Lots to say

"Lauren, you should be studying for your firefighter test tomorrow"

"I knooowww, but i just hafta write a quick blog post..."

Because there is lots to write about! We bought a canoe today! A beautiful white second/third hand canoe that we saw an ad for on the library bulletin board (and coffee shop, and newspaper...).

She's a 16'8" Clipper Cascade, and came from a French couple that bought it after it was a rental at Kanoe People (a local outfitter) for a year. They took one trip with her down the Yukon River, and had to sell her because they are moving. Our own canoe! I'm even more excited about this than when we bought our car. She came with an awesome pair of extremely old-school life jackets, those dingy orange ones that smell like a hot boathouse, plus a pair of good paddles and a throw rope. Colin's going to do a bit of fibreglass reinforcing this spring, but she'll be ready to take out on Yukon lakes and rivers as soon as they thaw. I can't wait to see what husky dogs think of canoes. My coworker said he never tried to get his own ex-sled dogs huskies into his canoe, they just ran along the shore as he paddled along!

And in more excellent news, the O'Neills have booked a flight for their visit to the Yukon! They are arriving August 15 and staying for just under a month. Lots of time for adventures and good quality family time!

Today in 2011, we were at the Roeland's in Nelson, recovering over a delicious dinner, from a brand new experience of snowshoeing in BC mountain snow. That was a great day that we are happy to reminisce about.  Here is a blast from the past:

Cookie and Smiley are as great as ever, and although they are still doing more independent exploring than we are happy with when we all go on hikes, they always come back before too long. We were reminded of the reality of our situation, of training ex-sled dog huskies, when a neighbour recently commented, "You could teach a Lab to speak English before you could teach a husky to come back". And he's a dog musher! Maybe Cookie and Smiley know that the snow will be gone before too long, and want to enjoy the feeling of bounding through the untouched snow in the forest as long as they can. Whatever the reason, it's not hard to justify their behaviour, as long as they come back eventually :) This may or may not be good practice for children. 

Here is a link to a great slideshow about a recent dogsled race with some cute pups and people we know: http://www.yukon-news.com/multimedia/slideshow/27808/

And speaking of cute pups, we are over at Deb's twice a day this week, feeding the now 4-month old puppies and the few dogs that she has not taken up to Dawson with her, for the Percy DeWolfe Mail Race. Colin will take some puppy photos tomorrow- you'll never believe how big they are!

Good night,
Love Lauren