Kim's baby shower

Today I went to a baby shower for Kim, hosted by Michelle. Everyone brought lots of delicious food and Monica baked a yummy carrot cake decorated to look like a carousel. Michelle put lots of thought and effort into everything, she had all kinds of cute decorations and pink and blue balloons everywhere. We played a game where we all had to cut a piece of string that we thought would be the right size to fit Kim's tummy, another one where we had to guess the price of some baby stuff and who ever got the closest total won.

Think we are going to have to get a pool going for how much the baby is going to weigh, I also think it's a girl.

Need to catch up...

I figured it would be hard to keep up with blogging, I can't believe it's been so long since my last post! I have so many things I want to post now that I don't know where to start!

Second annual Tindi Girls fishing trip

Last year Sonya organised for all the girls that work at or are somehow associated with Air Tindi, to go on a fishing trip overnight, turns out that wasn't really long enough. This year certain planets aligned and we were all able to get the whole weekend off, as well as being kindly offered the use of a cabin at Awry Lake. We were booked to go in our shiny new turbine Otter, but it wasn't on floats yet, so we went in a Twin Otter instead, which was great as there wasn't any limit to what we could take. We are, after all, eight girls going on a trip! One of the dockhands commented that did we know it wasn't a Hercules taking us out because they dont come on floats. The weather wasn't as hot as we were expecting, with some showers over the weekend, but not too bad. There is a couple who lives out there for the summer in a "cabin" (more like a small house!) owned by Great Slave Helicopters, who were extremely hospitable. They have a nice big boat out there (carried by a helicopter intact with it's trailer!) and took us fishing, had us over for cocktails and generally made sure we weren't eaten by bears! What a great way to relax and chat about nothing and everything, and sorry to disappoint the fellas, but no man bashing at all! Seven out of the eight ladies are pilots, but the non-flying one may as well be because she lives with one and her parents started a company that eventually became Air Tindi. We also figured out that all eight of us met our men at work! There were the requisite flybys, some Twin Otters, a Dash 7, and a DC 3. When we went for cocktails one of the other cabin owners said that he'd never seen so much air traffic on wheels over his place.

As usual we had to pack up and be ready for the plane waaaay sooner than we wanted to, and were already talking about our next outing, we just have to wait for some snow and ice for the snowmobiles. It seems the general concensus for next year is that fishing is optional and if we have to go while there is still some ice on the water to escape the bugs, then that's what we'll do. I've never seen bugs like that in my life, I had so many blackfly bites on my neck that it hurt like it was bruised. It will be interesting to see what things have changed by next year, who got checked out, married, pregnant, moved on/up etc. There will be at least one new baby anyway!

I had a wonderful weekend, and feel privileged to be able to draw inspiration from the different characters of all these ladies, and do it in such a beautiful setting too! Plus, it's quite amusing to see how awkward the guys all feel standing on the dock and watching as we taxi out. Afterwards Jack said he felt quite foolish, quite a role reversal. But I think they are all proud of us too!

Dang Pictures...

Here are the pictures to go with the last post. Long story, don't ask!!

A trip to Ontario

Last Wednesday, we were booked to take some firefighters to Swan Hills in Alberta and come home, and another Dash was booked at the same time to go to Ontario. The weather radar on our plane wasn't working, so we took the working plane and combined both trips, dropped off the firefighters and then continued on to Thunder Bay. Arrived there in the middle of the night, slept for a bit and then started doing shuttles in the afternoon. We were taking people back to their community called Kashechewan, on James Bay, about a two hour flight. We did two trips that day, and one the next, then went to Timmins and flew three trips from there too. Then we went to Pickle Lake for the night, and from there it was a six hour flight home, glad we can stand up and walk around on the Dash! I found a Gameboy on the plane, so that kept me occupied too. It was a nice leisurely flight back, we had a beer or two after we got to the hotel and then just left whenever we woke up, didn't have to set an alarm or anything.
It was a bit of work, the people had soooo much stuff, we tried to fit it all in the plane but couldn't, next time we need to have a Twin Otter follow us around for the baggage, fitted with bigger engines so it can keep up! Also there were tons of kids on every flight, so the plane was just one big mess when we were done, spent three hours cleaning it after we got home - gum and chocolate everywhere, yuk. Some people had the weirdest things, there was a three foot tall Bride of Chucky doll, and another family had the entire Simpsons family in dolls that were bigger than the real kids! We had to sit them on top of a dog we had in a kennel (the Simpsons, not the kids), it was pretty funny looking. Poor dog too, it was so hot for him, he was very well behaved though. Actually, besides the mess in the plane, so were most of the chillens! One poor little girl got stuck in the lav, Darryl rescued her and she walked back to her seat with tears streaming down her face, shame! Later I went to check on her and she flashed me a big front-teeth-missing smile, and then when she left the plane she proudly informed me she had been stuck in the toilet.
The pictures are of the plane in Thunder Bay and Timmins, and the guy sleeping is Darryl, he's one of our Dash maintenance guys, we always take one of them with when we go on long trips. We were so full on all our legs that we both had to sit in the flight attendant jump seats, not in the least bit comfortable at the best of times, least of all when it's smoking hot and right where you get a great whiff of the lav everytime someone goes! The last one is of Aaron, our first occifer in the back of the way cool ride we got to the motel in Pickle.
It was a fun trip, good for my paycheque too, about 7000 miles, plus I got to see some new places. Wonder what the Ontario government will have to fork out for that one?

Canada Day

Had to work for a bit, only about two hours, so slept in quite late. After work went over to Jack and Kim's place for a bbq. I think Jack must have been expecting all of Tindi to show up or something because he cooked a TON of steaks. There's never enough food at their house! Mike had to work all day to get the new single Otter onto floats, so he joined us a bit later. Michelle and Steve showed their patriotic spirit by putting tattoos on Connor, so cute!