One whole year away from this the north .... Where to start?

 

I guess the beginning would be as good of a place as any.

 

The biggest news and the reason for leaving in the first place was the new addition to our Northern clan. Febuary 16th we grew by one more person, Abigail entered this world perfectly normal and relaxed, and has stayed that way ever since....she doesnt complain she sleeps well, she loves every one, just an all round nice kid. We have been told how fortunate we are...we always agree.

 

So nice to spend a year with family in friends. Funny how busy you can actually be when your retired ( if only for a year). We found ourselves always on the move visiting people and seeing all the things that we miss when we are up north.

As well as looking after the wee one and the constant travel I was very lucky to have been hired by our local news paper the Lindsay Post as their photographer... There were very few community events that Nic myself and Abigail missed. From hockey games to local fall fairs we were there all over the City of Kawartha Lakes. 

 

Nicole and I also made time time join a never ending list of bands, some more local than others. We play brass instruments and we found that we were never turned away. Thanks to the Clarington New Horizons, the Clarington Concert band and the Kawartha Kaviliers for having us out. Did we ever have some laughs!!!

 

After being so involved with music programs again Nic and I have decided to start one here. I sent out one email...just one... asking for a donation of an instrument or two, i hoped for just a few two get things going. I received somewhere in the region of 60, all in playable condition.... everything from tubas to saxophones. It was amazing how they poured in, and still do. Needless to say we have what i believe to be a great chance at started a full concert band here in the spring. Because of the volume on things we were given we now have to send up the lions share on the next sealift. I was able to bring a few in suit cases when i flew up (11 suit cases between Nic the babe and I, half were full of music stuff) maybe in the next few weeks i can get a small program up and running... Thanks to all who have donated, and the answer is YES ! we will take more if you know of anyone who has something the would like to give.

 

strange to set back and try and some up a whole year... i sure im forgetting some things

 

we did not get camping like i thought we would...but thats ok , we did though get out in the canoe a few times and Abigail had here first canoe ride. although i dont think she really realized what was going on. 

 

I made it back to Pang twice this year once with the whole family to introduce Abigail to Pang, and tie up a few loose ends for the year. The second time was two photograph the National Park for the government. What fun that was !!!

 

There were so many people we wanted to visit to say goodbye, but sadly this was just impossible. Those of you we missed were sorry and we will miss you, feel free to call, or write.

The south treated us pretty good over the last 12 months and we enjoyed our stay, but as much as we will miss our families and friends down there it was sure nice to get off the plane in Pang and see all the faces that we have grown to love in the North.

Now that we made it back without to much trouble we will be starting the blog back up and we are going to try and post quite a few short videos as well as pictures and stories. I'm sure there should be quite a few adventures in the next few months. so follow if you like. Those of you who havent ever read our blog this is kinda how it works.

In the beginning ( four and a half years ago ) i posted something every other day. So there was always new material for everyone to read. Now a days i just promised to do that...lol... and posted usually once or twice a week. Now that i am full time photographer and Daddy Day Care, it should prove to be interesting for the blogging. lol

 

So we are here, our house is great the furniture is amazing and the heat works properly (unlike our old place). I un-packed to sealift crates a whole storage unit and a friends living room and moved it all to our new place. As you expected it only took me a few sleepless night to get the house set up and in nice living order. My office that used to be where the baby sleeps now in our old place has been moved to a crawlspace under the house Nicole i believe is calling it the man cave. lol.

As for the shed that is still in front of our old house, as of yet the plan is to leave it there for the time being and use it, The lady there doesnt seem to mind....in the spring i think i might talk a few friends into moving it or likely just building a new one at our new place.

We of course put our Christmas tree up as Ukrainian Christmas is on the 19th January, and that is the day our tree comes down. 

I should also mention that the dog came back with us aswell and she is more than happy to be back in her Arctic home.Although it doesnt really feel like it. the water isn't frozen yet, normally it is, and the ground is bare, normally it isnt. But we are told that this week things could change... My answer to that is, maybe! in the north the is never a sure thing whether its the weather, or anything else. 

other than that things are just moving along Nic is back at school and happy about it and Abi and I just hang out.  

Just to prove we are here.... i got out to shoot some light with an old friend the other night

 

 

 

So thats that

 

Keep checkin back as we will, as i mentioned be bloggers again.

TTYL

M&N&A

I thought that You might like to see some of the sights that we have been privileged to see this last week.

With the fading daylight, there have been some amazing sunsets.

I wish you all could have been up there with me...Jaw dropping

We have had the added bonus of a full moon this week....Perfect for northern lights

A shot that i have wanted for a while. Wish there had of been more snow up the mountain so i could have gotten farther up with the snowmobile

Thats all for now...

TTYL
M&N&?

Biggest news this week is that I finished my beading and got my amautiq. For those of you whom are unfamiliar with amautiqs, it is a parka that a woman wears to carry her baby in. If you look at the previous post you will see Amy in the brown amautiq with her son Henry in the back. The pics of mine aren't the best as we kind of took the pics in a hurry, the beads aren't actually sewn on and I haven't completely learned exactly where the amautiq is supposed to sit on me.

