skidooing the dempster…

So it’s been awhile since I wrote on here. That’s because I got ate by a bear and am in the hospital. Okay no, its because FSC (my employer), agreed to fly me back to YK for Brianne and my anniversary, and to complete moving in to our place amoung other things. So thanks FSC. I didn’t tell Brianne that I was coming home, it had been raining here for a week and so I wasn’t getting much work done anyways and it was just postponing the complettion of the project. So I emailed Cindy and asked if she could pick me up at the airport and surprise Brianne. She did, and when I showed up where Brianne was watching tennis she was very surprised. We celebrated our anniversary pretty low key but it was still great. Neither of us had to work for a few days so we got lots done at our place. We both really love it. Then after a week of being home I flew back to the Dempster to catch up on the work that was done while I was gone. It was a bit of a mess but I got it all straightened out after a long 18 hr day, till 1:30 am! So here I am, once again, stuck at the dempster with very little to do because while I was gone the two guys that were doing some of the work for me quit…or really just took off and no one knows where they are….hopefully they didn’t get eaten by a grizzly…

Also while I was home Brianne and I bought a snowmobile. I’m so pumped. I got a great deal on it, its hardly even been used, its only got 400 kms on the machine so its hardly even broken in…and it was a lady that bought it new and then sold it to me, so you know it hasn’t been driven hard at all! So now I was thinking that the ashby/foster family should go on a snowmobile excursion. Dough & Cindy on theirs, Joel & Darla on theirs, Arlen & Brianne on theirs, and Kurtis & Kaleigh on…the old 440 sitting out back! Perfect couples. It’ll work! Now I just have to convince Kurtis and Kaleigh that you don’t have to be couple to go…

Oh on another note, a guy “fell asleep” on a packer today and drove off the side of the road and rolled the packer! Crazy, its all twisted and smashed. woops.

**this part is from me (brianne). I was going to post a picture of our sled that arlen took but i don’t know how so he’ll have to do that when he gets home. I was also going to post a pic of our place but he has our camera on the dempster so I cant even take a picture!  On another note, i do have the best husband ever… Not only did he come home and suprise me which was the best part… but before he knew he was coming home he had put an order in for flowers to be delivered to me on our anniversary. THEN he came home and it was too late – the flowers were already ordered and I got them anyway! ta-da.  Now only like 3 weeks before he comes home… I’m going camping with a bunch of teenagers this weekend. Should be a blast!

 

more from the dumpster…

so… last night our great friends Mark and Amy had a beautiful baby girl and named her Lauren. While they were at the hospital i was having a sleepover with their little girl Maddie. When I got the call last night that she’d been born I sent arlen an email to let him know she was here and that Amy was amazing and that Mark was so calm and cool and that I’d had an amazing night with Maddie… He’s still up on the dempster and had been working like 16 hour days for about a week straight… and then it started to rain. they can’t work when it rains so he spent a LOT of time sitting alone. and this is the email i got back from him last night…

girl, cool, i love girls, but i kinda wanted a boy that i could wrestle with…i mean not for a few days or so…

mark is sooo cool. always, and stylish and steazy at the same time, but not in a bad way, in a very comfortable and afordable way, sorta how donald brashear did it. extremely well. dang i wish i could do some things that well. like behave, or shave, or shower, i haven’t done that in while. as maddie says “PEE YOU”. ha, pee me. not in bed though. i also wish i could fly fighter jets i think that would be neat, sexy and full of mystery. no misery though, unless misery signals was on tour, that would be cool. yep, and also i want to fight james bond some day…. you know what i should do, i should make bucket list, that would be so fun/cool/romantic/startling/forbidden/forclosure… don’t know wehre that last word came from. oh i have a better idea, i should design other peoples bucket lists and charge them a pile of money for them to complete it. dang, that would be awesome, i bet i’d make a fortune, catering to the rich and famous like that. gee wizz, i’m a wizz kid and a wizard all at the same time. it startels me sometimes. you know what else. i;ve never been to the looney bin. but i lvoe the looney tunes, there funny. also i like itunes and just normal tunes as well. but don’t tune me out or i’ll have to tune you up. that should be quote. put it on my blog, labelled “arlen’s ranting, ravings, ravagings, and reapings.” actually maybe put this whole thing on my blog, it’ll show everyone how living in a dump will make you crazy and write/say/think things that are unbelievably amazing to ones self but completly and utterly useless to everyone else. you know what they say, “one mans junk is another mans treasure”, ha if you think of that as “junk, like a mans no no parts, it sounds really really bad. ha, now i’m laughing hysterically reading that. oh jeez, i gotta go to bed, i gotta get up in  a few hours to work.

