On The Edge Of The World
Date: Thursday July 29, 2010Posted in: Emily, Graham, Honey, Nathan, me, vacating
I may have been born in Ontario, but my parents moved us West, to the north coast of BC when I was but a few months old. I grew up on the edge of the ocean, going fishing with my Dad on our wee boat and hiking along rugged coastlines covered in barnacles and seaweed and listening to the ocean roar on a daily basis. When I decided to leave home and make my break for a big city, I chose Vancouver. Beautiful, engaging and right on the edge of the ocean. I moved many times when I lived there but almost every apartment I rented was within walking distance of the ocean. I remember proudly declaring that I could never live away from the coast.
This, of course, was before I met Matthew and we decided to leave the craziness of the city for the chance at owning a big house on a large property so that our (future) children could have space to run and play. If he’d wanted to move anywhere other than here, there may have been some resistance on my part. Thankfully, the vast Lake Okanagan is as close as you can get to be an ocean while actually being on a lake.
It’s like the little lake that could.
The second half of our family vacation was spent at Cannon Beach, for those of you who aren’t Twitter/Facebook friends and/or have been too busy holidaying yourself to pay attention to the minor details. Why Cannon Beach? Well, we spent but an afternoon there last fall on our annual stateside shopping trip and fell in love. Having the chance to see my Kerri Anne yet again was an added bonus.
(Speaking of Kerri, please tell me that you read this post. Please make sure that you’re not drinking or eating while you read it, lest you choke. Consider yourselves warned. )
I mentioned that the first part of our vacation was not what you would call restful. We left Vancouver a day early (to escape the gnomes, and) in order to spend a night in Seattle so that we could be that much closer to our final destination on the day we got to check in to our cabin. We booked it to the Coast, unloaded our stuff and looked at the view and then made the three-minute trek down to the water.
Pretty, right?
Breathtaking, beautiful and BITTERLY COLD. I mean, I knew we wouldn’t be having the high temperatures that we’re used to in the Okanagan, but that ocean wind was pretty biting.
Nothing that a hoodie couldn’t remedy.
Thursday morning we woke up to gloomy, misty weather but the winds had stopped and it was a lot warmer.
The kids played in the sand and the mud while we watched the waves roll in and then Matthew decided to write in the sand. He started with my name, finished his creation and then stood up proudly, only to see my standing there laughing.
He quickly did an edit.
There was only so much mist and gloom that we could take and so we treated the kids to a movie (Despicable Me – my new favorite animated movie). The rest of the evening was spent in the cabin, teaching the kids how to play Scrabble, reading and just hanging out.
Friday, we headed into the city of Portland. We spent a couple of hours at Powell’s buying books, then fall clothes for the kids and then ended up at our ultimate destination: dinner at Deschutes with some of my good blog friends. Kerri’s been to my house before, so she’s met the family, but nobody else had. I got to see friends and friends got to meet the four biggest loves in my life. Win, win.
In the back with me is Amanda. Front row, left to right: Sarah, Vahid, Rhi and Kerri.
Miss Kerri and her little pug Iggy (he loves me) came to spend the delight of everyone. We talked, we walked, we sat, we took photos.
This one that that Kerri took of Emily and I makes me smile every time I even think about it.
Kerri and Iggy headed home in the late afternoon and the family and I headed down to the beach to take our family photo.
After supper, I went on a solo mission down to the beach to capture the sunset.
I was so amazing to just stand on the edge of the water and soak in the beauty.
So, yeah. Our family vacation was even more than we hoped for and our kids did so amazing (TWELVE HOUR drive home and not a single meltdown. NOT ONE) that we’ll definitely be going on another road trip next year. Will it be back to Cannon Beach? Yes. No. Maybe.
*More photos of our trip in this Flickr set
Home Sweet Home
Date: Monday July 26, 2010Posted in: Emily, Family, Graham, Honey, Nathan, me, vacating
Team Dykstra spent nine nights and ten days together in close quarters and lived to tell about it.
Stories to follow once I recover from our epic TWELVE HOUR drive home yesterday and the many late nights we pulled. So…tomorrow? Maybe? Sometime before I leave for New York next Monday (!), I promise. I hope you all had as great of a week as we did.
