Bear Fox Owl

<meekly and with echo>Hello?

If you haven’t heard the news, we’re doing our thing at a new url these days. Not to abandon this already pretty much abandoned ship, but life at Bear Fox Owl is kinda fun. Kettle’s on, Lego is everywhere. See you there! (you can subscribe via email there too)

One (!)

THIS is what J.D. built way back when time was on our side. It’s a tiny ee-cock!

Allow me to explain: (For those who were not around for our first paternity leave, please have a seat over here before advancing to the rest of this post)

Tomorrow we leave and this, in point form, is the plan  (we actually have a plan!):

-Vancouver

-Victoria,

-Simcoe Island,

-Ottawa,

-Montreal,

-Albany,

-New York,

-Barcelona,

-Various unidentified European destinations

-Ireland (for Christmas)

-Vancouver

-Victoria

-Whitehorse

One day James started talking about how awesome it will be driving the Nighthawk around Barcelona and we realized we had failed to address some of his misconceptions about air travel and baggage restrictions. We also realized how sad it would be to take flight without the Nighthawk. So we encapsulated the spirit of the Nighthawk into this Lego likeness and thus, The Flight lives on!

The launch is tomorrow and then we’ll be switching over to the Nighthawk blog.

There`s not much there yet but all that`s going to change real quick. Follow us!

Four (ok, ok. Three)

I have never seen midnight this many times in a row in my life. I’ve never been a late nighter kinda person. Even in university – if it didn’t get done by 10 pm, I just added a few extra cover pages and changed the font size of my appendix to flesh it out. My biological clock knew I’d be spittin’ out babies in a few years time and not using this degree anyway. Let the babies rob you, not the academics the clock told me (subconsciously. That would have been creepy otherwise). Anyway, I pretty much have as long as it takes to nurse (or as long as long as it takes to finish this salad bowl of coffee) to write this post and the bar is getting dry so I’ll just post a little game for you to play called “Where’s Jasper”. Further evidence of why we’re down to the wire here on the packing/renovation front.

 Credits: Me for taking the photo (not of the Assumption – Pieter Paul Ruebens took that one), my mum for photoshopping wings on Jasper,  and J.D. for photoshopping a wing-ed Jasper into the throng of angels.

Six

One of our goals before we leave is to have Jasper 100% potty trained. He is still basically at the same place he was ten years ago when I wrote this post.  This painting illustrates Jasper’s commitment to the cause:

If you ask him, he’s keen. But he gets distracted pretty easily.

 

Yesterday Jasper told me he was writing an email to Jesus:

Dear Jesus,

Give us back our trespasses.

Love, Jasper.

Maybe Jesus can teach him how to use the toilet consistently. But maybe not.

Hey Jasper, what tree did you get that from?

Speaking of bathrooms that aren’t being used…JD installed the toilet last night.  He flushed it just as I was falling asleep. It was a beautiful lullaby. This morning he installed a cabinet and mirror. While I was writing this post he came and Googled  “accidentally drilled into vent pipe”  and then asked me if I’d seen the boys run off with a caulking gun. So things are going well I think.

***

Next post I will show you what J.D. built out of lego and give you a rough itinerary…

Eight

I had this fleeting thought that I would do a blog post count down to the day we leave but I missed nine and I was going to give up but then I thought (fleetingly) I can count down by twos! Why hasn’t NASA thought of that? Their launches would be so much more efficient.

Part of our preparations to leave involve selling much of our stuff. Whitehorse has a buy and sell group on facebook with over 6,000 members. If you have a hot item at a good price, you can often sell it within minutes of posting it.

James was a little confused (enraged) when he saw something belonging to him being exchanged at the door for cash. But he recovered quickly when I handed the cash to him and described the endless possibilities. Now everything has a dollar sign on it. He saw me take down our wedding photo and he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t putting it on the buy and sell.  The other day he said, “I drew a picture of Sage but I sold it and bought him this toy instead (he had taped pieces of ripped up paper to a stool. Actually Sage loved it. Very high contrast.)

He may have gotten this idea of down selling from us. We recently sold our Subaru Forester with 112,000 km and bought a Toyota Sienna minivan with 300,000 + km. The back hatch opens with a wire coat hanger and the passenger window will only close if you have four years to watch it millimeter its way up. But the price was right and we bought it from friends and the Subaru car seat situation was functional but would not have impressed any safety boards.