Regardless, here are some pics:

First, here is a close up of the bead work that one of the local teachers, Sandra, taught me how to make. i worked on them on and off for about a month and a half.

This is how they will eventually sit on my amautiq:

And at last, my amautiq:

As you can see in this next one, the beads are just semi pinned on to get part of the effect:

And my belly... taken today... 28 weeks and 3 days!

**Note pics were taken with my camera, that's why some of them are fuzzy **

Aside from that, Mike completed another parka which I'm sure he'll post in the next few days.

That's it for now.

ttyl
M&N&?

Although we haven't posted in a while I must say that there really isn't much to talk about. We're wrapping things up here for the next year. We have a new room mate (Jerry the gym teacher that I work with). He will be living in our house for the next year while we're in Ontario. This past weekend we had a photo shoot for those of us that live in Pang but are from the City of Kawartha Lakes. Seems so strange that living in this small community we'd have 6 adults and one baby from our hometown living here! Here is a group shot from that photo shoot:

We've been pretty busy as we're trying to wrap things up. I've been finishing up things as the school with the added pressure of getting my grade 12's ready for their Alberta departmental exams. Mike has been working like crazy on photography as well as sewing and all kinds of other stuff.

As of this Saturday I'll be starting my third trimester. More pics to following in the next few days! Can't believe how fast time is flying.

ttyl
M&N&?

A little late but better than never.

Are weekly update....I had some new equipment finally arrive so for this pregnancy update we tried it out.
Nicole at 26 weeks

Hard to believe that she is gaining this fast!

Donald had heard that I had the studio set up so he came over and had some shots of him as his little Bulldog pup taken.

Lastly I'm excited to report that the back trails are now quite comfortable for me to drive and Markus Donalds and I went out the other night to have a look at the lights without the glow of town.

I think i'm starting one of the parkas i have to do today so soon there should be a post on Parka 101 Qullanaq Man style.

TTYL
M&N&?

I thought that you all might like to see what some of us here in Pang do two times a week. The club that was started a few years ago has recently grown into quite the bunch of people.

This shot I had to stand in front of Donald while he had his arrow pulled back.. The kids really enjoyed me saying
"Don't you dare shoot me in the face!!!"

Believe it or not this is not even half of all the targets the club uses.

A little bit of Photoshop work and a few planned photos helped make this image possible. I was able to freeze a few arrows in mid flight!!! and then i just copied them over and over.

Stay tuned...I will be making a parka this week and i'm considering putting a step by step on the blog. could be a super long entry

TTYL

M&N&?

Another week passed

It seems as though we have turned in to once a week bloggers. Well fours years of hard core blogging has left us with not to much to say or show any more.

But we are still glad to say that there was some interesting things going on this week.

First off I was lucky enough that i was able to get out and get some great shots of the Northern Lights .

And of course being HAlloween I was hard at working making Nicole a costume. This year we got third place, not disgraceful by any means.

My wife the Zombie bride

I should mention that Nic actually scared a kid at the schools so bad that they cried, and while at the town Halloween party she was asked to sit a bit farther because she terrified one mothers children.

fun times this week, and more to come as we have had the snowmobile out for a while now and the snow is almost hard enough make it up the back hill.

Thats all for now

TTYL
M&N&?

Well we had a nothing week... as per the lack of posts. But i did get around to playing around with Marcus's umbrella. So heres the one shot of the week. Maybe next week we will have some more interesting things to post and talk about.

Thats all for now

M&N&?

A bit of interesting news going on...

A true sign of the last few sea lifts of the year!!!

We were lucky enough to have our lift come on one of the first few boats of the year...As any dedicated reader of this blog would already know:)

That being said Nicole and I decided to take advantage of the empty boat and send a crate back down south. Surprisingly enough we have collected quite the amount of stuff here in the last few years. So I loaded up our old crate with items that we rarely use, and sent it down.

We filled the front hall with boxes for easy carrying out to the crate.

Couldn't have asked for a better day yesterday to load up

Hammered shut and ready to go

Then we woke up to this weather, the lift truck driver picked up the crate and nearly got himself stuck in all the snow

Off the crate goes so to be home in Ontario

When the storm had a slight break Nic and I made our way down to the shore to make sure the crate did indeed have a spot on the ship...IT DID!!!

Our boat waiting

Pang Harbour

I should mention that as we were out we spotted 3 ski-doos driving around. I was very very close to taking ours out for a little rip. Maybe tomorrow... I need just a tad more snow.

Thats all for now
TTYL
M&N

Happy belated thanksgiving everyone! Hope all our Canadian family and friends had a fantastic holiday weekend. We sure did!! The crazyness at our place started Saturday as Mike prepared a good chunk of the food and we both cleaned the house! We had 17 people over for thanksgiving dinner Sunday evening and everything went really well!! Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

We started the evening off with some yummy appetizers:

Here is the spread of food we had, thanks again to everyone for contributing!!

And the friends that joined us for such a lovely evening of food:

And one last thing we wanted to show off... my belly And I thought I was big in the summer LOL:

That's me at 21 weeks

Enjoy your week and we'll try and post more regularly!!!

ttyl
M&N&?