Adventure #1
I live in the fair land of Canada where there are vast mountain ranges, plentiful forests and more bacon (and beer) than anyone could ever hope for. The one thing we lack up here is the access to a lot of American online shopping. Luckily for Matthew and I, we live a mere hour from the border and from a stateside store that will accept packages on your behalf. We usually just send packages to Kerri and have her send them on to us but Matthew was SO EXCITED about getting his new hunting paraphernalia (scope and range finder) that he couldn’t wait until our trip to Oregon next week. And he thinks I’m impatient.
A lot of people from around here will make the trip not just for packages shipped from the U.S., but in order to buy things like cheese and gas and meat and alcohol because items such as those (and others) are infinitely cheaper once you cross the border. In nine years of living here, we had never made that trip and thought that it was high time we did so. We even decided to drive an extra hour south in order to check out Omak, which I’m pretty sure means, “Armpit of Washington State”. We made sure to document this moment for posterity.
The trip wasn’t exciting, really, but it was a nice day for a drive and it gave us something to do for the day while the kids were away. I even managed to score a pair of Columbia hiking boots for $60 at Prince’s. We ended the day by eating dinner on the upper deck at one of our favorite restaurants. A pretty decent day all around.
Adventure #2
I mentioned above that Matthew had ordered hunting gear that we had gone to pick up. He took up hunting last fall, complete with a course and a license and a BIG BOW AND ARROW. He has since procured a gun with, like, bullets and stuff and hopes to shoot some game that we can eat. I’m not sure how it works in the rest of the world, but in Canada there are open seasons for hunting. In addition, there is a “lottery” in which you put your name in, in the hopes that you can win the chance to hunt certain animals. Matthew put his name in for Mountain Sheep and WON. Our pastor has been putting in for that lottery for fourteen years. Another friend of ours has been putting in for that ticket for NINETEEN YEARS.
Needless to say, Matthew is particularly happy about this hunting opportunity. He wants to make sure that he does it right and is outfitting himself with all of the necessary equipment. Last weekend, while I was driving the kids to Grandma’s, he loaded up his ATV and went to scout out the area that he won the ticket for. He rode the ATV as far as he could and then turned back – it wasn’t safe to ride and it was getting too late to hike. He thought that maybe we could spend a day while the kids were away and make the two-hour hike to the summit from the point where he had turned back.
And so, that’s what we did last Friday.
We drove an hour and half away from here to a sleepy town called Keremeos. We went about five minutes past the town, hung a left and started driving down a back country road. Matthew: “Do you see that mountain top in the center with the rocky cap? That’s where we’re going.”
Alrighty then.
We got to the start of the second trail (Matthew had taken the second trail and wanted to stick with what he knew), unloaded the ATV and started up the trail.
About a half an hour into our ride we stopped at a mountain meadow. The ATV engine was getting a little hot in the blazing sun and Matthew thought I might like to take a few photos.
He thought right.
We carried on to the place where we would park the ATV, ate our lunch, and used said ATV as a tripod in order to take a photo of the two of us in case we perished before we set off on our hike.
We started walking (uphill) and chatting about how great it was that we were doing this and before we knew it, we came to a fence that was a dead end. To the left? Insurmountable fences, trees and whatnot. To the right? This:
We assumed this was the path.
We started walking through the mud and the creek and the logs and all of a sudden I had a gash on the back of my thigh.
Me: “Honey! I’m bleeding!” Him: “I thought you brought Band-Aids?” Me: “No…I said that I was going to bring some but you said that you had packed the First Aid Kit.” Him: “Oh, right. I left that back at the quad.”
Nothing a little bit of toilet paper and a whole lot of pressure couldn’t deal with. Me, and him.
We carried on, following the fence line and once we reached a gate, we crossed over. The peak was far to the left but we kind of weaved upwards, at a very vertical angle, for a good hour or more, until we found ourselves on another ATV path. Path #1, it seems, goes right to the summit. Oh well, we had wanted a workout anyway.
