Let’s Go Fly a Kite

One of my favourite movies growing up (second only to Annie) was Mary Poppins, and one of my favourite parts from the film was the end where everyone goes to the park with their kites. I’ve always complained that I’m 30 years old and I’ve never flown a kite, so I know that it has been something that Jeff’s always been wanting to share with me. What I didn’t know was that he actually packed a small kite in his luggage in case a “kite emergency” came up; which is exactly what happened the first week we arrived in Baker Lake.

Since we only had our few pieces of luggage, it didn’t take long for us to unpack. That actually left us with a lot of spare time the first week we were in town, because we had no tv (we still don’t have our dish set up), and there is only so much exploring you can do in a community that takes less than ten minutes to drive across.

One overcast and windy day, I was feeling particularly homesick and melancholy, and Jeff was tired of me being mopey, so we bundled up in our hoodies and boots and went down to the lake. Out of his pocket, he pulls this sky blue nylon bag…and out pops a pretty kite with a super long tail in neon pink, blue and green! I was so excited!!!

The intention was that he would try to get it up high and then once it was up there, I would try to hold it steady. There is something extremely sweet/endearing about seeing your husband run down a rock-laden hill with a small kite and trying to get it to fly. It was the first time since being up here that I really, really laughed.

Of course, I wanted to try running with it and eventually got it up maybe 20 feet off the ground before it kept crashing unceremoniously down into the dirt. We tried running in different directions, we tried giving it a little string, and then a lot of string…it just didn’t want to get up there. I reasoned that the kite was afraid of heights, and that it liked being lower so we could see it better. Jeff reasoned that the kite was cheap and he should have bought a better one.

I think it was perfect just the way it was.

Afterwards, we went to the store and shelled out a painful amount of money for ice cream sandwiches as a special treat because he knows how much I like the Skinny Cow ones (and they were the last box!) and we went home and snuggled on the couch with our goodies.

Best. Day. Ever.

-L