If you're like us

you've probably just been sitting around in someone else's house watching season 2 of Dark Angel and counting the hours until 12pm on April 30. But don't worry, if Max and Logan's forbidden love isn't keeping you wide awake at night with excitement, this will: the Terex Titan Cam, live from "the South Eastern corner of the Province of British Columbia, Canada, on Highway No. 3, in the small town of Sparwood". That's right, you can watch your favorite non-operational heavy hauler 24 hours a day as it sits parked in front of that mall. Since its night time right now, you get a lovely view of the headlamps updated every few minutes. I'm assuming that the day time view is equally exciting but I haven't got to experience it yet, I can probably check in while I watch Canada AM tomorrow.

For a different cam experience, visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium Cams. Between 7am and 7pm Pacific Time you can watch live video of penguins, sea otters, fish, birds and sea turtles. I'll be tuning in on the weekend at feeding time to see how crazy the new blackfooted penguins are!

Summer?

Can't wait for icecream, sunshine and heat!

The Snowman

Using the lake as a source, I rolled 3 very misshapen snow balls. Jon did the heavy lifting, but my back still ached. Clearly I'm out of practice...
My wonky rolling required a lot of reshaping with snow. I also had to fight off three dogs from peeing on Mr. Snowman.
Brinkley got over his fear of snow people enough to "help" me with the decorations (he is a service breed).
He then decided that the pinecone buttons weren't really needed on the snow man and he ate the ones he could reach.

"I've got too many balls and not enough tree"

Is this available in black?

I don't dislike shopping, in fact I enjoy it, but shopping for clothes is another matter. Especially dress clothes, I avoid it like the plague. But today I needed to buy a blazer/jacket/whatever you call it. So after driving 6 hours from Hinton to Calgary with only a gas stop in Edson, I hit the mall. I immediately regretted it, 4 pm on a Sunday before Christmas and the mall was packed. I whacked people out of the way with my purse as I scanned the stores for the perfect jacket (and shoes for that matter). Nearling the end of my shopping stamina (and shopping hours) I finally found what I was looking for - thank goodness for shopping associates! The wonderful woman quickly picked out the perfect outfit and had me on my way with no awkward size fussing or huge padded shoulders.

Aww, nuts!

Since I returned to Canada I've been living with my parents while I job hunt. The job hunt has consisted, so far, of very little job hunting and lots of Christmas shopping and baking. Excellent pastimes but unlikely to help me find employment. When I find myself very unmotivated to look for work, I check my bank account balance. The low numbers there have a way of inspiring me...

I am also in the process of printing off my travel photos (starting with the WCT) and they are bringing back lots of happy memories. It may be a while before I get the completed set of Argentina photos out there though, 1300 is a daunting number to sort through.

In the spirit of Argentina, I am indulging in a submarino while I bake today. Not good for the diet but it does wonders for the soul.

An Update

Life has been moving along at a breakneck pace for the MacDonalds. In fact, I can't even remember what we've been up to its all moved so fast. Now that we have some deadlines, it seems like things aren't going to slow down enough for us to get everything done.

We bought a new lens for our camera as a gift for Jon (it was his birthday money). If you thought he took a lot of photos before, you haven't seen anything yet. If you're into cameras, its a 50 - 300 mm, which on our camera is 75mm to 450mm. That's a lot more zoom that our other lens (its also a lot larger).
We ran in another 5Peaks race last Saturday. The swag was very good this time round: new merino wool socks, sunscreen, power bars and more coffee. As it would be, I earned myself another first and Jon got a second. I attribute my success to the Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs we ate for breakfast.

We also bought Jon a new sleeping bag. He was a little chilly last time we were backpacking and since we have about 13 days of backcountry left this summer we thought he could use a new one. He got a pretty nice down bag, its got a gortex shell and packs up super small.

I submitted my thesis to my committee today, so the exam has officially started. I plan to forget about my thesis for the next two weeks until I have to finish the presentation. I'm really excited to be done, I can't believe we'll finally get to move on to doing something new in just over a month.

Other than that, we're heading out to hike with the parents on Wednesday, it should be nice. We packed up our bags tonight and they actually weigh less than our last backpacking trip and they packed better. I guess the smaller sleeping bag, new stuff sacks and the small bowls really paid off. There will be pictures of that of course when we return on Sunday.

Cross that off the life to-do list!

One of my earliest memories of Jon and I as a couple involves shopping for tapes in Hearst during our first summer treeplanting. I only remember purchasing one tape, Mad Mad World by Tom Cochrane, and listening to it over and over again on the Walkman every summer.

