We have had many neat opportunities this winter. Below you can see us on Sawmill Lake, just a couple kilometres out of town, enjoying some skating and ice fishing with some of the local families. Unfortunately we never caught anything.

One of Aliz’s favourite things to do is put on her backpack and go to school with Gianna & Isaiah. She has even got used to the snow suit and is always such a character; making us laugh with her funny faces and expressions.

Kateri’s school had a winter fun day, so we joined in as a family!

Another fun, and interesting, games night! Our friends brought over their game, Pie Face!

We had the amazing opportunity to go to Whitehorse to attend the celebration of the ordination of the new bishop, Bishop Hector Vila. As being a part of the pastoral staff of the diocese it has been such a blessing to be a part of the whole celebration. After praying about moving north to do what we are doing we never imagined that when it was finally time to move north we would be without a bishop. So this was a very joy filled occasion for us! But even for all of the faithful gathered it was a celebration of joy. The ordination took place at Vanier High School in Whitehorse.

Celebrating an early birthday for Gianna in Whitehorse, with donuts!

If there is one thing we have discovered more than anything in these past few weeks it is the idea of just how reliant you are on one another in the North, especially in a small, isolated place like Telegraph Creek.

Having a part break on our washing machine, it is one thing to troubleshoot your own solution while another to wait for 10 business days while the part gets shipped to us. So we had to use our neighbours(the RCMP) washing machine a couple times and one of our friends washing machines a several times. But they were very gracious and happy to be of help.

Then, a priest had arrived for Mass this past Sunday and upon arriving he says, “My oil light came on when I just pulled in. I ran over a rock on my way in!” I saw him pull in with his little car, but the scary fact was that we are in spring meltdown here and the weather has been above zero most days. This means everything turns to mud and sludge on the roads and many of the hills coming in to town shed rocks, as everything unthaws, that litter the road way. So between mud bogging and dodging you are better to have good clearance or watch out. Anyways, we were able to contact one of the guys from just outside of town who has a welder. He came to take a look at the car, which we discovered had 2 smaller holes and 1 larger hole leaking oil out of the bottom of the oil pan. Our attempts to pull the oil pan were futile, with 2 bolts being impossible to get out with the angle they were at. To make a long story short, it was a good thing I had some spare diesel oil in the shed, with that we were able to drive the car to his shop and he was able to patch it up at least to the point where it was only a slight drip! And yes, he made it back to Whitehorse. Our friend insisted on not receiving any payment. And him and his wife even gave a large bag of their garden carrots and potatoes for Father to take back to use int he soup kitchen in Whitehorse.

It has been such a mild winter up here and we never ended up getting more than about 9-10 inches of snow.

We spent most of the month of February sick with various stomach and cold flu bugs. The Lord sent us a meal through good friends of ours and one of the parishioners here, John, has come and vacuumed and mopped our house several times! Bless you John!

And now our due date is coming up soon, so we will be heading south for a bit. We will miss everyone here for sure but are extremely excited about spending time with family and meeting our new little one, due April 2nd! Stay tuned!