pretty

yarrrrrrrrrrrr! sometimes iqaluit be pretty.

some boring pictures

honeeeeyyyys, i'm hoooome! 

i got home yesterday from my trip to yellowknife. it was very very busy but i was able to have a bit of fun, thankfully. i was there for work so during the days i was busy and not able to go outside while it was light. that was a real bummer. here are some photos:

this was the view from my hotel room. trees!!

here i am outside with the northern lights! just kidding, that's just another photo of what i think may or may not be something pretty in the northwest territories. 

TREES!

one thing that was really great was the weather. it was so nice and warm! on wednesday it was only -9! i was surprised by how hot i was, though. i was sweating like crazy walking around outside. 

now i'm back in my very chilly home. wahoo!

yk is ok

i'm in yellowknife! i'm sure it's really beautiful but i've been swamped with work since i got here on monday night. i can only assume that it looks a little bit like this photo in my hotel room:

oooohhhhhh! aaaaaaahhhhhhh! 

life in a tropical paradise

you guys - an EXTREMELY exciting thing happened today. ian found a coconut at the grocery store!! sometimes it's difficult just to find a banana or an apple to purchase, so a coconut is a pretty huge deal. he brought it home and i immediately was ready to put on my bathing suit and sunglasses. i was so excited that i couldn't decide whether to eat it right away or to save it for a few days or just to stare at it with great expectations. 

about a half hour ago we decided it was time. 

yahoo! where am i? mexico?!

first we tried the coconut water. it tasted like salt. 

then this series of events happened:

unfortunately the coconut was disgusting. 

the end.

relaxing all cool

hey! i hope you all had a good weekend. i sure did. on friday morning ian and i got up and did our hair and put our makeup on as usual, when suddenly the phone rang. it was work telling me that this: http://bit.ly/xlYLrY had happened and that all city and GN offices were closed. after doing some celebratory air punches and kicks, i called everyone else in my department and put my feet up like a professional relaxer. ian, like the good teacher he is, got into the car and drove to school only to return a half hour later. his phone tree failed him. schools were closed too! 

now, i don't want to pretend that this was all fun and games. it's really terrible how much water we lost and a lot of people worked all night and all day to fix the problem. we had to boil our water all day friday and saturday because of a risk of contaminants. it was really nice to have friday off, though (with the exception of one meeting that i snuck out to in the afternoon). 

yesterday was a blizzardy day and blizzard-like conditions were due to carry over until this evening. ian found out this morning that he had the morning off again! what a lucky guy. i had to go to work like a chump. the blizzard never really happened today, so ian has to go back after lunch this afternoon. what a treat, though. 

on saturday night i went out with some of my lady friends to the legion and i found out very quickly that i indeed have got the moves like jagger.

work

are you in the mood to be really unenthused? and i mean really unenthused. i'd like to introduce you to the building i work in. 

this is city hall! it's also the fire hall. 

this is the front of the building. as you can see, if there's a fire or if you need an ambulance there's no use calling 911. there's no such thing as 911 up here. you call 979-4422 for fire or ambulance and 979-1111 for rcmp (get it? 9-1111?)

this is my entrance (the left side of the building if you're looking at the pictures above). it's also the entrance to the arena. 

city hall was obviously built during the days when windows were out of style. i imagine it went like this:

"please build us a city hall with windows."

 "you want to be warm and to be able to see outside? oh no no, we can't do that." 

"ah yes, good point. then please go ahead and build an off-white igloo-style box with two or three ship/airplane windows"

"can do!"

unfortunately my office is not one of the lucky ones with a window in it but it's always dark outside anyway so it's really not an issue. 

big news!

sorry boys, it's all over. the last warren sister has been snatched up by a paramedic who also fights fires. how could you even compete?!? you couldn't. 

ashley and eric are engaged!

i'm very very very happy for my big sister and my big eric. you two are beautiful and hilarious and i love you both.

arty

have i ever told you that there's some really amazing street art in iqaluit? it's true! art in general is huge in nunavut. there are so many beautiful things up here that are created by hand. 

here's a whale on the wall next to the hospital.

this wall (below) is on the side of city hall (where i work).

narwhal!

happy new year!

happy new year from us and this giant bird.