A few minutes into our walk along the trail we saw a bunch of mountain sheep. Approximately twenty or so on the hillside and two directly in our path. We kept inching forward and every time they looked up I snapped a photo and this is as close as we got and Mr. Hunter was a little giddy about it all.
He got out his scope and range finder and I took photos of the view.
“The bowl”:
The sheep scurried off and we carried along. I made a joke that it didn’t look very far away, kind of like when you were in Vegas and the next hotel didn’t look very far away.
I was right in my estimation – it took about a half hour to get to the summit. We stopped for a quick snack and a quick use of the scope.
I also asked that he take a photo of me in order to document the whole, “I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN” thing.
Here is where it all got interesting. Mr. Wilderness deduced that if we cut down through the bowl instead of going back the way we came, we’d cut a load of time off of our return trip. It had taken us two hours to get to the top; it would probably take an hour to get back down through this new route. I was a little skeptical. I mean, I have to chant, “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” every time I need to figure out N/E/S/W and, well. Would cutting down through the bowl really work? Or would we be lost FOREVER? He assured me that it would work. Added bonus: We’d get to go past the lone patch of snow still on the mountain.
Here’s what we soon discovered: the bowl was awash in underground water. What thrives in underground water? MOSQUITOES, THAT’S WHAT.
We had sprayed each other many times over (what with the sweating and all)(Sweat + bug repellent = I was smelling MIGHTY FINE) and the bugs weren’t biting, per se, but they were swarming and the high-pitched whine in my ear and feeling them all around me led me to run like a crazy woman with her hands in a perpetual windmill motion. Until…we came across a field of pretty wildflowers.
I whipped out the camera, snapped a few photos and then set off running again. My backpack wasn’t even locked and loaded and I was yelling, “Go, go, GO!” I whimpered once or twice about my sore feet and my aching knees but there was no way on God’s green Earth that I was going to stop for a rest. When we finally made it to the fence I looked back and, lo. There was the snow patch all teeny in the distance.
We made it back the the ATV, swatting mosquitoes the whole way, and packed up as quickly as possible so that we could start riding down the hill and escape the swarms. We hopped on the quad, started to make our way down the trail and about ten minutes in we heard a strange sound.
Tha-THUNK.
Oh, SNAP.
All four bolts on the tire had mysteriously disappeared and there was nothing to hold it in place.
Might I add that we were a forty-minute ride from the base of the mountain?
My ingenious husband took two bolts from the other back tire and we limped our way down the hill. An hour or so later we saw our truck and trailer and said, “We made it!” in unison. He loaded the ATV into the trailer while I sat in the air-conditioned cab and freed my feet from their confinement. But, eh. We were going HOME. We turned ourselves around, drove approximately TWO MINUTES and came across this sight:
Why, YES, that is a truck that is ON FIRE. In the middle of a COUNTRY ROAD of which there is NO ALTERNATE ROUTE. We ended up sitting there for AN HOUR AND A HALF until the gas talk had dissipated enough so that the forestry guy said that they did not “recommend” driving through but as long as we “accepted the liability” we were free to go. And go we did, for we had kids to meet up with.
I took a shot as we sailed by.
Stupid truck.
Photos and stories aside, this day will stand out as one of my most favorite days. Ever. I work out almost every day but climbing a mountain is kind of a big deal to me. I did it without fatigue, without complaining (except for those darned MOSQUITOES) and without injury. I expected to wake up the next morning with muscles that were screaming at me but, no. I just felt more invigorated. If that even makes sense.
Sometimes I get a little tired of the daily exercise regime and the fact that it makes me bulkier than I used to be but then I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN and realized that maybe strength is greater than your dress size. Literally and figuratively.
When we made plans for the kids to make their second annual trip to Grandma’s house, it came with a lot of hand-wringing on my part. Last year we were so lost without them! I felt like I had a big weight on my shoulders! They missed us immensely! Do they really need to go?
We asked the kids what they wanted to do and they immediately replied with GO TO GRANDMA’S HOUSE and they counted down the “sleeps” until we left and not even an hour into the (six hour) drive, Nathan asked: “Are we at the ferry boat yet?”