sorry for the inappropriate parts… he seriously needs to come home. some of it makes more sense to me because it comes from bits and pieces of other conversations and emails.. but most of it is entirely random. also i’m pretty sure he didnt actually want me to post this on our blog… oh well.

 

arlen on the Dempster.

I’m extremely bored sitting in my truck on the Dempster Highway just 14 kms north of the Yukon border. Bored, but surprisingly happy with the neat experience of living in a camp of 80 people in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It’s pretty dumpy accommodations; it’s really like the trailer park on My Name Is Earl, or any trailer park for that matter.

The surrounding scenery is a different story; it’s absolutely amazing. I’m situated right amongst the mountains, running +400 ft on either side of our camp and the Dempster. The first morning at camp a herd of caribou went by and about a kilometre behind them was a grizzly, probably thinking of how much he’d like to munch on one of their hind legs. Just the other morning a momma grizzly and her extremely large three cubs were rummaging around our camp and then travelled along the Dempster when we were coming back from work at 10 pm. It’s quite something to see these things in the wild like that. They still look so friendly like I should go wrestle them or something, or at least give them a high-five and slap their buttocks.

Each day we start the morning with a safety meeting at 7:50, which to me doesn’t seem to make many things any safer. A packer operator fell asleep and drove off the end of a curve into a swamp and got stuck. It made me laugh, and then the guy got fired so I didn’t laugh around him…much. Another guy driving one of the semi’s was out of it and drove off the side into a culvert and then overcorrected putting the truck in one side of the ditch and the trailer in the other. Takes major talent to do that you know.

We drive about an hr to and from camp and the construction site between rolling hills and mountains. The road is terrible, if I had my own truck I’d probably only be going 60 kph…but with a rental its usually 100 kph, I mean it’s a big diesel 1-ton, if it can’t handle it then maybe Chevrolet should go out of business. The dust is a major issue here since it stopped raining about a week ago. We try to water but it’s still so bad with the 30 or so trucks each evening going back to camp at once. The work is starting to slow down and so many of the drivers/trucks have left including all of the night crew. We arrive back at camp around 10 pm every night where I then do my calculations for the day and recording/reporting. My job during the day is pretty slow, counting the trucks that go by and taking quick measurements of the height of material in each truck. Each truck usually takes about an hr to do a round trip so there is a lot of down time. This is when I do about 10 sudoku’s a day, listen to music, drive in circles, drive myself mad, do jumping jacks, pee from all the water I drink even though I’m not thirsty, read a book a day, eat lots of junk food, throw rocks at random stuff…not passing vehicles though and have contests to see who can stand on an extension ladder the longest, guess who the next truck will be, and hold our breath till we pass out. Oh and when I say “we”, that means myself and a young kid from the area who helps me measure and really just keeps me sane. During the day I also do some surveying of the grades of the road and calculate roughly how much more material we need for each section of the road to bring it up to grade. By the time I go to bed from doing all the work its around 11 or 12 pm. and I’m exhausted even though I hardly did anything all day! But hey its good money, lots of overtime!

Amidst all the new things I’m seeing and doing I miss being home in Yellowknife with Brianne, I miss pizza night and waffle night, I miss supper at 6 instead of 10, I miss football…ALOT… I miss friends/family…except Darla she’s a zoot-zoot!

I’m excited to get home and spend all this money on a skidoo…I mean on Brianne…

p.s. Arlen just called me and wanted me to add that he got back to the camp tonight and the grizzly bears were back so they ran outside and the camp dog was chasing them away so they jumped in a truck and chased them so they could get pictures…who chases Grizzly bears?! that was the one thing I told him NOT to do. DANGER!

 

us in point form

since the last time we put anything here lots has happened and changed. but full sentences are not necessary so i’m not going to use them after this one.

