a big year

i can't believe that the world is ending in just one day! just kidding. seriously though, 2011 was a pretty great year. it was a toughie in some ways, but it was also fun and funny and fancy and friendly. 

first we celebrated a wonderful new year with all of our homies. 

then i met my snisters and a ton of wonderful friends in vancouver. we had a hoot!

then ian graduated from teacher's college! (and i finally paid up on a bet that originated in 2005)

this is where ian spent most of the summer. worth it! 

then my sisters came to visit me! are you wondering how i got stuck with brown eyes? i am too. when i was a kid, sandy and ashley tried to convince me that i was adopted. unfortunately for them, i'm not! 

we went to the cottage in early september and it was beautiful and relaxing.

then we went camping a big black bear was scared off of our campsite by an even bigger and hairier bear.

then i left a really great job and really amazing colleagues. for reals, i miss my well.ca peeps. 

then we moved to nunavut. we arrived in a snowstorm and i looked like a tool for three months wearing my canada goose coat while locals wore hoodies. now it's finally acceptable. 

thanks, first air!

some other great things about 2011:

- i didn't injure even one single toe this year! i have 10* toenails.

- two of our very best friends got into masters programs and moved to toronto (just in time for us to leave). 

- william and kate got married! what? who cares? not me. i definitely didn't get up at 4:30am to watch that shit. 

- ian turned 30. lots of other cool people had birthdays too. come to think of it, all of the cool people i know had birthdays this year! what were the chances?? happy birthday everyone. 

- two other really exciting things that i'm not allowed to talk about. 

*saying i have 10 toenails may be a bit of a stretch. let's settle on 9.5 thanks to 2010's incident.

merry christmas!

hey, i hope you had a good christmas! we did. it was sad to be without our families but we had fun and did lots of video chatting. 

we also hung out. 

and watched love actually. 

how can you resist liam neeson?

ho ho ho!

iqaluit is crazy about christmas. it's pretty neat, because i love christmas too. one thing that i think is really great is that there are a ton of christmas lights all over the place. there's even an annual contest to see who has the best lights! the other night, ian and i drove around to get a good look at some of the lights in town. 

unfortunately right after i took this picture i got caught by a man standing in that green window there. how embaaaaaarrassing. 

the photos below are of my favourite house in the universe.

our electricity bill is $100 a month and we don't have any christmas lights. i'm guessing that this family's bill is outrageous. worth it! 

**just in case you're wondering, the bigger red lights you see on the top two photos are not christmas lights. "duh, jenessa, we're not stupid. they obviously don't look like christmas lights." you might be saying. sorry! i just thought i'd explain what they are. a lot of the city of iqaluit is on the utilidor (above-ground piping system for water and sewage - separate pipes for water and sewage thankfully) but a lot of the city is not! houses with red lights on them are not on the utilidor. that red light tells the city workers that those houses don't need their water tanks filled up. when the light is off, they do need water. that means that sometimes families need to conserve their water so they don't run out (like this week, for example, since the trucks won't be out certain days because of the holidays). sewage is pumped out every day so there's no light for that. we won't have a light because we're on the utilidor since our building is new. 

you may think that the water tank and sewage tank system is a bit dated, but you should just be thankful people aren't still using honey buckets. actually, i should be thankful for that. i am. that's a lesson for another day, though.

today's message on iqaluit's water and sewage system is brought to you by polar bears and muskoxen. 

bird

ian took a picture of this very interesting door ornament when we were in apex. 

it's a real bird! a real dead bird, of course. just for the record, the ravens that we usually see hanging around are generally much MUCH bigger than this. 

busy busy day

what a day! ian's last day of work before christmas vacation was yesterday, so today was a big day of fun. i have to admit, though, that i'm feeling a bit jealous. i have to go back to work for a whole week before my vacation starts. damn! anyway, here's what we had going on today:

here's the sun rising. this photo was taken at 10:00 am. today was the first sunny day in a while (usually it's just greyish) so it was nice!

here's the sun going down. this was about 1:30 pm. see you later, sun. it was fun while it lasted!

we drove down to apex to hang out for a while. have you ever heard of apex? it's a part of iqaluit, but it's a few kilometers down the road. the road is called 'road to apex' so if you're ever kicking around and trying to find it, don't worry. you'll find it. anyway, apex is where mainly inuit people lived when iqaluit was a military site. it's basically just a very small neighbourhood. 

here i am in this boat. i was going to sit down but it was cold and i didn't want to get you-know-whats. you know what, right?

here's one of the husdon's bay company buildings. it's on the beach in apex. there's another one next door to it.

here i am as an elf. i was helping with the city of iqaluit's kids christmas party earlier and it was a real hoot and a half. i was a very popular elf in a giant elf suit. 

now we're watching elf! i think this is what it feels like to have come full circle. 

please don't judge the one strand of popcorn on our tree. i'm trying to get the gusto to finish the popcorn stringing but it's messy and my fingers get greasy! 

cool dude

hey, do you guys miss ian yet? i think we all know that the most charming thing about that guy is how clumsy he is. earlier tonight he was being helpful by filling the pepper grinder with pepper. unfortunately for him, he filled the salt grinder with pepper. 

anyway, other than that we don't have a whole lot going on. we've been having lots of fun with friends and we've also been getting ready for sad christmas. oh, you want to know what sad christmas is? it's christmas without family and friends. don't you worry, though. i've been saving up all of the important christmas movies (home alone, christmas vacation, elf, love actually, etc.) for when my vacation starts. 

i'll be in good aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaands. 

noon!

this is where the sun chills out at noon here right now.