Matthew and I made plans to cope the exact same way we did last year – get away from our (empty, deathly quiet) house except for those blissful nighttime hours in our pillow-top king-sized bed. Unfortunately for me, he made plans to go fishing with his brother Monday afternoon/evening (Yay! Fishing! He loves fishing!) which saw me alone in our (monstrous, deathly quiet) house.
I tried to make the best of it. The rest of our days and evenings are packed to the brim with work (only today – I have another four-day weekend) and barbecues with friends and shopping and watching a movie (Eclipse, last night) and day trips and adventures that will be well-documented with my camera. I decided that I would work ahead on some of my freelance stuff so that I could truly have some days “off”.
But then I called the kids to say good night and they all whimpered about how much they missed me and Emily and Nathan flat-out lost it and I hung up the phone with tears in my eyes. And THEN, my Internet decided to crap out. I did the whole unplug everything/plug it back in trick and still nothing and I called technical support and after FORTY-FIVE MINUTES on the phone with him he confirmed that it was an issue on their end and that I should just check it every half an hour. Dude. I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.
Matthew came home in the middle of it all and was so! excited! about the fish he caught and I was all, “I’m happy for you but TONIGHT IS NOT GOING WELL FOR ME.” And then I turned into a blubbering mess because I had something due today and the STUPID SATELLITE INTERNET wasn’t working on a PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL DAY and COMPUTER ISSUES MAKE ME DO THE HULK SMASH and I AM A HORRIBLE MOM because MY KIDS MISS ME and I MISS THEM and yet I’M STILL HERE and THEY’RE STILL THERE and MAYBE TONIGHT WASN’T THE BEST NIGHT TO LEAVE ME ALL BY MYSELF.
(I didn’t actually yell – by the time those thoughts made it through the snot and tears it was more of a muted whiney sound.)
So, I packed up my computer and went to a friend’s house to get my stuff done and came back home and we mutually agreed that we should just talk in the morning and I went to bed. I hit the gym in the morning, then called him after my class. Me: “Sorry I was so emotional.” Him: “Sorry I was so insensitive.” And all is right in the world again.
It pains me whenever I talk to the kids but we’re doing the best we can to enjoy this time that we have as just the two of us. Our plans for Thursday and Friday have me ridiculously excited (Photo opportunities galore!) and I know that the days will fly by. Then, Friday night, my babies will be back in the fold. As for now, we are okay.
More than okay, really.
* Joshua Radin. I heart his music.
Growing up in a small town on the North Coast of B.C., we watched mostly American programming on the teevee. Oh, we watched The Littlest Hobo and The Beachcombers, but the rest of our time was spent watching feeds from the US of A. We even watched King 5 news out of Seattle (because our local news was painfully, horribly awful). We were so immersed in the American culture that I felt we were somehow just an extension of our neighbors to the south – kind of like a baby sister.
You can imagine my reaction when, upon going to Disneyland with my family when I was in high school, I was shocked (and a little amused) at how little Americans knew about Canada. I still remember meeting some American teenagers in the hotel pool who fired questions at me that were so absurd I remember them years later.
So…all of your policemen ride on horses?
Do you live in an igloo?
Do you have a T.V.?
Have you ever heard of Nintendo?
I mean, where did they think we were from? The Arctic? Or Saskatchewan?
When I went to college at Briercrest, there was a contingent of Californians who attended at the same time I did (Californians enduring a prairie winter is a sight to be seen). Getting to know these friends of mine, I came to realize that we Canadians are not the baby sister of the United States. This belief has been further solidified in my (nearly) five years of blogging as I’ve come to know so many Americans, some of whom I consider heart friends. We are have a culture that is is influenced by our American cousins, yes, but we are unique in our own right. We are not better (though we may secretly believe that we are)(and make jokes to that extent)(but you didn’t hear it from me), we are different.
Canadian health care may have its glitches, yes, but a few years ago when we contemplated moving to California the main “con” in our debate was the lack of health care. In Canada, we pay $108 per month for our family and we can go for well-checkups, sick-diagnoses, trips to the ER for any reason and even HAVE A BABY (or three). I’d never give that up.
