nance!

look who came to visit! 

what a hoot that was! we had all sorts of fun. we ate, drank, high fived, went on walks, had brunch, and went to the circus. it was neat. 

p.s. please ignore my pyjama pants in that photo. i'm sorry you had to see that, baby. sometimes, in this world, we see things we don't want to. (that was a fairly obscure dirty dancing quote, by the way). you're welcome. 

walk

today after work ian and i went for a walk. it was a very special occasion because it was very windy so there were no bugs. what a treat! last week i was walking from our apartment to the car, breathing, as per usual protocol, and as a punishment for breathing i swallowed a mosquito. well, i sort of half swallowed it and coughed it up. since i'm a vegetarian, though, i really appreciated the momentary increase in protein. anyway, back to today's walk. it was bright and sunny after a rainy day. everything was looking shiny and green. 

here's the summer version of that hill i posted about in the winter. you know when it's wintertime and you're trying to climb a hill and you keep losing your footing over and over because it's really icy? that's the worst. 

here's some pretty water. 

here's ian being totally irresponsible. he was trying to get me to cross this creek but since i value my life, i didn't. we walked all the way up and down the creek for a good 20 minutes trying to find a safe place for me to cross but it didn't happen. not today, graveyard!

here's some arctic cotton. 

 here's part of a spine. i'm trying to think of a good way to explain to you how normal it is to see bones lying around everywhere. you know when you walk onto your lawn and see grass everywhere? it's like that here but instead of grass, it's bones. 

green!

it's really green here right now. i might even call it scotland-ish. it's really awesome and i love it. it never gets dark and there's a good healthy mix of rain and sun so it went from brown to green very quickly. 

last sunday ian and i went to apex to walk around and climb hills. it was really pretty. oh! i forgot to tell you guys that the sea ice has melted (for the most part). today i smelled sea water for the first time since we first got here. 

here's ian getting a little too close to the edge, if you know what i mean.

here's the bottom of one of the hills we climbed. 

here's the sea. 

remember when i told you about the giant ravens? everything is giant here. i think it's because animals need to pump iron and take steroids to survive the cold. anyway, recently the mosquitoes have arrived and they. are. huge. like, HUGE. they swarm you and the bites hurt wayyy more than an appropriate mosquito bite feeling. apparently it hasn't even gotten that bad yet, so i'm a bit concerned for july. rumour has it that breathing through your mouth when you're outside is a no no. 

seal city

hey! it's me. i'm alive, so don't worry about it. i hope you're having a fun summer. i sure am. it turns out that it's really pretty here in the summer! for some reason i assumed that it would be brown here all summer but when the snow melted and the sun decided to never go down, things happened. 

last friday ian and i went to the celebration of the seal at sylvia grinnell park. it was a hoot and a half. actually, it was really cold and raining. it was still neat, though. even though i'm a vegetarian i can really appreciate the way inuit use seal. they use everything. seriously, everything. so on friday evening we watched seals get sliced up and the meat was handed out for everyone to share. we ran into one of ian's students and he was chewing on one of the eyeballs. that almost put me over the edge. 

here you can see the seals in the background. the air smelled really strongly of seal.

after this, things got really graphic. ian took a ton of photos but i won't put those on here because you might not appreciate it. 

have you ever wondered what my face looks like when the colour gets washed away and i have to concentrate on not looking grossed out? refer to the photo below. 

i'll post later with some better photos of the green-ness that i didn't expect to see. bye!

three years.

three years ago today i got married to my favourite bearded guy in the whole world. 

i just want to say for the record that ian is an amazing husband. no, seriously, he's better than yours. he's always cleaning and he does the laundry. he chops my carrots every night for my lunch and he pretends to think all of my opinions are interesting and thoughtful (they're not). he never laughs at my jokes but i know that it's for my own good because my humor-related ego is already huge enough. he's also a real looker, obviously. 

as anyone who's ever been in a relationship can relate to, we generally just sit around gazing lovingly into each others' eyes. 

happy anniversary!

birthday

those of you who have met me know that i have two sisters. you probably also know that i love my sisters a LOT. when i was much younger i used to get a bit insecure when people commented on how much i love my sisters (how much i talk about them) but then i got a bit older and realized that it's cool to like your family!

anyway, all this is to say that one of those buttheads has a birthday today!

ashley is hilarious, sweet, considerate, and empathetic. she is an amazing baker and she looks like an angel when she sleeps. she's a really good dancer and she really knows how to have a good time. she loves sushi and she doesn't let anyone boss her around. she is an extremely hard worker and she loves to take naps. above all, she's a complete hoot and she's really good at showing her love.

happy birthday asspee.

midnight

here is a photo of midnight (last night):

that's as dark as it gets! 

awesome.

hey ladies! happy mother's day. 

this cute toot is my mom:

she is 4'11" and she's wonderful. she's brave and hilarious and generous and strong. she tells the best stories and she's really good at pulling out loose teeth. she spends all of her time traveling the world like it's no big deal and she's not afraid to ask for her poached eggs in a very particular way at restaurants. she makes extremely delicious christmas cookies and even though she insists that "rude is never funny", she knows in her heart that rude is always funny. 

happy mother's day, mum! your daughters think you're the best. 

spring has sprung!

hi friends! 

i'm not sure that i'm your friend anymore because i'm so terrible at my blog. i'm sorry. i know that it's not a real excuse, but i've really been swamped at work and it's taking over my life. i hope you can forgive me and resume blowing kisses in my general direction. 

here's a big update: it's spring! things have finally been melting and it's getting really warm. sometimes it's even above zero! 

also, we get to see all of the nice stuff that was under the snow:

cute!

we had to put tin foil on our bedroom window because the sun rises so early (around 3:00 am) and doesn't set until late. soon we won't get any darkness at all. i'm still not accustomed to the darkness caused by the tin foil, though. sometimes i feel like a teenage boy dragging myself out of bed in the morning. 

other than that, there's not a whole lot happening with us. i've been eating a lot of grapes the last few days and ian got a sunburn on his eyeballs. want to see it? okay.