Mail!

Colby was complaining today that he never gets any mail. And by sheer coincidence this package from Connie and David arrived today!

In typical Colby style, the package was quickly forgotten about when he found a letter from Connie addressed to him. In typical Joey fashion, he could smell the chocolate through the plastic and there was no stopping him! Once the letter was read and put safely aside out of Joey's reach, it was "no holds barred" against the bags full of goodies.

Thanks Connie and David for the package. I went to look for your home number tonight so Colby could thank you but we don't have it. They loved it.

Rob won and I'm in the finals!

First of all, I want to say a big CONGRATS to my hubby for winning "Funniest Northern Story!" Voting for this catagory closed last night at midnight and Rob won. Thanks to all who voted for him. And, I guess I didn't read the NWT Blog awards fully. Because there were so many nominations for "Best Blog", Megan decided to do the voting in 2 rounds. The top 3 blogs have moved on to the "next round" of voting to complete against each other. I came in 2nd, by a very small margin of 3 votes. I would like to thank all of you who voted for me the first time, and am now asking you to go do it again. This should be a really close one. The other blogs are very good, and would have been just as happy if there were no "2nd round". But since there is, please jump over HERE and vote on last time.

Captured in pictures

This is Joey's new passtime. He loves to climb. This is him stuck between the end table and the couch.

I apologize for the out of focus, but this was one of those pictures I just happened to snap while taking pictures of Joey this afternoon. Am I the only one that hears "You better sleep with one I open, because I know where the chocolate is!" LOOK AT THE EYEBROW!

The melting Hay River

I took these pictures yesterday. Notice something missing out of this picture??

NWT Blogs

Did you vote??? I forgive you. PLEASE go vote now! My reputation is on the line! :) You can go HERE to vote. Go now. Why are you still here??

Nunavut Nonsense

This is my favorite. I'll let you guess which one.

There is a new challenge up at Nunavut Nonsense. Although I do have a picture in, I have asked not to be voted for as Rob and I have donated the prize for this one. I would encourage everyone who reads to jump over and take a look. There are some amazing pictures over there, and let's be honest, Kennie needs to have her title taken! (just kidding Kennie). The blog is in fun, and a way for all of us up here to show off how proud we are of our little towns. SO GO VOTE!

Welcome to Fort Ware, Here is a broken window for you!

So, here is the rest of the story. My first day working in the store was prety uneventful, or was it?? We received a call earlier on in the day telling us that there was a guy drunk, passed out in the back yard of the house. Paul tells me that it is not out of the ordinary so we let it go. Around closing, Paul gets a call telling him that someone was trying to get in the house. We are already closing the store so we head home. We get there to find that someone as decided to throw a propane cylinder through the patio window of the house. Ok, I think that broken glass is following me as we had a door smashed at the gas bar in Rae and the picture window was broken at the store. Now, first day here and someone smashes the wondow. We get in touch with the maint manager for the Band as he house we are in is leased to us by the Band. They are responsible for repairs. He comes over and has a look. Paul was concerned that he would be half in the bag on a Friday night. We lucked out and got ahold of him and he came over and boarded up the door for us. First time I haven't had to fix it myself. Although I did go out with Paul tonight and tighten it up and re-enforce it.

The next thing we do is call the RCMP and take some pictures. I am afraid I deleted them after burning them and giving them to the RCMP 24 hours later. We called them Friday night and they finally show up around 7pm Saturday night. The RCMP detatchment is an hour away and I guess Tsay Kay was VERY crazy as well. They tell us that they have the suspect in custody and after talking to the 2 officers Paul decides that it would probably be best to let the Band go after the guy for the damages and whatever punishment they decide, rather then have Paul testify in court.

So, tonight, we get a knock on the door. I open it up, "Is Paul home?" It's the guy who broke the window. I guess he didn't remember doing it. That is what happens when people drink around here. He apologized to Paul. I guess someone told him what he did and TOLD him to apologize. No harm done, Band is going to fix it, all is right with the world for another 24 hours...well...maybe just 12 hours.

This is the beginning of an adventure I can see it already. I am liking it so far. This time I have satellite TV and surround sound, DVD player, internet and phone, a 4 wheeler, fishing and mountains...the only draw back is being away from Tina and the boys for so long. Take care y'all!

NWT Blogs

Megan has spearheaded a new competition that I am just thrilled about. She has started Best NWT Blogs, and guess who has been nominated! I would like to thank all who nominated the blog, in not only "Best Blog" catagory, but also a nominations in "Best Post" (Rob and I were both nominated in this catagory, him for his Black Lake nightmare and me for my Rolling Stones Waterfall" and a nomination for Rob in "Best Northern Story", with his post about scheduling at the Northern. I should now make some silly statement about it being an honor to be nominated, but hell, I wanna win! The above picture is the prize for Best Blog in the form of a T-Shirt made by none other than Jen. I have conveniently made the picture into a link so GO VOTE!

