from Carmacks arrived soon after and we got everything dealt with. We emptied all of our stuff in the RCMP vehicle, including us and headed to Carmacks.

The guy driving the other vehicle (from Faro and of course we know him well- small northern world), got a lift back to Faro with the other RCMP member. Once in Carmacks, we dealt with insurance as much as is possible on a weekend, got a tow truck to come out, filed the police report, and then put our feet up. Thank you so much Tim and Michelle Lynch for making us feel right at home!!

The next day, we borrowed our friend's van and went into Whitehorse. We were hoping to rent a truck and still be able haul our load of lumber back to Faro. The lumber is already paid for, packaged together and ready to go. But the only rental we could get was a small car. Uggg. So the trailer is still in Carmacks, lumber is still in Whitehorse and we are now back in Faro.

We are really hoping that our truck can be fixed. I am pretty sure the other truck will be a total write-off. It definitely screws up all of the plans we had for a number of weeks. I am really disappointed about having to put all of our plans on hold and I know that we are going to have a lot of chaos in the coming weeks. But I am so thankful that we were all uninjured!

Thanks All

Thank you everyone for the messages on my last post. Between the messages left here, sent to my email and on facebook, I am feel ready to take on the world again. I am so appreciative of all the kind words.

So moving on!

I have the camper pretty much packed for our first outing of the summer. It is a combined camping/shopping trip to Whitehorse. I wanted to be out in the bush camping, but we really needed to head into town to buy mainly lumber for our backyard projects. The weekend should be rather entertaining! We are actually going to camp in our friends yard in Carmacks on the way in. Then on Saturday we have to get new tires on our trailer, buy lumber, buy some other odds and ends and then we are hoping to hit up the Copperbelt Railway and maybe the Transportation Museum. I have no clue where we will be Saturday night. If I left it up to my husband we would be camping in the Walmart parking lot, but I am hoping for Wolf Creek campground or maybe out to Twin Lakes. Who knows! Then we will come home on Sunday afternoon.

I hope everyone else enjoys their weekend, even if the weather looks to be a little less than the perfect summer weather we have been having so far.