We refer to beverages such as Diet Coke as pop, not soda.
French is our other official language, and as such I find myself throwing French words/phrases into every day speech. Bonjour (hello). Je ne sais pas (I don’t know). Comment ca va? (How are you?) Tres bien (Very good). Pamplemousse (grapefruit)(I just love how it sounds).
Those slatted things that keep the sun from coming through your windows? I call them blinds, not shades.
The tub of hot water out on the deck is referred to as a hot tub. A spa is a place where you go to gets pedicures and get your nether regions waxed.
I often refer to the bathroom as the washroom. They’re interchangeable.
Same goes for dinner and supper.
Speaking of dinner, I refer to forks, knives and spoons as cutlery. A napkin may also be referred to as a serviette (if I’m feeling fancy). When we’re cleaning up afterward, we shove food in the sink down the garburator.
In the winter we keep our heads warm by wearing toques, not beanies.
Enough from me, I think that Joe from the Molson Canadian commercial sums it up best.
Happy 143rd birthday, Canada. I’m proud to be a child of this amazing country. Happy Independence Day to my American friends as well – we’re so very different yet so very similar. Have a fantastic long weekend, everyone. See you on the other side.
If you’ve spent any time reading my blatherings for any length of time, you know that I’m a pretty positive person. I can’t help it, really. I am one of those annoying “eternal optimists” and even if I weren’t, I have a pretty charmed life. I’m married to a handsome man who cherishes me and together we’ve built a family that consists of three of the most fascinating children that this world has ever seen. We live in a nice house that we (he) made our own on a large property that backs onto Crown (Government) land and is walking distance from a creek that burbles alongside the Trans Canada Trail. I have a great job with fantastic benefits and a circle of friends both far and near that fill my heart to overflowing.
I have nothing to complain about. In my head, I know this.
Every once in awhile (once every twenty-eight to thirty-five days, if you want to get specific), my rational head seems to disappear. It’s like I’m stripped of my armor and those other things get to me. Those things that seem so innocuous the rest of the month in light of all of the good in my life are suddenly towering over me and I cannot will them away, even if I try. I feel helpless and hopeless and the tears flow freely. I try to talk myself out of the tears but that only makes it worse because I get mad at myself for being such an insensitive jerk and MAYBE IT’S OK TO CRY SOMETIMES, ANGELLA.
What is it that’s breaking through the armor this month?
I’ve had plan in the works for a side project that I’m super excited about but it’s been sputtering and hiccuping and stalling for FIVE MONTHS and I’m feeling creatively constipated and the back end is out of my expertise, so. I’m standing here with my hands tied and my tongue tied and I don’t know where to go from here.
My kids are leaving this coming weekend for a week at Grandma’s. Last year found Matthew and I wandering around our empty house like lost puppy dogs and I had hoped that this year would involve less tears and more productivity. Right now, I’m not so sure that it’s a feasible reality.
My Mom. I haven’t talked to her since that weekend that I posted my side of the story and I’m not really surprised. It’s always been up to me to make that first phone call where we pretend that nothing happened and carry on as we have always done. I no longer feel the need to be the grown-up in the situation, so I haven’t done a thing. I’ve let it go, for the most part, and will go days or weeks without thinking about it. Then the walls come down and I just don’t get it. I look at my three kids and know how much I love them and ache for them and cannot comprehend that my own mother does not feel the same. How can you inflict so much hurt upon your child and not want to make it better? Am I so unworthy? In her eyes, I suppose so.
My broken edges are jutting out and my eyes are dripping my chest is heavy and then my husband runs inside and tells me to grab my camera because the sunset is SO PRETTY.
Thanks be for someone who will listen to your hurts and wrap you in a bear hug and then points you to something so inspiring that you forget why you were crying in the first place.
