Holy Smokes!

It’s been almost a month since I last wrote, and quite a few things have happened this month!

In a non-chronicle order, here is a quick overview

One of the more exiting things: we started looking, test drove, decided on, negotiated, bought, and picked up a new vehicle! We decided on the Mazda 3 Sky-activ, sport, and so far have been very happy with it.  We picked it up last Thursday, with a total of 9 km on the odometer, so indeed pretty new! We already noticed the benefits of having a hatch: we used it last weekend when picking up supplies for our gardens, and Nolan noticed it today while loading up at Costco!

As I mentioned, we picked up some garden supplies last weekend, and we’ll be spending next weekend reshaping some of our gardens and borders around our trees, and hopefully we’ll be planting as well!  We both really enjoy spending time in our gardens and really making it our own. Nolan has also really started to pay attention to the lawn, which is resulting in us having to cut it about twice a week now. Maybe a bit too much care?  We picked up some hanging baskets last week, simply to add some colour to our deck, they look amazing (next time, I’ll post pictures!). A highlight was when one of our planters was visited by a hummingbird! The first hummingbird I have ever seen in our back yard. Pretty cool!

We are also keeping busy with running; the marathon is coming quite close now, less than two weeks to go. We’ve had some really good runs, but also a couple of really bad runs. But on average our training has been quite good, especially considering our busy lives at the moment. The weather has been quite cool for our runs, so we are a little fearful that it will be hot during the race, but time will tell.

The last few days the weather has been absolutely amazing though. Mid 20’s for the last 2 days, and I’ve been able to take full advantage of it.  I am currently in Petawawa, staying on the base, while doing fieldwork at the PRF. I am writing this sitting in my dorm type room in the barrack without any type of internet access, so I’ll be posting this a bit later when back in the real world! I am helping a co-worker with the remeasurement of a large study I was involved with over 10 years ago, so it’s actually really nice to be out there again. I don’t get to spend a lot of time doing fieldwork anymore, and I have to admit that I absolutely love being out there! Even though the mosquitoes are brutal, it’s still very much worth it. It will be hard getting back to the office… But it looks like I’ll be getting some help, since we’re currently in the process of hiring a summer student, so that should take some of the pressure of. I can’t wait!

And that is pretty much it in a nut shell. Much more has happened, but that will have to wait until next time. And maybe I should just write more often...