Where Has the Time Gone?

It was about two years ago to this very day that I began a labour of love, which became my blog about my family's life in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories.  It started out as a way for family and friends to hear about our adventures and keep up with us but it blossomed into much more than that.  For me, it became my life link to you - and blogging kept me connected to you, and your love and support gave all of us the courage and the strength to keep going during that year of struggle for my family.  That is not to say it was all bad - we had some pretty amazing experiences and met some amazing people there, for which we will always be grateful.

The second thing the blog did as a happy coincidence, was that it helped me discover my 'voice' as a writer.  I found it to be very therapeutic and certainly a joy in my life.  The Tuk blog had more followers than I realized.  Friends and family sent the link to the Tuk blog to their friends who passed it along and although I did not have more than a few regular followers who actually subscribed to the blog - I had more regular followers who just followed the link sent to them by friends, as I sent out a new link every time there was a new entry via email and facebook. Thank God for social media!

We spent the 2015/2016 school year in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, which is the capital city. Yellowknife is located in the south of the NWT (pronounced en, double yah, tee), and has most of the amenities of a larger city just with less population and forest and rock all around it.  Yellowknife was great because it had a diverse population, restaurants of all kinds including some chain ones, shopping including Walmart, Staples, Marks' Work Wearhouse, etc.; a movie theatre with two screens; lots of schools, paved roads, multiple grocery stores, and well....civilization that we are used to enjoying.  Tuk is awfully remote!

Although we enjoyed life in Yellowknife - the kids settled into their schools, and Greg and I our jobs, there were some things that didn't sit well with us, and by March we knew that Yellowknife was just not to be our permanent home.  Yellowknife proved to be a place of healing for the kids - and they were very upset to leave it.  James is slow to make friends and accept his surroundings and he had just begun to do so, Patrick had an awesome class in a late entry French Immersion program designed for students in Grade Seven which he loved, and Charlotte had made some wonderful friends. Yes, they are not very happy that they had to leave Yellowknife.

After a most magnificent summer which included a three week road trip through many of the Western United States' National Parks, a few days in Las Vegas, and more views of the mountains and desserts of the US than I ever knew existed - we spent the remainder of the summer in Parry Sound, at Camp Gramma and Grampa - a great place that I highly recommend, especially if your last name ends in Wilson.  Of course, Greg and I are tolerated because we created the grandchildren, who are the real guests. :)

It has been a spectacular summer in terms of weather too.  I can think of two days where it rained all day! We had a few small thunderstorms, but those were in the evenings and they lasted all of a few minutes. Other than that, it has been extremely hot and means we head to the beach!  The water at Lake Rosseau is warmer than it has been in several years, and we had some days where we all spent the whole afternoon into the evening in the water.  It doesn't matter how much SPF 60 we slather on - we are all golden brown and freckly!

While the days blur by, Greg and I are becoming more and more immersed in our preparations for our move to Northern Ontario, and here we are just days away from our move.  We have accumulated a whole pile of furniture over the last few weeks from an auction and some great online finds, and so we are ready to load it into a truck and meet the moving van with all our Yellowknife belongings in Dryden on August 15, 2016. Well, that is the plan.  Here's hoping.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, now that you know all the reasons The Wilson Family has come to be where we are.  You say you are interested in hearing about our lives, even from Exotic Dryden, so that is what I will strive to give you - tales and anecdotes and eye-witness accounts of our life as we know it.  Thank you for your love and support of our adventures and of my writing.  I have missed blogging and look forward to sharing what adventures await us with you.  We love you all!