Love Where You Live

What a wonderfully productive and summery weekend here! This weekend reminded me why I love summer so much, and how amazing Hay River can be.

Friday night we had some friends over to celebrate Chris’ birthday next week and a friend’s birthday a few weeks ago. We BBQed burgers, smokies and hot dogs and hung out on the deck way past ours, and the kid’s bedtimes. The kids played and ran around the yard together, and the adults sipped beverages and had some laughs. It was so nice having a few of our ‘family’ friends over!  Most of our friends haven’t hit the baby stage yet and while I like to think we’re still young and ‘cool’, having a toddler is a total game changer when it comes to structuring social events. Having a few friends with kids makes it so much easier to host and attend toddler friendly functions without being the only ones with a toddler in tow. And as a bonus, all the kids get along great!

Saturday we took the boat out for the first time this year. We ordered pizza and had a floating pizza party with my sister and her guy. And of course Max and Penny came too. We went up river hoping to jump out at this little tiny beach (aka sandbar) that’s in the middle of nowhere so Max could play and we could hang out but the water was too high and it was nowhere to be found! The river gets ridiculously low in the summer since it’s usually pretty dry up here. This year though, we’ve had TONS of rain, which is great for boating and forest fire prevention.  We headed back down river onto the lake to find some sand and then headed home before the rain hit. We stopped to fish for a bit but had no luck catching anything for supper. It's still a bit early for fishing the river.

Floating Pizza Party!

Penny :)

Sand!

Sunday was rainy and dreary out. We had a super lazy morning but then ended up hitting up Home Hardware to get painting supplies.  We’re painting our master bedroom and I’m so excited! It’s a dirty beige right now and we’re lightening it up with a light mint / turquoise-y colour. Slowly and surely our house is being fixed up room by room.  There’s still a lot to do, but a fresh coat of paint goes a long way! It finally cleared up after supper time so we put air in the bike tires and had our first family bike ride of the year. It was a leisurely pace, I’m counting it towards triathlon training ha!

After a weekend like this I am reminded how amazing it is to live in the Canada's North. Our backyards are rivers and woods and trails and lakes. So much of our neighborhoods are untouched by humans and are still in their pristine, natural state. We don't have traffic or smog. The mosquitos are a different kind of problem ;) I couldn't help but think how fortunate we are to raise Max in a place where he gets to go boating and biking and swimming and fishing and dirt biking and skidooing on a regular basis. We are minutes to the beach and I can already see how our love for the active outdoors has permeated Max. 

And now it’s Monday, the start to another work week. With rain in the forecast for the week I don’t mind being stuck in an office all day.  This week should be a fun week full of triathlon training and time spent at home with my boys. I’m also hoping to hear about a job I interviewed for last week…fingers crossed!