Wonderful winter weekend

Hello all,

We were outside in the warm sunny weather all weekend, and although we don't have many photos to show for it, we had lots of great times. Even before the weekend officially started, I was celebrating with my coworkers at a Friday night potluck and road hockey party. There's a nice neighbourhood called Riverdale on the opposite side of the Yukon river from downtown, with lots of crescent roads and big old trees, and we had a really fun game of road hockey under the streetlights. It was a Yukonic potluck, with moose steaks and sausages on the BBQ. Colin spent a wonderful evening Skyping with Cailey and Steve.

The snowy backyard, from our patio

The snowy Mt Lorne, from our living room

On Saturday morning, we cajoled Cookie and Smiley inside and alternately petted them and left them alone, and they lasted a whole hour. Then we took them over to the community centre, and went out on the 10-mile dog sled trail that has been set up for the Carbon Hill race. I'm recording it here so I don't forget in the future... 10 miles equals 16 kilometres! Even with Smiley's help, I was bushed at the end of that long ski. More training is definitely required (yay!). Colin and Cookie were managing fine, and Colin found that Cookie was really in tune with listening to his commands. The person who skis with Cookie has to rein her in to run behind Smiley, since Smiley has fits of extreme frustration (barking and flinging herself forwards maniacally) if she's not in the lead. Cookie was slowing down every time Colin said 'easy', and we had a great run with very few falls and no collisions. It was a gorgeous trail and hopefully we can go out on it again this week. 

The mania that is sled dogs surrounded by four walls

Colin has an eye for interesting photos!

We went to town on Saturday night for the folk Society's open-mic night, and there was a ton of great performances. Our pal Kim played the banjo, there was a Celtic ensemble, a woman playing the ukelele, lots of acoustic guitar, and even a mother-daughter duo. Good wholesome fun, plus delicious cake and tea. On Sunday, we went our separate ways after a nice leisurely morning, and I skiied down to a neighbour's place to go over some anatomy questions from a course she's taking. There's a ski trail that runs along the side of the South Klondike Highway in between our place and theirs, and as I made my way south, I had full-on sun in my face. With the short winter days lately, it was a real treat to wear sunglasses :) Colin did some work around the house, including sewing up a linen bag for mung bean spouting, and trained a volunteer Zamboni driver for the community centre rink. We had a nice visit with Evelyn via Skype, and a tasty dinner of spaghetti squash, one of the ones we stocked up with at the BC organic produce sale that we went to in the fall.

Geared up for a ski (I was too hot by the time I got to the end of the driveway)

Ahhhhh! This amount of sun is a rare commodity these days

The postings on the right side of the blog screen are a new way that we found to share our upcoming plans (I really like the countdowns!). We're both involved in the Carbon Hill sled dog race, which is taking place at the community centre this weekend. Colin will likely be doing a bit of everything, and I'll be doing registration, and timing for the 10-mile sled race. We're not competing with Cookie and Smiley, but maybe next year! Coming up soon after that is the annual Yukon Quest, the 1000-mile sled dog race between Fairbanks, Alaska and Whitehorse. This year the teams start from Fairbanks and end in Whitehorse, and we will be following the race on the radio and going over to the finish line in town to cheer on the arrivals when we hear they are coming close. The first place team came in after 10 days of travelling through the wilderness between Yukon and Alaska!

Bye for now,

Love Lauren and Colin