Jon and I are no longer treeplanting, but we are still listening to Life is a Highway more than is healthy. Seriously, we love it. We still start every road trip by listening to it. Its become a bit of an obsession and attending a Tom Cochrane concert together got put on the life to-do list. So, when we found out that he was playing at Stampede and we were in Calgary, we just had to go.


The show was great, it didn't matter that it was hot, we had to stand for hours and the man in front of us kept smacking someone else's wife's butt. We got to hear Life is a Highway live, from the man himself.

D-Day!

That's right, the defense date for my thesis has been set. August 15 is the big day, with the fun getting underway at 9am and lasting for a gruelling 3 hours.


Just a little over a month before I'm done! Yippy!

Plumbing Problems in the Wonder House

After 4 day of smoke and sweat, Jon and I were ready for a shower and some clean clothes. Like the nice parents we are, we delayed our showers and laundry until after we'd picked up our dog and done groceries. I then gathered up our stinky clothes and happy loaded them in our washer. An hour later I went back down to the basement to check on my laundry and found myself on my ass in a large puddle of water at the foot of the stairs.

I wasn't hurt, and my first thought was "which dog peed this much? Disgusting" before realizing that no dog has that much pee in them. Jon heard my screams and came running down to lift me out of the puddle. We opened the laundry room door and stared at the water that was slowly filling our basement as our washer drained. It seems that the hole in the floor where water drains from our laundry system had backed up and the laundry water was spreading in a filthy wave across our storage room. Quickly we shut off the washer and set about moving dog food out of the way.

We mopped up almost all the water and Jon went upstairs to drain something in the bath tub. And the basement reflooded. It then occurred to us that perhaps the hole wasn't just used for the washer tub. We ran the shower, and then the kitchen sink and then flushed the toilet and sure enough, after each time, the water in basement rose up again. The problem was larger than I'd initially thought - not only was I not going to be able to do laundry, we couldn't shower, pee or do dishes.

Jon called our landlord, who then called her plumber, who then called us and said he was on his way. We then called Panago for two large cheese pizzas, delivery, to help us through it all.

The pizza arrived within an hour, but 3 hours later there was still no sign of Doug, our trusty plumber. Jon called the landlord, who then told us to call the city. Jon called the city, who said they'd call us back. And then, out of no-where, the plumber showed up.

After a quick look at the basement Doug decided he had none of the tools needed to fix the drain. He talked Jon's ear off in the mosquito infested outdoors and then got back in his plumbing van - and we were still unable to use our water.

Minutes later, as Jon and Shannon and I were bemoaning our poor luck, the City of Calgary Emergency and Trouble crew showed up and two very large men (one with a very large beard) went to the basement. Ten minutes later our problems were solved - if only someone had told us to call them sooner! Just as quickly as they had came, they were back in their truck and off to help some other poor schmuck.

So, now we can flush and run water as much as we want - although I'm a little too nervous to try too much. It was quite the end to our long weekend, and we're hoping that the trouble has all passed.

Lazy Rainy Sunday

Exhausted, Jon and I did very little today, which was very nice. Patches napped and Jon napped and I nearly napped. Jon is off to the field tomorrow for the rest of the week, so I baked him a few little treats... I tried a new recipe from a book Kate gave me years ago and they are pretty good!
And, we tried out the new game that Mike and Mic gave Jon for his birthday - Settlers of Catan, the Travel Edition. Its fun, unless you have huge hands. It should keep us occupied on our away from home adventures.

Things have been slow...

... around here lately.

Jon is home for the week for the monthly scan and stab (x-ray and bloodwork) and things are going really well there. No change is a good thing at this point!

We haven't been up to much. Playing ultimate twice a week really takes up week day free time and last weekend we just didn't do anything. We did look at buying a new camera lense but since it may have to come from Japan it could be a while before we get to try it out.

School stuff is just boring and since that is 50% of my life right now it leaves little room for exciting things. Soon though we will have lots of excitment (or at least things to keep us busy). Next weekend we're running a cross-country race and then the weekend after that I'm joining the family to run in the K100. The weekend after that is our first backpacking trip of the season, and of course it will require several well prepared backpacking meals (and all that dehydrating will keep me busy!).

Oooh, So You Think You Can Dance is on....

Why Dogs Sniff Each Other's Bums

(as told to me by an old Russian man at the off leash park this morning).

Me: "Good morning"
Old Man: something that I think was good morning
Old Man: says something else
Me: "Pardon?"
Old Man yells louder: "Has anyone ever told you why dogs sniff each other's behinds?"
Me: "Um, no..."
Old Man: "It goes back to Creation, God was talking to the dogs and one of them let a very loud one rip. God said "Who was that?", and none of the dogs answered. He asked again "Who did that?". When none of the dogs answered again he banished them from paradise saying "You can't come back until you find out which one of you did that"."
Me: nervous laugh "I've never heard that version before"

So my friends, dogs are sniffing each others' behinds not to say hello, but to figure out who farted in front of God.