Welcome to the Northern in Fort Ware

This is the Northern here in Fort Ware. The left side of the building is actually a small restaurant used by the Band at times for meetings. Also, it is only open sporatically, generally between 1&2pm for lunch time for the students. The store occupies the entire right side of the building. The nearest town from here is Tsay-Kay about an hour away. There is now finally a full time Doctor in town and there is also finally talk about an RCMP detatchment sometime over the summer. The bad thing about it is that there has been a building set up here ready to go with holding cells for over a year. The Town is very nice, a little rowdy, but nice.

This is the Managers House. The outside is pretty beat up but the inside is quite nice.

The Northern just got some serious competition

The boys and I decided to visit the local competition here in town. It's much bigger inside than I thought, and look what I found!!!

The Fort Ware Adventure

Good day eh? yeah, uh how's it goin eh? Well, that had to have been the best plane ride I have ever been on! The Pilot was relatively new to the company and made me a little nervous. Well, he would make you nervous too if he was friggin with his ipod while trying to take off. It fell off the console so he decided to take that time to try to pick it up. He also flew the first hour with his hands OFF the yolk. Occasionally deciding to give it a bit of a push/pull or turn to level us out. After he did all his calculations, that I assumed you were supposed to do before you left, he pointed us to the mountains and there the sights began! Flying through these things was amazing. He decided to ignore the "TERRAIN ALERT" warning on his avionics and flew between the peaks of a couple of mountains. WOW! We could have reached out and touched, well not really but it felt like it! The other people on the flight were laughing and covering their eyes, me, I was awe struck flashing pics, but it was too close to even get a good picture. You HAD to be there!

Welcome to Fort Ware!

The store is the Building on the left edge of the picture under the blue house.

More to come! Stay tuned...The "Adventure of the Broken Window" is coming!

Goofing around

This is how I found the boys yesterday. Colby being the typical big brother actually pinned Joey to the couch to take his sock off and tickle him. It was priceless.

Me and my boys.

Deer p*rn

As embarrased as I am to admit this, the following is a true story. This is a conversation that Rob and I had last weekend. I'll set the scene:

Picture this, Rob is playing on the computer, Tina is sitting on the couch and the Wild TV (A hunting and fishing network) is on TV. I'm not sure where the kids were, but that's not relavent to this story.

A commercial comes on that I am only half paying attention to, because I am trying to read. Something about it catches my eye and I look up. It's a commercial selling bottles of deer attracting product, and the commerical is set in the woods. You see a plastic doe deer being mounted by a rutting male deer. I hear part of the commerical that says

"The specimen is collected during rutting season for maximum strength"

At this point, I started to laugh. First of all, I'm watching deer p*rn. There's no other way to explain it. It's deer p*rn. I made a comment to Rob, (who again is playing on the computer and not really paying attention)

"Boy, it would suck to be the guy who collects that! What do they use it for?"

Rob looks up at the commerical and then at me and says

"You put it on your boots when you're hunting".

I think at this point I dropped my book and looked right at him. I figured it had to be a joke.

"No, seriously Rob, what would you use that for?"

"Seriously Tina, you put it on your boots to attract the deer."

"Rob, why would you put deer "happy juice" on your boots to attract other deer?"

At this point, Rob realizes what I'm thinking and starts to laugh. Really laugh. The belly laugh that brings tears to your eyes and gives you the hiccups. At this point, I'm still not getting it. (Stop laughing Adam, I can hear you from here and I know you get it by now also). As Rob catches his breath, he explains:

"Honey, the commercial was for doe urine. Hunters put it on their boots and on doe decoys in the woods to attract rutting deers. When the deer mounts the decoy the hunter shoots it. They are not collecting "happy juice".

It was an honest mistake by a non-hunter. The deer is mounting the doe decoy and the commerical talks about it being "collected during rutting season for maximum strength". That will teach me to watch deer p*rn!

Our new project

So, with Rob being gone and the kids gone to bed by 8:30, I needed something to occupy my time at night. I have been concerned lately about all the information that is here on the blog that could one day just *poof* be gone. The internet is a scary thing that way. I have no back ups at all of all the stuff on here, and really it is documentation and pictures of the last 4 years of our lives. So, I had a brainwave last night that I should copy everything into a word document, and then I could save it and potentially print it all off. When I mentioned this to Rob, he decided to take it one step further and proceeded to set up a beautiful MS Publisher document that I could copy the blog to. It's very time consuming as you can imagine, as I have to cut and paste every post. Because, if I were to use cut and paste it page by page, it would be in reverse order. I also want to save the associated comments with each post. It will give me something to do in the evenings when I'm not tired enough to go to sleep and don't feel like watching TV. It's a good walk down memory lane. If I was more "computer savvy" would do a screen shot and show you want I mean, but I can't seem to get the stupid thing to work!

