Last week our little baby turned 1!!  Where has the time gone??  We had a great happy unbirthday with our family down south before we left for the north as we couldn't celebrate with all of them on her actual birthday.  This past week we were able to celebrate with our northern family and friends!! Abigail was spoiled and we all felt very loved for all the friendship and support that our northern friends give us!

Here are some pics of all the excitement

 

Abigail in her pile of toys and gifts!

Some of the many people that attended her birthday and again another shot of her and her gifts:

 

 

Abby enjoying some of her birthday cake!

Sneaking into some of the presents while people were getting some snacks

Checking out her new unicorn

Some of the northern family

One of the gifts from us.  Mike made her a mink bunting bag to keep her nice and warm on one of our many adventures out on the land.

 

 

 

  Here are a few videos for those of you that couldn't be there in person.  The first is Abby opening up one of her presents:

Whether you're at a child's birthday party or an adults party there is always games and prizes.  This is one of the games we played.  You roll a dice and if the magic number is rolled everyone has to try and grab a penny. There is one less penny then players therefore each time someone is eliminated.

Singing of happy birthday:

After food, games and presents we had a visiting musician and Mike play some music.  Abby had a great time dancing around:

Hope you enjoyed the photos and videos and if you weren't there please know that you were missed!

TTYL
M, N and A

So as Nic said i was able to get out on the sled the other day... what a great feeling to be out in the hills again.

I went out to run the sled (FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A YEAR) I wanted to make sure all the bugs were worked out before going to terribly far away. Not to mention take some shots and test fire all the guns. After about 4 hours in minus 30c and perfect tests on all equipment i felt i had had enough fun and it was time to head back.

 

I think i must have had a smile the entire time i was out there.

Even with the ice on my face i was one happy guy.

 

way back in the hills the sun was starting to set and it created the most perfect sun dog with the ice crystals that were floating in the air. 

Cold day?,,,OH YEAH! but what a great day !!

TTYL

M&N&A

As you can see and imagine Abby is getting quite big.  She'll be 1 year old in 10 days!!!  With her size comes the need for a new amauti.  Usually women go through at least a few amautis within the course of having a baby.  The pocket that the babies ride in needs to fit the baby so you don't want to have a giant pocket on the back for a tiny baby and you don't want a super small pocket for a big baby.  This past week Abby's arnaliaq (translation is kind of like God mother but more in a cultural aspect) made a new amauti for me/Abby.  Here are some pics of this amauti!  I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

I opted for a more traditional amauti this time.  Fully traditional ones are made of seal or caribou... I obviously didn't go with that, however the next most traditional is white with a long tail at the back.  They are traditionally white as that was the only coloured fabric they had at the time during the hudsons bay era (as we've been told).  The ties are made at the local art center.  The fur is the full shadow fox, complete with legs, around the hood  

Just to be clear, the baby does NOT ride in the hood but instead in a pocket against my back.  There is nothing separating the baby from my back.

You get a better view here how she is not in the hood as you can kind of see where her feet are.

Another back view.  Here you can see that the liner is not attached to the outer layer so that you can wash it.  As you can imagine with it being white I'll be washing this sucker constantly.  The tie coming from the hood is used when you put the hood up over the baby so you can keep it from blowing off.

A bad pic of me but at least you can see the full front of the jacket.

We've had a nice weekend full of friends/visiting and eating  We've had a great week and are enjoying watching Abby everyday.  What a happy baby she is!  Mike was able to get out on the skidoo this weekend and even saw the sun.  Our days are getting longer now and we're almost back to a normal lengthed day.  We have 2 more weeks of school and then we have a week of Professional Improvement.  

We don't have a whole lot planned for this week other then the same old stuff however we're hopeful that it will be fun none the less.

 

Hope everyone has a great week!

ttyl

m&n&a

We don't have all that much to say since the last blog and unfortunately we also don't have any pictures this time around.  Just wanted to write to let everyone out there know that we're still kickin'.  The weather has been COLD here lately albeit not as cold as some of our fellow Nunavut communities.  We've been averaging around -40 ish in the past few days and even reached -47 with the windchill yesterday.  

Our dear friends Markus and Delia flew in on Friday and we're so delighted to have them back in town.  Mike got the skidoo up and running so now we're just waiting for something a little warmer then -47 to take it for a spin.  I won a case of pop yesterday at at fundraiser.  For those of you that are not so familiar with northern prices this lovely case of pop would of cost me about $25 for 12 cans if I bought it at the store.  We also just got back from a wonderful dinner of fresh char!  