-wrote exams

-graduated from university/college

-luca rose friesen was born and i love her so much

-both of our parents came to visit us in regina for my grad.

-we spent three and a half weeks in dauphin doing farm things: shooting beavers, birds, and gophers, riding tractors, planting grass and landscaping, digging our car out of 2 feet of snow (after planting and landscaping), hanging out with jonathan, watching play off hockey, playing games, eating lots of good treats, having bonfires, riding horses, branding cows, cutting down ginormous trees, quadding, hanging out with becky and bryan and tori and sharon, and of course getting in lots of quality time with arlen’s parents. plus much more.

-heading back to grampa’s to pack up and say bye to all of our friends. that part sucked the most since our last update for sure. even worse than exams and those were awful.

-hanging out with friends at tim and krista’s wedding

-luca’s baby shower (i miss her a lot)

-saying bye to friends for the last time before we headed out, which included one last indian feast at wilf and laura’s, complete with lemon cream pie!

-i forgot to say that arlen bought me a sweet bicycle in dauphin

-a sweet roadtrip to davidson with a broken truck hauling a heavy trailer followed by my car. Arlen and nic were in the truck, i was in the car. we seriously went like 70 the whole way. except up big hills… then we only went 40. but in davidson we found some hicks to fix our truck. we left arlen with them and nic and i went ahead to meet tara for lunch in s’toon.

-a more successful roadtrip to edmonton where we picked up leann at the airport and unfortunately saw detroit beat chicago. bummer.

-a sleepover at arlen’s aunt and uncles followed by an epic roadtrip to yellowknife. we saw bears, wolves, buffalos, and other more regular things. most giganticist porcupine ever.

-had a stellar surprise 50th birthday party for my mom

-lived at my parents house for more than a month (still there) and ate great great great things and had lots of fun. pizza night is the best thing. for real.

-got jobs. me at yellowknife church of christ as the sstudent ministries director. arlen at FSC architects and engineers. he’s in iqaluit for work right now

-went to my grampa’s wedding. it was a great time. hopefully we’ll get to spend more time with grampa and joan before too long.

-went to the cabin for aboriginal day and burnt ourselves worse than ever. (except for that one time in france).

-got a new place. painted it. got new floors in it. moved our stuff up all the stairs. unpacked it. will start living in it on wednesday.

-watched some fantastically awesome tennis… a few times.

-have met some great new friends (tori calls them replacement friends). but we really like them.

-still miss all of our old friends from other places.

-liking being here. and hoping summer will come eventually. sooner than later would be better.

-have a spare bedroom for anyone that wants to come visit. and you should. i’m going to buy a dingy boat soon so we can take it out when you come.

 

The Greatest Man Alive

I’m sure everyone is getting pumped for the playoffs and this is a video we found on utube. Gotta love Iginla!

 

saddened by the loss of another leading lady

On Monday afternoon arlen’s grandma, Millie Foster, passed away. And we miss her so much! She was so loving, gentle, caring and inspiring.

The first time I met her we were having a family Easter dinner at the farm. Arlen took me over to her and introduced us and she gave me a great big squeeze and a kiss on the cheek and said “well hello dear!” Just about every greeting between the two of us after that time went the same way. This was the first weekend I had met all of Arlen’s family. I hadn’t known any of them (other than arlen obviously) before then and they all made me feel so welcome – Grandma was no exception. She was interested in my life and where I had come from and where I planned to go.

Arlen has always been full of stories and memories about his grandma. I’ve heard so many of them over the years (I guess only 4 since that’s how long we’ve known each other). But this week I’ve gotten to hear even more as he reflects on his precious moments with her from the time he was a little boy up until the last visit we had with her. Last night he was writing up something little to be read at her celebration of life on Saturday and he talked about how when he was little, he knew that if he was sick at school he would get to go to his Grandma’s for the afternoon. That meant cuddles, cookies, and sometimes tv shows. And so he took advantage of that more often than when he was actually sick. In more recent visits with her he would enjoy walking into her room and seeing the look on her face and the light gasp she let out when she saw his mountain man appearance. One time she told him he looked as though he’d just rode out of the Australian Outback. I tend to think he took that as more of a compliment than it was maybe meant to be. Later in the visit she told him he should clean up for his wife! ha… but then by the end of the visit she would always tell him how handsome he looked. It didn’t matter what he looked like, he could really do no wrong in her eyes. If only she could see his recent grad pictures….I have no doubt that would bring about one of her classic gasps. And then she would hang it proudly on her closet door with all of her other beauties.