Another Weekend

After a very long and boring week in the office, we both rejoiced in our weekend freedom. We spent an awful lot of money at MEC on Saturday: new sandals for Jon, a new watch for Jenn, misc. camping items for our trip next weekend. Feeling very poor after all of that, we spent the rest of the day recreating and snapping photos of the flowers in our yard.

We also took Patches for some frisbee in the water. We bought him a floating frisbee for water activities this year and took it for a try. It doesn't fly as well as his new Kong one from M and M, but it won't sink when Patches is too lazy to retrieve it from the river.

At the end of it all, Patches is exhausted (thanks to Brinkley), we're exhausted (thanks to Patches) and we only have to make it through another 5 days in the office before its the long weekend!

Gardening

We spent the weekend enjoying the beautiful sunshine! We bought new plants and redid our front garden.

Patches enjoyed the sun, and being out of the backyard all day.

I found these beautiful clay planters at Sunnyside Garden Center and filled them with herbs and flowers. Hopefully they bring lots of life and color to our garden!

Summer maybe?

Its finally May, and that means I've only got 4 more months left of school! In past years today would have been the first day of summer for me, usually coinciding with the first day of treeplant and freedom from boring school for a whole 4 months. This year, like last year, it just means that the halls are a little quieter and my supervisor has more time to check and make sure I'm working.

With no effort on our part, two bunches of daffodils sprouted in our front garden over the weekend. The crocuses are also out in full bloom at the off leash park. It really makes me wish that I wasn't still inside!

We are currently trying to re-grow our back lawn and spent the weekend fencing off a section and seeding. I've checked every day since, but the lush green carpet I'm desiring hasn't appeared yet. Patches got his pool put out on Saturday and all three dogs have been enjoying the mud bath created in the backyard.


We got a little bit of ulti playing in this weekend and Patches showed off his skills. He getting quite good at catching the frisbee. (thanks to Mic for taking the shots!).

Caught in the Act!

This morning as we were brushing out teeth, our sort of cat strolled into the bathroom, yowled a few times and then jumped into the toilet.

Easter Weekend

Its been a busy weekend for the MacDonald family. We both worked Friday, which means we get monday off, which means although it feels like the weekend is over, we still have one glorious day left!

Yesterday we accomplished almost the last items on our to-do list for our trip. Other than a call to our credit card company, I think we've got everything covered. Not too many days left until we'll be in Nicaragua!

Today was the first day in a long time that the weather has been really nice. We took advantage of the sunshine and spent the morning wandering in Weaselhead Park.

Patches enjoyed the snow, in only a way that Patches can.

I examined some of the river rocks while Jon and Patches skipped them.

These ducks flew by...

And then so did this guy!

He saw us waving at him, so he circled back around a lower elevation so we could see him more clearly.

Using kibbles, we convinced some chickadees to feed from our hands.

Patches enjoyed the watchable wildlife (he's watching some geese swim down the river).

Memories

I spent the best and the worst days out on the block. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed those years of my life lately, but I came across some photos of treeplant our last year there and they brought it all back.

These photos come from a collection by another planter Hugh (you can see many more at http://www.hughstimson.org/gallery/main.php).

Jon: parking lot in Grande Prairie after what I can only guess was a long shift.
Me, sitting in my favorite spot (the van after a long day) and pretending like I know how the radio works.

Since we can't afford a new house

After 5 years of service, our old MEC Wanderer tent has started to show its age. Its also started to show its weight and size on some of our backpacking trips. We're not very big, we don't need a 3 man unless we are treking around with our four legged friend.

So we decided to upgrade, and this summer we will be spending our wilderness nights in the Exped Venus II. Since our lawn is a lot soggy and a little poopy, we did the first set up in our living room just to make sure we'd gotten all the pieces.

Its going to take us a little while, but I'm sure we'll get faster at set up. It will also help when we have a little more space, and the dog is not laying on the tent. We have one piece that we're still not sure where it goes, its supposed to be a gear sling for one of the vestibules, but we haven't figured out how it attaches.

Initial tent review (based on living room set up):

• Set up should be easy since you set the tent and the fly up together
• Lots of room for us, even sitting up
• Two vestibules, a must for Jon
• Lovely yellow color on the inside makes us happy
• Not sure how we feel about the exoskeleton design (poles sleeves are on the outside)
• It looks huge, but that could just be our living room

I'll be re-evaluating how I feel about it once we try it out. If the weather ever improves, perhapps we'll get to use it!