Good times have been had by all this past week.  We're looking forward to getting our music group up and running within the next week or two!

We also got a call from a dear friend who is hoping to come visit us at the end of March and with Mike's parents visit the middle of April there should be some good times ahead!

Oh and how could I forget, our little daughter now 11 1/2 months old took about 8 steps on Thursday night!!!  She's hasn't attempted any again but she sure did great on Thursday.

 

Until the next time,

TTYL

M, N and A

I thought you all might like to see a little dancin....

 Hope you like it...
Also i want to mention that we had a bit of snow today...YEAH!!!

TTYL
M&N&A

As Promised heres the bunting bag i made.

it was a fun little project that only took a few hours.. i think it turned out ok. I had made a set of mitts that go with it but have been since scraped due to me sucking at baby mittens.

Shes not quite sure ...

Gettin a better look

she seems to think it will do

Happy customer

Ready for the cold !!

If anyone is interested to try and make one for themselves shoot me a msg and i can help you out....no pattern required !!! and really its not that hard.

Todays big plan is to work on a painting i've been thinking about for some time now. With Nic, home it will give me the chance to actual work a bit without being called away by the baby...

So that pretty much all thats been going on....BUT it is.... Saturday morning, and Pangnirtung really hops on the weekends. hahah. who knows maybe i'll go for a walk some time tomorrow.

 

Thats all for now

TTYL

M&N&A

 

Well folks. 

Not to much going on up here.  Here's a few shots for you to have a look 

 

In the next day or so i'm going to put up a few shots of the bunting bag i just made for the baby. It's not perfect but i think it will do the job.

 

So sad to say but thats it. Maybe there will be some news in the next day or two.

 

TTYL

M&N&A

Abigail was sitting in her chair tonight while Nic made cookies. I guess Nic dropped something and said "oops" well the baby though it was hilarious. Hope you enjoy!

TTYL
M&N&A

So we get off the plane here and see ...no snow, not to mention the lack of ice anywhere, not in our fjord or in the ocean. Global warming, climate change, just mother nature having an off year ???? who knows for sure. Whatever it is, at risk of jynxing it.... it seems to have past now, we have had some good cold weather as of late, and the fjord has a layer of ice out there now. Nic told me today that the talk around the school was that there was a man walking on the ice testing things out...there is still alot of bare ground out there but im sure the snow will follow shortly .

I went for a bit of a walk on the weekend, and if you dont know already you will learn that my camera isnt ever away from my side (being a professional photographer i kinda have to have it with me at all times). Anyway i took a few shots of the setting sun and the bare ground. Did i ever miss the pinks we get here, and with the days now getting a little longer ever day the light just keeps getting better and better. How long are our days now you ask... a mere four hours and climbing. 

 

 

The town and Pang Pass in the distance

The other big news around here.... i guess there was a polar bear in town the other day. Apparently it came into town and started to mess around with someones four wheeler. I guess the bear disappeared again before any harm came to it the four wheeler or anyone in town. 

So Thats the News from the North 

Dont forget to leave a comment if ya want.

TTYL

M&N&A

Well as some of you may have noticed i have recently changed the header for the Kluglanoch Corner site... it now reads Qallunaat Corner. The address of the site has remained the same the only thing that is different is the picture with the name on it.

Why the change you ask? well for the last four years of blogging the title has actual been a typo... yes it's true... an error was made. The frequent readers of the blog should remember that Qullunaat (pr. Cull a knot)  (Kluglanoch) means loosely white person / non-Inuit. We thought the name was fitting upon arrival here those many years ago. When we named the blog we did our best to get the spelling right...but we failed. So to rectify this failure i have at long last re-did the header tho read correctly, also it gave me the opportunity to change up the picture...the stones three people...get it?

So there ya go, thats why the change.

 

I want to mention again there is no change at all to the web address for the blog!!! it remains www.xanga.com/kluglanoch_corner

 

Also you'll notice that the chatter box that used to sit on the right of the screen is no longer there. It didnt seem to ever work as it was supposed to. But not to worry...our friends at Xanga have now made it possible for anyone to leave  a comment on any post...HAZAH! So all you have to do is go to the end of the post you wish to comment on and click the comment tab thingy, leave a few details and voila! you have commented. Easy eh?  so we expect lots of comments from everyone out there.  

 

Alrighty folks

Thats all for now.

 

TTYL

M&N&A