Happy Birthday (+1 day), Jeff!

Although Jeff's birthday was yesterday, Pepper and I wanted to send birthday greetings for him here as well. So, to our amazing Jeff: we hope this year will be better than you can even imagine, and we hope we made your day special. This is your year. xoxo.

A few days ago I was looking at the weather forecast and predicted that a blizzard would be coming for Thursday. I'm the best wife, aren't I? I tried to control *weather* as a gift to my husband! Things were looking pretty good too, since we were under a blizzard warning - but as is typical in the north, things take a while to get here. The warning was lifted mid-day (and broke my credibility streak at predicting storms, grr!) but the forecast still reads as though there could be potential for something overnight and into tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

We also got a nice gift in the form of railings put up on our stairs, finally! That is exciting in itself, since we have been asking for them since November 2012. A safety concern that was amplified after I took a particularly nasty spill down the stairs, they are now much safer - and it only took a 1 1/3 years. Hooray!

Birthdays and other celebrations are bitter-sweet while we are up here, since it is typically an occasion for us to be reminded of how far our families and friends are. We are blessed to have made a wonderful Baker Lake family to share our special days with, and that definitely makes everything a lot easier. Next year is a big birthday for Jeff - I think it will warrant a location that will be as far away from blizzard-ready as possible. Drinks with tiny umbrellas may be on the docket as well.

The planning and plotting begins! :)
-L

ᓇᓪᓕᐅᓂᖅᓯᐅᑦᓯᐊᕆᑦ - Nalliuniqsiutsiarit (Happy Birthday)

Does anyone remember the movie Benjamin Button? Lily has a cool characteristic in common with the main character. Despite the fact that the rest of us grow older as we reach successive birthdays, Lily appears to suffer the opposite effect. I swear, she looks no different that when I first met her, and even from photos predating that monumental occasion. Yesterday was Lily's birthday, and although she is chronologically older, you wouldn't know it by looking at her.

Pepper was really excited for Mommy's birthday...a little too excited. One of the side benefits of fixing your dog is that their energy levels tend to decrease. In Pepper's case, if that happened, it was either on a scale too small for the human eye, or he went from stratospheric to merely ridiculous. In other words, no apparent change.

I won't go into excessive detail about how we spent her birthday, but suffice to say, she was really surprised, and happy, I think. I believe it's important to make the extra effort, given how far away we are from many of our friends and family, although that will change very soon (the distance, not the effort part). It did include breakfast in bed, which she loved. I worry, though, that if I bring her breakfast in bed every morning, it will cheapen the specialness of the gesture, but she is adamant that it won't happen. I guess we'll see if she's right :-)

Happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Lily. You are everything I've ever hoped for, and I feel incredibly blessed to have you in my life. I love you.

-J

Pepper's First Birthday

When we brought Pepper home, no one was really sure when his birthday was, other than the fact that it was in August. We decided to choose August 1 as his birthday since it seemed as good of a day as any! :)

Weekend Recap

I feel like it's been so long since I've written a post! We hope you all enjoyed Jeff's recap of our trip home; it is strange to say we've been back for a few weeks now since it almost feels like we never left, it went by so quickly. On the bright side, it didn't take long to get back into the groove of things and we all settled back into our routine without too many issues (Pepper has re-learned all his good habits which we let slide while we were on vacation, so that's a good thing for all of us).

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Today's regular post will follow this one and in it, Jeff concludes our amazing vacation home. There are lots of pictures and it's an entertainingly long one, so be sure to read it! :)

This is a bonus post because today is a very special day, because it's Jeff's birthday!!! Please join me in wishing him a very happy birthday today! Hooray!!

Jeff,

I know we're far away from home but I hope today is a fraction of how wonderful you make every day of my life. Pepper and I are very lucky to have you and we're going to try our hardest to make today special for you. Pepper even started by correctly using his 'potty' this morning!! Now there's a great gift! ;)

We love you and can't wait to see what amazing things you'll do this year.

Yours Always,
Lily & Pepper
xoxo

Rumour has it...

Rumour has it that it's a very special little boy's 3rd birthday today!! Happy birthday to Liam, the best Godson I could ever ask for (and a handsome ring boy to boot!). We wish we were there to smother you with hugs and kisses, and you can show off all your cool toys. Skype tonight will have to do, but be forewarned that whether you're 3 or 23 - you will be showered with kisses each time I physically see you. xo

Rumour has it that we're getting our furniture delivered today! The barge dropped it off last week sometime, but there hasn't been anyone to sort through the inventory and arrange for delivery. Hoping today will be the day! It will be so nice to finally be able to say we're not waiting for anything else to come and we can make it our own.

Wishes DO come true...

Much has transpired since my wife's birthday, and most of it is positive. I mentioned that we were brought the wrong fridge; turns out that a scant 15 minutes after I posted, BLCS was back on my doorstep, this time with a full-sized Frigidaire - thank God! It's probably 2/3 the size of our fridge in Burlington, yet it looks half-empty compared to the jam-packed bar fridge we had earlier. That's one of many things I've learned to better appreciate since moving here; other items on the list include unlimited water, a wide variety of shopping choices, and $11 cases of pop, to name a few. 

Lily also mentioned in our last post that she made a wish when she blew out her birthday candle, and it came true! That wish was...

Happy Birthday, Little Sis!!

Happy birthday to the most beautiful, smart, funny, thoughtful, generous, crazy, wonderful little sister I have. There are not enough sweet adjectives to describe how amazing you are.

We hope you enjoy the gift we sent!! Think of us sharing it with you when you use it. Wish we were home to give you real hugs!! 

Xoxoxo

-L

The Best Gift

I am a very spoiled girl! Aside from my wonderful husband's gestures, even 1,600 miles away from home I felt very loved and special on Monday. Thank you for all the texts, calls, Skypes, packages, mail...it meant a lot to feel so connected!

It was a great day aside from the fact that we woke up to snow! Yes, Mother Nature gave me snow for my birthday. Not a lot, just a light dusting on the ground to remind us of what's to come. It was all melted by the end of the day, but there was white stuff in the middle of September...I'm not sure I'm ready for winter this early!

Apparently my candle-blowing/wish-making skills are powerful because I wished very hard for something and by the end of the day, it had come true! No, not to get our new fridge (which did end up coming on Monday, and I'm thrilled with...so thank you to our property management company for the birthday gift!) but something even better! Had I known I had almighty wish-making abilities, I would have wished for the lottery. What I did receive came a very close second. I won't say anything more about it, other than Jeff will talk about it in his next post.

Speaking of posts, you may have noticed that we'v been cutting back a bit on posting every day. We're going to try a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule to see if that works better but will aim to be as consistent as possible. For those of you who have signed up for email updates and our feed, it will just automatically notify you when we post so you don't have to do anything different.

It's slippery, cold and dreary this morning as I sit with my cup of tea before work. Hopefully it will clear up before the day is out and we can go for our evening walk! Don't know how motivated we'll be once the snow really hits, so we're trying to get as many in as possible! Fingers crossed!

-L

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Lily!

We started this morning with phone calls and texts from Lily's parents and mine, and our friends, which was really nice. I sneaked downstairs first and got her breakfast ready (we pre-make our oatmeal, so I pulled it out of the fridge, and voila!), made her a cup of Chocolate Rocket (which is one of 12 flavours from Davids Teas that she received from her sister in a care package last month), and stuck a candle in one of the cupcakes I made for her at our neighbour's dinner party on Saturday. Lily liked it so much, she made me take a photo: