theres a place thats calling me...

goodbye to my yukon friends as we head off to ontario this moring.

thank you for all of the amazing help. we could not have done all this without you - which is why it is so hard for us to leave you.

you have been good friends to us and i hope that our paths will cross again soon.

i had some (hopefully) good news last night (thank you julia!) that there was another job posting at the guelph mercury and i was up bright and early sending in my resume (from the star - i just cant stay away).

to my family in guelph: i will see you soon and i look forward to a lot of warm hugs.

KD

hide the towel 2: chalykoff vs. skikavich

we had a rematch last night.
rookie chalykoff headed up one team (the best team) and everyone was eager to see how she wuold handle the pressure, but she came through with style.
the game got off to a rough start when stephanie (big cheater) waddell hid the towel out of seeing distance from her team and then couldn't remember where she put it. the round had to be repeated for fairness sake.
overall it was a pretty even game. team skikavich (team stupid) applied dirty, dirty tactics.
and the game came to a screeching halt when eric (crybaby) murphy got a wee little sliver in his hand and cried like a little girl.
we then retired to chez skikavich for snacks.
a good time was had by all.

i have to go pack more now or danny will beat me.

xoxo
KD

I'm the....I'm the....I'm at the top of the WORLD!!

Dear Blog,
Today Mrs. Slessor insisted I write about my trip this past weekend. So here goes;
We wanted to leave Whitehorse nice and early on Saturday morning in the truck. However the previous night my truck DIED! And I had it towed to the garage, so instead we left a little later in the day in Kelly's car (after Gertie {Kelly's car}got an oil change). The drive up was pretty good, I'd never been to Dawson. We stopped in Braeburn to get a giant cinnamon bun! And continued on our journey. The trip up was pretty uneventful, however we did see two deer on the way. We got to Dawson and checked into our hotel, Bombay Peggy's! Which used to be a Brothel (is that spelled right?) back in the Gold rush days. We ate at this AMAZING restaurant called Antoinette's and it was literally the best meal I've ever had! Then we went to Diamond Tooth Gerites (This is what Kelly's car is named after) where I won and lost about $30. I maintain that I could have walked away with more money but we were playing the $.25 slots and I was feeling really lucky. I would have won a lot more money had we been playing the $1 slots or even some Blackjack! We took in the show at Diamond Tooth Gerties but left during the show because it sucked pretty bad. And went back to the Pub at Bombay Peggy's to watch some live music. The girl singing when we walked in was amazing! But she wasn't playing she was just singing the one song. The girl who was supposed to be singing Chrissy was okay. We stuck around for awhile and had a couple more drinks, then back up to the room, to sleep for the night.
The next day we got up early and went to go see Dredge #4 which isn't much to see and the place where Gold was first discovered in the Yukon which also isn't much to see. And so we started our trip to the TOP OF THE WORLD HIGHWAY. Now you should know that neither Kelly or I had ever been up on THE TOP OF THE WORLD HIGHWAY. While up there Kelly tried to imitate Leo Dicaprio in "Titanic" and say she was the King of the World but it wouldn't make sense so instead it came out like; "I'm the....I'm the...I'M AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD!" Now TOP OF THE WORLD HIGHWAY is the most beautiful drive I have ever been on with some of the most amazing sights. And since there is no way for me to explain what I saw I will stop there and will post pictures as soon as I can.
After the TOP OF THE WORLD HIGHWAY we ended up in Chicken Alaska. Which is a very interesting place. Basically downtown Chicken consists of 4 buildings a souvenir shop a bar a restaurant and outhouses. There are no flushing toilets in Chicken Alaska or telephones. There are 15 permanent residents. We had lunch and then we were on our way. We wanted to make it to Beaver Creek that night to be back in Whitehose for Monday. So we drove like crazy. Once we hit the Alaska highway on the Canadian side the road became .....tricky. I did what I like to call, "creative pothole manouevering". The road stayed like this pretty much until Distruction Bay which is past Beaver Creek. We stayed in Beaver Creek for the night at the Westmark, where our room had no phone or TV. Beaver Creek.....not that interesting, however they do have mini golf until 11 PM. We decided not to partake.
We got up early Sunday to head to Whitehorse. And because of "tricky" road conditions we added about 2 hours EXTRA to our trip home. So now we are home, and there is still no truck (we're waiting to hear from the garage) and that's about it.
So Mrs. Slessor that is my Blog and I'm sticking to it.

Things that happened on the trip
- I had the perfect moment - Harry Chapin playing on the radio, sitting with the love of my life, looking out over the most amazing views on either side of the car on the top of the world highway.
- I came up with the best name for a gorge.....Curious Gorge.
- I ate the best meal I'd ever had.

DK

i am now fully traumatiozeed

so traumatized, in fact, that i can't spell.

i had to take the cat to the airport and - as anyone who has ever driven with a cat before can tell you - it was not pretty.

i fed the poor bastard some gravol-laced tuna this morning (on directions from the vet) and hoped that it would take him to a happy-cat-place with free-flowing catnip and lots of birdies to hunt.

but no.

there were crazy cat screams and - i must tell you - there was also crying. and it was not just the cat. i cried too.

but he is off. my mom is picking him up in toronto tonight. i wish her luck, but hopefully she doesn't need it.

danny and i are both done work today and then were off to do some sightseeing for the weekend. i will report back on the cats (and my moms) safe (hopefully) arrival in guelph.

k

hide the towel is awesome!

so yesterday was a big day. not only did echo and i both win in out 'happy, happy shorts pool' but we finally played hide the towel.
i cannot begin to tell you how satisfying my day was.
i have to admit that, although i did want to play hide the towel, i was skeptical about the game's greatness. no more, my friends.
we played in the greenbelt behind julia's house. its still not very green and i'm not sure thers much brush even when it is, but we made do.
here is how hide the towel works:
1. you split into two teams
2. team 1 turns around while a person from team 2 hides a towel (in full view of their teammates)
3. once the towel is hidden, someone from team 1 looks for the towel while someone from team 2 gives hot and cold directions
4. once the towel has been spotted someone yells 'they see the towel' and much running and tagging and hyjinks ensue

the evening was enjoyable and to top it off, ice cream sundaes were had by all.
how can it get any better than that?

k


...this is a picture of stephanie hiding the towel

away to skagway

i had a really great weekend. it was just what i needed. on friday i was thinking of al the things i could get done this weekend and thinking maybe i didn't want to go – but i'm so glad i did.

saturday morning we headed out – juliann and i in one car and jason and the kids in the other. we (juliann) spotted a couple of young black bears along the side of the road so i snapped some pictures (i'll add them to the post later).

when we got to skagway we pretty much headed right for our train departure. leif (who is two) was very excited about the train ride, but once we got on there wasn't so sure anymore. i went to take him out on the platform and he looked like he had changed his mind – but once we got him out there we couldn't get him back in! the 'people train' was apparently a hit!

i should mention that the weather in skagway was amazing. its full-on spring there. it smelled amazing and the trees are budding. i love going to skagway in the spring. i even got a little colour on my face. eat your heart out whitehorse!

we crashed the night at a hotel in skagway and in the morning we did some touring around town. jason and the kids shipped out and juliann and i did some shopping. i was very good and didn't buy anything besides two postcards. i'm pretty sure if i came home with anything danny would have killed me!

jules and i took a hike on a path i didn't even know was there. it was amazing. it ended at a rocky point and the scenery was beautiful. jules took a picture of me and i totally look superimposed. but i promise i was really there.

we climbed onto the rocks and then down to the beach. we lay down on the sand a ways back from the water and i almost fell asleep. its a good thing juliann was paying attention because the tide started coming in and when she sat up it was lapping at our feet and getting closer by the second.

we had planned to camp at dyea - which is right near skagway, but the campground was full. we ended up driving back to canada and camping in tagish. it was really nice - but i was worried for a minute that we drove all that way and it was getting late, that the campground might be full. we found one of the last spots and set up shop. we tried out one of our new wedding-gift tents for the first time and it totally passed the test.

we headed back to town early the next afternnon and (again) juliann spotted two caribou along the side of the road. i snapped a few pictures and they turned out really nice. i gave them to our photographer and i'm hoping i might get my one-and-only front page picture on the paper. we'll see.


peace out and
much love

k

another rough day

but everyone survived. for the most part. eric seems pretty stressed and i'm leaving in a week (four work days) so theres not much time.

FOUR WORK DAYS! very exciting. i think danny and i are going to try to make it up to dawson city before we leave. we have almost a week off between when we're done work and we actually leave the yukon, so we might as well. plus danny has never made it to dawson. it seems wrong to leave without taking him there.

so we might do the trek up to dawson. take the top of the world highway into AK and down to haines via haines junction. then take the ferry over to skagway and back up to whitehorse. it'll be a journey, but hopefully it'll be fun.

k

p.s. my mysterious foot ailment seems to have abated

really not having a good day

i started the day right. a domestic dispute (eric and danny are like girls fighting over the cute boy at school.)

i got to work and some of the programs i've been waiting for have showed up. i was very excited and with only a little bit of swearing i got them installed. i tried to open one of them and the computer informed em that this version of the program will not run with my keyboard. what a frigging totally bizrre error. i tried loading an earlier version of the same program and it told me to go screw myelf again. i told it right back.

also i seem to have developed a mysterious pain in my right foot. no idea where it came from but it really frigging hurts.

so to sum up: i'm cranky, my computer is very nice but nothing works on it, i did not have coffee this morning, i still have nothing to do at work and my foot really hurts.

k

another day... another photobooth masterpiece

danny was very productive yesterday. he took back $40-worth of recyclables. and mailed a butt-load more boxes. go team!

we meant to get more packing done last night, but fate had other plans. i had to attend my last big brothers/big sisters board meeting. and danny forgot about a meeting at work. so we fufilled our duties and came home for evening movie-time. we've gotten into the habit of thowing a dvd in the computer every evening around 9 p.m. and chillin' on our fancy air-matress furniture. its totally stylin. i'm trying to convince danny to forego getting couches when we move to ontario and just fill the living room with cozy air-filled fun!

we thought we broke the computer last night trying to get things set up. but we eventually got things rolling and we watched blood diamond. once i got past leo dicaprio's bad south african accent, i liked it. it wasn't a work of atr or anything, but i enjoyed it.

so. we've got some big plans in the works. i'm very excited to announce that the previously-postponed game of hide-the-towel has been scheduled for thursday. julia is taking pity on our floor-sitting asses and having us over for dinner.

then on the weekend, i am headed for skagway. jason, juliannn and the twins are going to take the train to the summit and i'm going with them. then we're going to crash the night in town. on sunday jason is bringing the puffs back here and Jules and i are going to camp the night at Dyea (the place where the chilkoot trail begins) and maybe hike a few hours in. i'm very excited about that - providing we don't get eaten by bears.

peace out.

k

bored at work

eric has been taking over more and more of my job every day. which means i'm bored out of my frigging mind. (hence the new blog.... i'd been thinking it would be a good idea anyway) yesterday i sat there playing with a program on the new ocmputer called Photobooth. very fun. i may have taken one or two pictures. i may take one or two more. or maybe 16 or 20.

if you find yourself equally bored, feel free to e-mail me. or anything at all. facebook. anything. please, jesus.

the plan was that i was supposed to be setting the new computer up with all the programs, etc. that will be needed. but there have been issues and we either don't have the programs or we have the wrong ones or we have the right ones but can't install them until the new server is set up - only the new server has to be sent back and apparently Mac does not want to take it. the drama.

love you long time.

k

garage sale/going away party...

were successes. a lot of fun. and stressful.

we had some friends over the night before the sale and they helped us price. thank frigging god. because i'm pretty sure i might have just curled up and cried if they weren't there.

everyone got up bright and early and helped set up in the yard. we had people there at the stroke of 8. we broke the desk trying to get it out of the house (i should point out that danny may have mentioned that it might happen and i ignored him). but we sold it anyways. i got $10 for it. i was very impressed with myself (and i did point out the flaw to the prospective buyer.) we also sold danny's 'six second abs' to some crazy newfie woman. its mental the things some people will take. traffic kept up pretty steady all day and we even had people knocking on our door as late as 4 pm trying to buy stuff. weirdos. but we made more than $1000, which made me very happy.

our house is barren now. but we're making the best of it. we rented a movie last night and watched it on the computer. we had an air matress set up for my friend jill to crash on for the weekend and watched it in style.

oh. the party. i almost forgot. we showed up to a half dozen people in the yard wearing 'ontario sucks' t-shirts. it was a stroke of genius. me and danny got 'yukon rocks' t-shits. very subtle. we went on a scavenger hunt and hyjincks followed. danny stole my car and i was almost forced to steal it back. in the process i almost stole one of his team members. but i say they deserved it. and the suckers left one of their scavenger items in the car so i stole it. i would also like to point out that although they won, i'm pretty sure that they cheated. to see the face of victory, look here:

nice eh? afterwards there was cake and beer and chillin out. very nice. thanks to all my peeps who had a hand in the planning.

k