I'm moooovin on Up! To the West Coast!

Well, I am off to the Rockies! I am covering for another manager while he is on vacation. Fort Ware B.C. is where I will be! Deep in the Rocky Mountain Trench. A short trip up the Findlay River from Price Geaorge B.C. I already have my fishing license and looking forward to some good fishing. I will be dropping in from time to time to give you a picture profile of where I am. It's going to be a long 5 weeks without Tina and ther Boys. Take care everyone, and stay Tuned! Rob

"You haven't posted since Saturday!"

This is what Rob said to me when he logged onto the blog today. In my defence, it HAS only beenh 48 hours. But, guilt is what dragged my tired butt out of the semi-comfy recliner and over to the computer to type. I got nothin'. Nothing exciting has happened. Well, that's not entirely true. We went for a drive yesterday to Kakisa River yesterday so Rob could do a little fishing before he left. He was told that the river has opened (ice has freed) and people were there. So, off we went. it was a litte farther than we thought, and it was damn cold. Joey decided to be terror from hell which is why there were no pictures. Rob complained that fishing was not good because "my tip kept freezing". If it wasn't for Joey being such a brat and putting me in such a cranky mood I could have had a lot of fun with that. Beyond that, Rob worked his last day at the North Mart today and is off to Edmonton on Wednesday night and Fort Ware BC on Thursday. Although, according to the weather network Hay River is in for a snowfall warning tomorrow night, so we'll see what Wednesday brings.

I received a message on Facebook a few days ago from a woman who I used to work with. She sent me a link to a song called "You Can Let Go Now Daddy". For those of you who have lost your father, be prepared to bawl your eyes out. I certainly did. I don't mention my dad a lot on the blog, but I still have "Dad moments" that choke me up. But, at this point, I have more good memories than bad and that is what I am hanging on to. This song broke my heart, and found me bawling with my face in my hands.

Anyways, I was telling Jen about the song but for some reason couldn't forward it through Facebook. One click led to another and I ended up on UTube, I place I normally don't spend any time. Which is where I found this little jewel. For those who have not heard the song, I would suggest listening to the original version first. It's a beautiful song, but this version of the words brought a smile where earlier there was a tear.

I'm so bad

While watching a station out of Halifax today I heard a commerical about the upcoming news and story that lead "Nova Scotia wakes up to the highest gas prices in Canada at 130.00". I chuckled, because the gas here in Hay River is 134.9. I couldn't resist shooting off a quick email that stated:

I couldn't resist writing. I am currently living in Hay River, NWT but I am from Lower Sackville NS. I watch the news everyday by satellite. You have a story on tonight stating that "Nova Scotians woke up to the highest gas price in the country at 130.0". Here in Hay River our gas price is 134.9/L. Last I checked, Northwest Territories is still in Canada. It is not my intention to be arrogant, I just got a little chuckle out of the headline and couldn't resist dropping you a line. Watching the show keeps me in touch with what is going on back home. Tina Schwartz, Hay River, NWT

While watching the news (at this point I couldn't resist to see if they acknowledge my email) I noticed the headline was changed to "the highest gas prices in Eastern Canada". Steve Murphy (the anchor who I love) ended the piece by saying "We have heard from people in BC and the Territories where prices are higher". Then he gave a little smile, and I'm sure that smile was for me.

Mother Nature has a great sense of humour

Am I the only one who sees the similarity?

ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT!!!

OK, everyone. Just wanted to drop a quick reminder that there are only 2 days left for this photo challenge! Ceck out Nunavut Nonsense to vote for the best landmark picture. Next event will be a little different, so stay tuned!

Go Flames!

2-1

Great game last night and I just had to post this.

and now....your regular scheduled blogging...

To Cindy

Hi Cindy. I was just reading back through the comments and I found yours. How exciting you are moving to Hay River! Kingland Ford is only a few minutes up the street from here! I decided not to post it as a comment as I was afraid you would not see it. Feel free to email me direct at rob tina schwartz (all one word) at hotmail dot com. You can also check out http://www.hub.awna.com/classifieds.pdf. This is this weeks classifieds if you haven't seen it already. May help ya with finding a place to rent if you haven't already.

Nunavut Nonsense

I just wanted to take a quick minute and explain Nunavut Nonsense. I'm not sure if everyone has checked it out, but you really should. We often post about the "new challenges", but in fact this is all done in fun. This is an idea that was tossed around by a few of us "Northerners" and became a reality by Jen. It was started in the middle of Winter to give us all something to do and give us a laugh when we all were going through Vitamin D withdraw. Thanks to my new counter, I see the traffic that comes through here in the run of a day. I would like to ask any of you who have not visited Nunavut Nonsense to do so. It's just a fun website full of different perspectives of the North, with a little bit of friendly competition thrown in for fun. It's a place where we like to meet and laugh and look forward to comments. So what are you waiting for? I've even linked the banner to it, so all you have to do is click on the picture.