One of my favourite memories with Grandma Foster was visiting her in the hospital after she broke her hip last Christmas (07). It was a few weeks later and Arlen and I were in Dauphin for the weekend. We took a couple of hours to go up and visit her and I will always remember that time. I did not ever have the pleasure of meeting Grandpa Foster as he passed away before Arlen found me. I hear from his kids and his grandkids about what a great man he was and I know it’s true. But sitting there that day and talking to Grandma about the “old” days (she is 93, so they were a while ago) I could see a love in her eyes that could not be denied. We were blessed with stories right back from when they met, to their wedding, and their cold ride back to the farm after their honeymoon, wrapped in a buffalo skin blanket to keep warm in the passenger seat. She had funny stories of their early days together, and stories of raising their 10 children on the farm. Can you imagine? I certainly cannot! The sparkle in her eyes as she shared these memories was inspiring to me. She had such amazing love for her husband and kids and beyond that to their spouses and kids and grandkids. I thought my family was gigantic! And she had room in her heart for all of them, plus me.

As we remember her life I am also reminded of the life of my grandma. Arlen and I were sooooo blessed to have been loved by two such amazing ladies and I feel extremely blessed to be able to look to their lives as examples and models of how I want to live and love. Their faith, their love, their smiles and their sparkly eyes will never be forgotten. Their hugs and kisses and kind words and stories will always be missed!

 

my dream

this isn’t actually about my hope for the future or anything like that if you got that impression from the title.

instead it is about my dream that i had a couple of nights ago.

It was the best dream I’ve had in a long time. I got to hang out with gramma. We were in a huge place watching curling. That might not seem very exciting but it was because Gramma loved curling so watching it with her was always a blast. And in my dream I could even understand what was happening as we were watching (which is pretty different from real life… i dont usually know much of what is happening. I always ask grampa, “is that what he meant to do!?!”). But then after the curling ended we picked up the figure skates that were sitting on the ground beside us and put them on and laced them up. Then we headed down to the ice and started figure skating to Abba music. I can’t even skate in figure skates, and I know that you aren’t supposed to skate on curling ice, but it worked perfect and we had a blast. We laughed and danced and skated all around. I’m pretty sure by this time the huge crowd of people was gone. AND all the curling ices were attached, so we didnt just have to skate up and down one strip. It was so much fun.

And then I woke up.

 

this week

this week has been a good one. i got to do some fun things with some fun people.

last weekend arlen was in edmonton at the oilers/flames game with my dad and brothers. lucky duck. go flames go. while he was gone i locked all the doors and tried not to hear all the noises. then on day two tori, sharon, becky and bryan came and hung out with me. we ate cookies and watched the hockey game.

arlen brought a new truck home from edmonton. so that’s fun. well it’s not brand new but it’s new to us. becky saw it last night and was pretty impressed. I think her words were “wow, i expected a dumpy, boxy old farm truck” and it’s not like that. we are quite happy with it. although i haven’t gotten to ride in it yet. My mom is bringing our licence plates next week. they will be polar bears. the best kind.

our friend jena graduated from the RCMP on monday so we got to hang out with her and her family that we love and also take in some of her grad festivities. She’s moving to Spiritwood to start working this weekend. She might be the smallest RCMP officer you will ever see but she’s feisty so watch it.

school was decent this week. it’s starting to pick up like crazy though. Less than two months til my grad. I can’t wait. Now hopefully we can find jobs. Perhaps graduating during the first year of a recession is not the best timing – but we are hopeful. And not too worried. yet.

sharon and i went to He’s Just Not That Into You on cheap night. That’s the only night I go to movies. The other nights are complete rip offs. Plus i get to go to girl ones then because arlen has night class. We had some good laughs. Probably mostly because there was an inappropriate older lady and her husband sitting near by that were making us uncomfortable with their comments and all we could do was share an awkward laugh… Then we went and played broomball with some friends. Good times. I wore my special Sun Ice Neon Pink pants. Trust me they are special.

