Stitch 'n Bitch!

On Saturday Samm had the girls over for a stitch 'n bitch, Monica made some home made Baileys - delicious, and there were some other tasty snacks too. I don't have any stitching thing on the go, so I just fixed a hole in the blanket from Mike's Grandma, and I stuffed the bear that my Granny sent me at Christmas. We had a good time, but also didn't get a whole lot of planning for our snowmobile trip done, so maybe we'll just have to do it again!

Baby it's cold outside

This is what we woke up to yesterday....

Our little weather station at home was showing -34C with -40C windchill, and the airport reporting -37C. I was just really happy that my plane slept in the warm hangar overnight!

At least today is damn near tropical in comparison, only -22. When I lived in Calgary, I used to think that it didn't matter how much colder than about -15 it got, it all felt the same. Well, I changed my mind!

Anyway, that's the obgligatory post about the weather, now I have to go and study.

Snow removal

Once every winter the city comes and clears the streets of snow. They start at 1am and were still busy when I came home from breakfast this morning. I guess I'll have to knock the Continental shelf (as Kim dubbed it!) down before I can get back in my spot, Mike said he had to use 4 wheel drive to park with his big tires, so my little truck definitely won't make it!

Flaps up, climb power, after take-off check!

Look what I got! We don't know when groundschool is yet, our Chief Pilot is out of town, but think it will be in March.

Happy Year of the Pig!

Yum-o!

Tonight we had dinner at the Trader's Grill, which is the restaurant in the Explorer Hotel. We've been there quite a few times for brunch, but this is the first time we had supper there. It was a very good meal, definitely can recommend that to anyone looking for a delicious steak. They had some funny quotes on their wine list:

"Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance." - Benjamin Franklin

"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?" - W.C. Fields

"Champagne. In victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it." - Napoleon

And lastly "Wine improves with age, the older I get, the more I like it!"

You may have read Jack's Northern Exposure blog, where he said they were all over here for coffee last Sunday, it was lots of fun, here are some pics. He also mentioned that he gave me two seasons of Northern Exposure to watch. We have a few more episodes left, but I've really been enjoying them, it was a good show.

Frozen north

I took this pic out the window of the Dash on the way to Diavik when Mom and Dad came for a ride. I'm only getting around to moving the pics from my camera to my computer now, and it just struck me how white and flat the tundra is.

Too hard to choose

New Seven Wonders

I stumbled across this a while ago and then the other day I read about how the Egyptians are all offended because they don't think it should even be up for voting that the pyramids are a wonder! I guess they have a point, since they are the only remaining one of the original 7 Wonders of the World. Who got to pick those first ones anyway? I thought this was a pretty interesting selection, I wouldn't have thought to include some of the more modern buildings if it was me picking them. Been to the Eiffel tower, where you go for a long, crowded elevator ride, and some other people in there were joking about the cable snapping! Also been on the Statten Island ferry and saw the Statue of Liberty from afar. I took a short bus tour in England to Bath and stopped at Stonehenge on the way there, got to check that off my list, but you can't really get that close to it either these days. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see which ones win, lots of these sites were already on my list of places to go.

Pop quiz: Can anyone list the original Seven Wonders of the World (without using Google!) and did you know there are also Seven Natural Wonders of the World?

Stupid travel bug, I don't have any money for things like that! Maybe I can see the one in Japan when we finally go to visit my sister.