A week at R+V's B&B

Last week we had our very first real visitors to our new home in Yellowknife! Rashaad’s sister and niece were on March Break and decided to spend their precious vacation days with us in a snowy, cold clime.

They were welcomed to Yellowknife by the iconic polar bear in the airport. We were very happy to see them! Chloe was most happy for their arrival because she would finally be reunited with all of her precious toys and treats from home! She had been waiting weeks to get her scratching post back.

With a new part-time job in retail for me, I was unable to attend some of the planned fun. But Rashaad took a couple vacation days off to host them. On Monday afternoon, I had arranged for the 3 of them to go dogsledding! This is an activity I cannot wait to do myself (and will be fortunate enough to do in less than 2 weeks when my parents come to visit)! They gushed over how much fun, serene, and amazing it was! They also drove out to Detah on the ice road and stopped to take some photos.

Happy, but still impatient to get running

On the move! The dogs know the route pretty well.

Our guests are in the lead (but we did catch back up and pass them).

Standing on the ice road, with the Con mine in the background.

Tuesday was full-on tourist day. We hit up the Yellowknife Visitor’s Centre, the Heritage Centre, the Legislative Assembly, Just Furs and than had lunch at the Dancing Moose. While I went to work for the afternoon, they continued playing tourists with visits to Weaver & Devore (Yellowknife’s first store) and Pilot’s Monument.

Not to be outdone by the eagle, Mr. Grizz wore a hat...on his neck hump.

On a scavenger hunt at the Northern Heritage Centre.

With Rashaad back to work on Wednesday and a day off for me, I finally got to play host! We had our first (and only) cloudy day/morning of their stay and ended up walking to the ice castle to explore. The slide got A LOT of use from his niece, who ended up with a sore bum the next day! I had then arranged for a glass and sandblasting workshop at Old Town Glassworks. In our 2 hour session, we got to learn about the historical building they are located in, the recycling process for the glass bottles that they use, and finally how to sandblast. We were then left to ourselves to choose our glass items, design our glassware patterns, and sandblast. We had a blast (pun intended). I had so much fun, I will definitely be going back to make some other fun stuff in the future.

To follow up on the previous post, this is what an Ice Castle toilet looks like.

At Glassworks, getting ready to sandblast.

While the aurora were out almost every night they were here, the best chance and night we got was a G1-G2 storm on Wednesday. We headed out to the ice road for the early show (around 10PM) and the lights just filled the sky!

Just in case you aren't sure what you are looking at, it is the aurora.

Thursday was a day of rest. It involved TV, cake baking, and work (for me). We headed out for Ethiopian food that night (which was delicious!). A lot of eating happened this week. We were always so stuffed.

On their last full day in Yellowknife, they had a shopping day with me! We wandered all around downtown and old town buying gifts to take home. While waiting for Rashaad to get home from work, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and go snowshoeing on Tin Can Hill. We ended with pizza night and a big brunch on Saturday morning (more eating!) before dropping them off back at YZF. Everyone made it safely home and tired out.