For the last few weeks I’ve felt as though the Internet has seemed a little noisy. There are the regular updates from friends and the links to everybody’s posts/fan pages/random Facebook game that I haven’t blocked yet and Twitter tweets and retweets and people linking to their own stuff ten times a day and, and, and. I started avoiding the Internet a lot because it seemed like every time I opened it up there were a bunch of people (not everyone or my good friends, mind you) standing there, much like my kids do, screaming, “Look at me! Look at me! LOOOOOK AT MEEEEEEE!” I can be guilty of it too, to an extent, but I often find myself a the other end of the spectrum – I don’t take myself seriously enough. So, from where I stand and how I’m wired, I was feeling a little turned off by the whole thing. I caught myself longing for our upcoming family vacation so that I could unplug for a week and have a break from it all.
Then I had myself one of those things that the kids these days are calling an epiphany: I can unplug from the Internet whenever I want to. I’m not on the Internet a lot over the weekends as it is, but will sometimes scroll through Twitter and Facebook as we’re out and about and occasionally interject my own thoughts into the pool of status updates. I decided that I would shut down for the weekend, apart from playing the occasional round of Scrabble/Words With Friends and maybe posting a photo or two to Flickr. Ignoring the constant buzz was a break that my brain needed and there was an added bonus: I didn’t scoop myself on post ideas for this here website.
So what did I do while I was free from the pressure of trying to think of witty status updates and the pressing need to quote my hilarious children? More of the usual, really.
My last status update on Friday afternoon read as follows:
Matthew: “Should we take the kids to (starts spelling) T-O-Y S-T” Graham: “TOY STORY 3? WE’RE GOING TO TOY STORY 3???” Well, we are now.
So that’s what we did. Little known fact: The original Toy Story was the first movie Matthew and I went to together, the weekend after that fateful first date. To be sitting in a theater ten years later with our three children was a little surreal. I won’t spoil the movie plot for those who haven’t seen it, but if you didn’t cry at the end then you have a piece of coal where your heart should be.
Saturday and Sunday was more of the usual: Groceries and errands, last day of soccer for the boys, the kids running through the sprinkler while I read a book. I opted out of taking more sprinkler photos because really, how many do I need? I took more than enough last weekend. I did, however, take a photo of Miss Emily’s new bathing suit because she asked me to.
We acquired that last Tuesday on our Girl’s Day Out and I kind of love it.
Saturday night was a Girls’ Night In at my friend Tamara’s house and it was a much needed time to reconnect. She and I have both returned to work full-time which means that we don’t get to participate in play dates anymore we pretty much never get to see Amanda, which is just wrong. Eight of us sat around Tamara’s table and we ate, we talked, we laughed. It was good.
Sunday marked the end of baseball season for Matthew and my brother. There was a weekend-long ball tournament wherein the team that ended the season in last place (theirs) then went on to WIN THE TOURNAMENT.
Yay, Levelers!
In non this-is-what-we-did news and more this-is-what-is-going-on-with-me news, I have had a bit of a wake-up call fitness-wise. I gave up weighing myself almost a year ago because I found that every time it wavered a pound or two I would get a little crazy. I gained two pounds! OH NO! or I lost two pounds! Bring on the chips! It was getting a little bit ridiculous so I quit the scale cold turkey and used my clothes to gauge where I was at. It has worked for me, for the most part.
When we went to Vegas we walked a lot, yes, but we also ate really tasty food and consumed more beverages than we normally do and I was pretty sure I had gained a few pounds while we were away. In the weeks since returning I had still been a little lax with my eating and exercise habits and was feeling a little uncomfortable in my own skin. Last weekend I decided it was time to bring out the scale to confirm that either a) I was being a silly girl or b) I had, in fact, gained weight. IT WAS B. Nine pounds, if you want the specifics.
I have cut out sugar, bread and treats until I get back to my non-jiggly weight. I’ve also made sure to stick to my daily workouts and both days this weekend I opted to run down the trail with Diesel.
He’s a happy camper to get some extra exercise and I’m a happy camper to know he’s got my back should we run into a bear or a cougar. I’m also happy to report that a week after finally stepping on the scale, I’m down three of those nine pounds. Six to go!
I guess that all of the above is really about finding balance. It’s something that I have always struggled with, and probably always will, but I find that the swings are getting less wild and dramatic and more like gentle sways back and forth. For the most part.