We posted the Subaru one night and had sold it the next day with a little haggling. There’s this bakery/cafe in town called the Chocolate Claim. It sells legendary chocolate cakes for $60 each and when you eat it, you think “I would have paid more.” . We sold the Subaru for some cash and at our request, a Chocolate Claim chocolate cake.  You are nothing but a winner when one of these is in your house.

J.D. also posted our office chair on the buy and sell for $50 and told everyone it was a broken time machine. The ad got a lot of traffic but no takers (Happy to entertain y’all but BUY THE CHAIR). So he re-posted it as a boring office chair and it sold very quickly for $30 and a bag of cookies.

Ten

Ten. The number of days left before we leave the Yukon for sevenish months  and also the number of days (possibly less) before I die from an overdose of adrenaline and/or a renovation related stroke. We are renting out our house for those months and a bathroom with a toilet and hopefully a sink is the goal. We didn’t actually sign anything saying these would be included in the rental, but we’re trying to not be slumlords right from the get-go.

That is our bathroom, minus the subfloor. Amen, James. The original plan: put down tile over ugly pink vinyl. Then J.D. decided to “do it right” and pull up the ugly pink vinyl first and BAM! EVERYTHING IS ROTTEN AND LEAKING AND DISINTEGRATING AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR “DOING IT RIGHT”.

Since we had to remove the floor, we decided to install infloor heating since it doesn’t get more opportune than that. Plus if we don’t get the toilet installed, we can be like, “Look, tenants, what more do you want? The floor is warm.”

Currently, the tile is in and the giant holes in the drywall are patched. We are cursing the egg plant purple on our bathroom walls because if I remember correctly, it takes about ninety three coats to get the right shade. J.D. is also simultaneously cutting and installing trim so all of our furniture is pushed a couple feet from the wall and…

He just said to me, “Claire. We need to pack. It is urgent.” And then there’s that.

More soon on what those sevenish months will look like.

 

Hey Girl (bathroom reno edition)

From Start to Finish

Today was one of those rainy days where our living room looked like this from start to finish (photo taken at 11:30 p.m.):

When dinner time rolled around Jasper said, “You know what’s the truth? We should have popcorn for supper.” Can’t argue with the truth. But the truth needed a little protein so we also had hard boiled eggs. We’re not total barbarians.

Then at bedtime, James changed out of his pjs into more pjs. The only reason Jasper didn’t was because he was naked. From start to finish.

Ballerino

 

Jasper has really gotten into dancing lately. He keeps telling me he wants to take a ballet class which I support with my entire being. Mostly because you don’t teach Jasper how to dance: Jasper teaches you. His favorite line these days is, “Actually, I think not.” So yes, I will sign him up just so I can watch a chunky little boy reinvent ballet.

Here are a few more things that have come out of his mouth in a past couple of weeks.

Me: Jasper, you stink like a skunk.
Jasper: I’m not a skunk. I’m a punk.

***

Jasper: Mum, I heard Sage look at me.

***

Jasper: I’m a dragon, Mum!
Me: Are you a friendly or a scary dragon?
Jasper: I’m a friendly dragon. There’s no fire coming out of my mouth.
Me: Oh good.
Jasper: I`m just breathing mouses all over you.
(way more terrifying than fire IMO)

***

Jasper, upon seeing Sage drool: Mum! Sage is leaking!

***

Jasper: Mum, I`m playing a game where the milk is trying to get out of mine cup.

***

Jasper: Mum, I`m punching the world.

***

Jasper, after finishing his dessert: Mum, that was too easy. I need more.

***

 

In case you`re wondering about the three posts in three days, I`m trying to blog a little more like I parent: Inconsistently.

 

Urban Planner

 

James built a block city this morning. If you were to relocate, you’d find a woolly mammoth museum, a monkey sanctuary, a pelican and flamingo information centre, a dinosaur art centre, and after JD asked about food supply, a grocery store. What more could you possibly want? But a word of caution: House insurance is really expensive because occasionally a giant naked toddler patrols the outskirts of town and accidentally destroys a large portion of the city. He always says sorry, though.