No time to say goodbye, hello!

Following our day in Gwich'in park last weekend, we spent Monday night at a friend's camp out on airport lake. Dave carried all our cooking and sleeping equipment while Kim and I each carried a baby and Aaron thankfully walked. Other friends, Juliann and Shane also came with baby Jackson.

Running shoes were never meant for the arctic. Every time I go out walking I get a soaker. True to form, a few minutes into the walk I stepped onto a patch of moss only to have it sink in a foot with me also, I couldn't get out for fear of toppling Jacob into the water and thankfully Shane helped me up and onto a patch of solid moss. A few steps later I equalised my soggy feet so was grateful to arrive at the camp after a 40 minute hike and remove my shoes - even more grateful that the weather was warm enough for me to do so!

Dave and Kim cooked ribs on the bbq and I'd been put in charge of dessert. I'd prepared spice cake mix and mixed it with canned peaches which we placed over the fire. Unfortunately we started the fire after supper, which meant the cake got started much later, and then we didn't keep it going. So the cake was soggy for the first couple hours until we were determined to cook it, and burnt it... Even burnt it was pretty good, I'll have to try it again.

The kids were so excited to be out camping that none of them slept well. Ethan had to sleep with Kim and Jacob was determined not to sleep, only Aaron went to bed after a little while and slept soundly. Overnight it became incredibly cold and a 7am wake up call for breakfast was not welcomed. Dave cooked eggs and bacon on the bbq and we cleaned up the camp to head back to Inuvik for Dave to get to school on time. We dropped him off 1 minute before the bell rang :)

This week I've found a job working at a gift store in Inuvik. The store sells beautiful handmade crafts and as part of my job is to dust it all, I get to see everything that is in the store, and am also terrified that I'll drop and break one of the beautiful/expensive pieces sold there.

Dave is heading south next week for the high school track and field competition. It turned out my javelin and discus throwing years ago made me the resident field events "expert". It was actually nice to guide the kids and see immediate progress as their form improved and they got a sense of how the throws should feel.

Last night Kim and I had our TV Bingo debut. Bingo is huge in Inuvik and a few nights a week residents gather around the community channel to play as the numbers are called out. Bingo sheets can be bought in advance and the winner calls in to stop the game. Neither Kim nor I was even close which is too bad as the pot was $30,000. Today at the bank I saw one of the winners as they dumped a duffel bag onto the counter and then took a picture of their stacks of 20's.

Last night I also joined the second ever Inuvik Ultimate game with about 30 people joining this time! We played for over 2 hours and then a few of us visited a lounge for a beer before stepping back into the midnight sunlight to head home.