Playing around at the Falls

We went back to the Falls today to see how much has changed. Rob took many pictures of the Falls, which I'm sure he will post later. I loved these ones. Now you all get to see the entire family in one post.

The Next Photo Challenge!!!

Ok, it is that time again. This challenge is for Wierd Landmarks. Check out all the pictures and vote for the Best! Tina and I won't be offended if you don't vote for us, but keep in mind that we know where you live, and we will NOT send you a Christmas Card this year! Check out Nunavut Nonsense to vote!

Closing of the ice road in Hay River

This is the road from the other side. We took this on March 22, 2008.

I couldn't believe my luck with these pictures. Thanks to Jen and Rob I can say I learned a new setting on the camera today to get these pictures the way I wanted them. As soon as I parked the truck the Jeep started across the road. I think this is my neighbour, but I'll find out tonight when all the vehicles are home. Maybe I should send one of them to the Jeep website! Although this looks completly thawed I'm assured there is still ice underneath it, and the Jeep proves it. No thanks, you wouldn't catch me on it!

There just might be hope for me yet

Everyone who knows me knows how frugal I am when it comes to buying stuff for myself. I will spend entire days buying stuff for Rob and the kids, but hate to spend money on anything new for me. When we went to pick Rob up from the North Mart yesterday, we decided to go in and walk around. Rob is spending a week at the retail store this week. When we first walked in, they had a display table with womens sneakers for 50% off. These are the sneakers I fell in love with. I tried them on, knowing full well that even at 50% off I wasn't going to buy them. As soon as I had them on, Rob pulled out his card and said

"I was going to buy sneakers for you tonight. Go pay for them."

I nearly put them back, but then I just couldn't. The only shoes I have right now are 2 pairs of Crocs (one set is nearly 2 years old and the other are my winter ones) and my snow / hiking boots. I didn't even think twice about them, even though they have pink on them. And I HATE pink. Luckily, most of the pink on them are on the bottom so you can't really see it, and the pink on the Reebox is covered for the most part by my jeans. And honestly, if it wasn't for Rob being there, I would have passed them up. I love my hubby.

From today

There is a great thrift store here in town, and by far the best place to buy clothes. I found this little t-shirt there and couldn't resist it. I bought 8 pairs of pants, 3 sleepers and 4 shirts for Joe, and 3 pairs of pants for Colby and all together I spent 15.00. A very rare time indeed when you find me in front of the camera. We were playing around earlier. Although this is hard to understand at first, this is Rob holding my watch. It's 9 PM and we wanted to take a picture of how light it still was. It's amazing how quickly the sun came back. We were fortunate not to be high enough that we lost the sun completly over the winter. At the worst the sun was up at 10 and gone at 2. Now it's up by 7 and it's not completely dark until 9:30ish. Within the next 2 months it will be up by 6 and not down until around 1 or 2AM.

A question for you all

First of all, thanks to Megan I have put a stat counter on my blog and can now see exactly how many people are logging onto the blog on a daily basis, and where they are longing on from. So, with that being said, hello to whoever you are in Singapore, Oxford Junction NS (I'm still trying to figure that one out) and everyone else that never leaves comments but loves to come visit. It seems to be the same people everyday and I love that you keep coming back.

With that being said, I have a question that has been bugging me for the past week or so. Does anyone know an easy way to back up this blog? I realized the other day that I have been writing this blog since February 2004 (crap, that means I missed the 4 year anniversary of the blog!) and there is a lot of stuff I would hate to lose. Part of me wants to print it off and put it in a big book and publish it. But then the rest of me knows that I'm much too lazy to do that. I would like to back it up to data files somehow. Any ideas anyone?

"Are you a blogger?"

Today I went to The Woodshed, a gift and home store here in town. It's a cute little spot that has home decor and a quaint little cafe that sells the most amazing cheesecake. (Yes Kara, I bought home a piece of it and it was amazing!) When I was in there, I was chatting with the woman in there behind the counter and mentioned that I was only in a town for a short time but was told that I needed to come in and try the cheesecake. When I told her that we were from Rae, she stopped what she was doing, looked straight at me and said:

"Are you a blogger?"

I was initially taken back, and then chuckled.

"Yes", I said, "I do have a blog. "

"I googled pictures of Hay River last night for my friend in Texas and found your blog. I really enjoyed it. "

I walked out of there with a silly grin on my face and feeling quite popular.

More of Hay River