Baby's "First" Camping Trip!

Since the weather has been so balmy lately (-10C during the days!), this past weekend we made a camping trip out to the wall tent maintained by the Ski Club on Banting Lake.

It's a 7 miles ski out to the tent and somehow I thought that I was going to carry all my gear on my back. . . Dan quickly disillusioned me and our intrepid dogteam ended up hauling all six people's packs in Brent's sled. (Tika was less than amused at first when she realized what we wanted her to do but she quickly got the hang of it.)

We found the tent fully stocked with not only wood but two futons, (I was thrilled because I really hadn't been relishing the thought of my backpacking thermarest...), blankets, pillows, and even a caribou hide! The temperature supposedly dipped down to -30 that night but we stayed cozy and warm. After thinking about it, I realized that was the warmest I'd slept since about September. Go figure...

At the tent ready to go back the next morning:

(Dan - ready to "drive" the team - Brent, & Colleen)

Gunhild (sp?), who is visiting from Norway, ready to go & Liz testing out the trail...

Happy and WARM the WHOLE time!! :-)

Sub-Arctic Winter...

Well with the temperature still hovering around -40 and the windchill creeping down below -50 (and the phrase "God-forsaken wasteland" creeping randomly into my brain - I dunno, must be pregnancy...), I decided it was a good time to update our blog.

For those who have been waiting for "baby" pictures, below is me at five months (taken this past weekend). People keep telling me that's not very big, but since the ultrasound showed a normal-sized baby, I think it's plenty big enough, thank you very much! :-)

And, better yet, here's the little guy (sure looked like a guy!) himself at about 18 weeks!

Lately he likes to wake up right as I'm falling asleep and move around for a bit - I figure he might get into boxing or Irish dancing when he's older... :-)

On the subject of pregnancy: I've noticed that people tend to follow a script when greeting you prenatally. First they ask "How are you feeling?" and then continue with "You look great!" Oddly enough, I've found I get more annoyed with the first line and, even though I know the second always follows no matter how you really appear and I should really feel patronized and lied to, I tend to appreciate it every time (funny what pregnancy will do to your mind!). In answer to the first question, however, at present I feel great and am back up to hour-long stints on the elliptical (or skiing when it's not so flipping cold!) after being too sick during the first trimester for much activity beyond walking and hiking, so that generally keeps me in a good mood and helps both baby and I to sleep soundly! :-)

Getting back to the weather, there's really not much to do at -40, so two weekends ago Dan and some guys from church decided to build a luge run in our backyard. (Well, from the top of the monument, through our backyard, finishing off with a drop by the mailboxes and shooting accross the road - fortunately it's been too cold for any of the neighborhood kids to be out to try it because we really can't afford any lawsuits at present...) I was a bit of a party pooper and decided my personal shoveling efforts would be better spent banking up snow around our drafty (but still beloved!) little house. We then had a bunch more people over to try out our hill and had cider inside on the stove and sausages outside on the barbeque!

Ski-joring at -35 with the "whole family."