Just testing to see if I can find a way around having to pay for more storage for photos on the blog.  We've maxed out our free storage for photos, so we either can it, pay up for storage, or I sign in as Ann-Marie and post from her account!  Last option seems best...  We'll see.  In the meantime, here's a picture of one of our hens enjoying their nice, heated, weatherproof coop and run. 
Lay on, hens.  Lay on.

I'm working late tonight, and just got this note:

"Happy birthday dad"
Love nick

Thanks Nick!  For the uh... intergalactic..sea turd... I think?

November Randoms

A few randoms from the past few weeks:

Tobin is better than me at maintaining a smile when the photographer is taking 100 photos...

It snowed...

 ...and this is what they spent the rest of the day doing.

 Whenever I bring a new hat home it seems to disappear into the boys lair... which in this case was probably a good thing

FIRE TRUCK RIDE!!!

Yeah, I thought it was pretty exciting.  Or as Nick would say 'tesighting'.

Tobin's class took part in a drawing contest put on by the local fire department.  The topic was to draw all the fire exits in your house and what you would do in a fire.

Said drawing:

Arrows indicate fire exits, figure crawling along the floor is a human escaping the fire.  Structure to the right of the house is the muster station. Revised: I realized that he drew the raised garden beds, and the chicken coop, partially obscuring the tree which was the muster station!  Pretty awesome eh!

And he won the contest!!  So today, he and another little girl from grade 1 were picked up from their school, in front of all their chums, by Revelstokes biggest fire engine.  They went for a tour of the town, passing by their houses and their parents work, honking horns and siren-ing all over town.  Tobin was pumped.  A little shy about it all, but pumped.

 

Then they went back to the fire hall and had a first class tour, sitting in all the fire trucks, climbing the tower, eating pizza with the firefighters.  Awesome.

There they go!

And this afternoon he drew this picture to thank the fire department

Halloween

Ahhh, yes the ghouls were out in full force tonight, screeching and wailing and carrying on.  And that was even before dinner was finished.  Nick almost missed his second real Halloween because he's really finding his niche as screaming-hell-child-who-refuses-to-listen.  Great fun times, for realz.

I took two pictures tonight in between holding the umbrella, carrying Nick's costume and helping up and down stairs

They can be really cute, when they're still, and quiet like in this picture.

At the office

Kindergarten

Pretty light on ye olde blog posts lately... I've been meaning to put a pic of Tobin off to his first day of school up for awhile now, so finally here it is!

He was SO excited!  He had his backpack full of supplies, his jet fighter dress shirt and his favourite shorts all picked out for the day.  He's been loving it too, which I just can't relate to actually.  I'm always amazed how excited kids are about going to school.  I guess the jaded, slouchy part will come later...
Anyway, for now it's fantastic.

Incidentally, we finally managed to get them to wear pants for the first time since May.  Nick would still be wearing shorts to preschool if he had a choice, even though it's 3deg and raining out.

Haida Gwaii

After our time in Hazelton we drove to Prince Rupert, where we left the truck and got on our bikes.  Tobin and Nick were on the trail-a-bikes, AMG had panniers and Tobin and I pulled the chariot full of camping gear.  We did a similar thing last year, so knew what we were getting in for!

It was a great 8 days with fine weather, except for a little rain...  Which was very fortunate as we were totally unprepared for rain!!

I was so impressed with the kids; they rode just shy of 300km in 8 days!  Tobin was always happy and never complained about being on the bike.  Nick was a little less patient, but for being 3 he was amazing!  When we got off the ferry in Rupert and started driving home, Tobin said "I wish it was sunny and we were riding our bikes".  What troopers.

Who's driving this thing?

 Here we go!

 \

 This might be Bill Reid's Wave Eater.  Awesome name.

 Another beautiful dugout Haida canoe.  Amazing this started as just a big tree!!

 The Haida heritage center.  Built at the site of an old village.  Not to be missed if you're on HG.

 A lady in Tlell gave Nick this stuffed bird.  We had plans of taking photos of it on our travels and then sending it back with the pics, but it became lost and presumed roadkill somewhere between Massett and Port Clements...
 

 Not sure why Tobin looks so frightened in this picture

 Driftwood engineers

 "dad stop wrecking our fort!"

 "okay, I'll just go over here..."

 Sorry Nick-in-the-future, couldn't resist.

 We took refuge at the Nadu Creek Loft betwen PC and Massett.  It was so great!!  Kiku took care of us there and supplied us with fresh salmon, salad out of the garden and fancy rum!  Then she started negotiating the price of accomodation DOWN.  Not a real businesswoman, but a great person!

 This place sux, there are way too many people!  North beach.

Then the battery died.  I'll get the pics from AMG's phone and get some really lousy iphone pictures up on here.

Hazelton

For our holidays this year we headed north.  Partly because we wanted to catch up with long lost friends and see Haida Gwaii, and partly because we're so lousy at planning there were no other options for accommodation anywhere else in the province.

Turns out it was an awesome decision! We spent a few days with Marty, Stacey and Caleb in Hazelton where we were given the royal treatment and taken fishing, 4x4'ing and jet boating!!  What a great time, definitely going back next year to stock up on more sockeye from the Skeena.

Early morning start to a long day of fishing for sockeye.  The weather was so nice we spent all day in the river in just shorts!

 

 

Even the kids got into it.  Tobin and Caleb hauling in sculpin's and rainbow trout off the back of the boat.

Hard to believe, but Marty got this 18' aluminum jet boat up on a plane with 10 people on it.  There's a lot I didn't know about driving jet boats on a river!

 

  

Just another Marty creation.  1960's era Muskeg tracked vehicle with a dodge fargo body...  How the hell he does this is beyond me.

 

Oh, and another one.  Diesel powered Suzuki samurai rock crawler with some kind of homemade transfer case...*

Before our 4x4 outing Marty gave a safety briefing which was along the lines of "keep your head and hands inside, and if it rolls jump clear!"

 

Rancho Strachan-Brown

 

*the boys and I have decided to sell the tacoma and buy an older, more capable truck we can turn into our own rock crawler.  Theoretically, this is a fantastic idea.