On thursday I got to hang out with my great friend (+twin) chelsey and her daughter eva. we had a great time colouring and laughing and saying “absolutely!” I’m so glad that I got to spend some time with them while they were visiting from calgary. I dont get to see them nearly often enough and they are both REALLY great!

Also on thursday arlen has boy night every week. They usually go for burgers but due to some recent food poisoning they switched it up and went for cheap ribs. I had becky and sharon over for pizza and we had fun. I’m gonna miss them when i move. We can laugh together a LOT.

Today i got to get my haircut which is always great (except for one time when they gave me blunt baby bangs and dyed my hair orange. that was awful). then instead of driving all the way home and having to go back to pick up arlen after school i thought i’d go to starbucks/chapters and hang out. I got a lovely black tea latte and wandered around for almost 2 hours. It was awesome. I love books. I hope my mom brings me some when she comes to visit next week because I can’t buy any right now (remember we just bought a truck). And my mom has lots of books. She likes books too.

Now it’s the weeeknd. Which is exciting. But it feels a bit wierd because I feel like it is our last calmish weekend before our lives get completely crazy until school ends.

My mom comes on wednesday and my dad comes next saturday. EXCITING!

arlen gets his haircut in 15 days. the countdown is on.

so much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to.

 

I really like the new hockey song. i voted for it twice.

so… I haven’t written in forever, once again. Just thought I’d put up a little update.

Summer has ended, which is actually okay. While there were many wonderful things to enjoy this summer, it was also the hardest summer i’ve ever experienced. I still miss my gramma every single day. I definitely thought i’d have her around to learn from for many more years. However, I find myself learning so much from her as I reflect back on her life and am continually inspired by the life that she lived. I could likely go on forever about my gramma, but right now it’s still hard for me to put it all into words. I just really miss her.

The rest of the summer was basically full of weddings. Each wonderful and beautiful, although Arlen is especially glad that wedding season is over for another year. The end of the summer was my busiest when it came to weddings. I was honored to stand up for two of my greatest friends and share in their days. Carly had a lovely wedding on the Bow River in Calgary and we had a blast. A few of the groomsmen got us lost once or twice and traffic was unbelievable, and the bridesmaids and bride were about half an hour late but it was all good. We had so much fun. Becky’s was a week later in Regina and so it was another busy week getting ready and whatnot. We (the bridesmaids and bride) stayed in the penthouse at the Delta. The groom and his men forgot to drop a vehicle off for us at the hotel so we were 45 minutes late for the ceremony, but once again we had the bride so we didnt miss anything. Becky made me do toast to the bride. I was a nervous mess. The night ended with a fabulous dance. I couldn’t walk properly for 3-4 days after. That’s how good the dance was. Then my brother Joel and his beautiful Darla got married. It was lovely. The tent tried to blow down but it failed. It was a laid back, awesome day. And I got to see lots of friends from Yellowknife that I hadn’t seen in forever.

Since wedding season has ended we’ve been busy with school (well at least Arlen has). We’ve been to Dauphin a couple of times to visit his family. Tori and Sharon came with us last weekend and we had a ton of laughs and good times. I also went to Saskatoon with Kelli and Melon and we met up with the McMillans and Leann, Heather and Jeremy. The girls hit up the Reba and Kelly concert. It was AMAZING. I got goosebumps. It was that good. For the rest of the weekend we went up to the Olson Lake House at Emma Lake and enjoyed some relaxation in a gorgeous place.

The coming weeks will be busy with school mostly. I have a block class coming up, Arlen is in the middle of some vicious midterms. 6 months from now we’ll be done. We can hardly wait! And then we move to Yellowknife.

 

1 Thess 5:16-18.

the last few weeks and especially days have been tough for me to say the least. Lots of things feel so uncertain to me and if it weren’t for being surrounded by the most amazing people – friends, family, and especially arlen I would feel so lost and confused. I am continually grateful for all the people that are in my life.

The other day I was laying with grandma on her bed and her Bible was there. I picked it up and started flipping through it. One part that was highlighted really stood out to me: “Always be joyful.  Never stop praying.  Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

While this is extremely hard for me to live out right now it is something that I strive for and cling to. It is a verse that I need to be reminded of continually these days.