Weekend Bliss

Some weekends are just blahhhhhh.  Sure there are fun moments in between all the stuff that needs to get done.  Stuff that maybe we should have been doing during the week so that we didn't have to spend the weekend playing catch up.

This wasn't one of those weekends.  We were busy.

 Well Pualatuk busy.

 Our busy and your busy are likely completely different.

We had sand mountains to climb, tunnels to digs, sand avalanches to start and watch the sand flake down towards us. Which who knew, is one of the funniest things ever to a two year old. 

The picture pretty much shows how far N made it up.  There were some great attempts to get further, but alas - this was it.  A friend and I trekked to the top, at first laughing at our progress, or lack of progress.  As became more clear to the other that we were both struggling to get to the top we began to joke about how this was the strairmaster from hell.  With every step up, we weren't sure if we'd actually end up closer to the top, or if we'd be caught in the mini sand avalanche that pushed us back down the hill. 

We did make it to the top after the longest 5 minute stairmaster trek ever.  Funny how looking one direction and looking the other you can see two totally different scenes.  Both breathtaking, but remarkably different.

This was looking down from stairmaster hell.

This is looking out towards the land from the top. This picture doesn't do it justice. My camera is KA proof, meaning sand, water, idiot proof because of my past relationships with good camera's....gone bad. The land is beautiful right now. Yellow and red scatter the landscape and its incredible to look at.

This picture makes it look brown. I guess you'll just have to trust me that it's not.

Here's an up close and personal view of the red.

We walked along the beach, often commenting how beautiful it was, and how we couldn't believe that we were in Paulatuk and this is what Pualatuk looks like.  Every time we thought the sun was in the perfect spot, a minute later we'd realize, no now it's in the perfect spot, only to stand corrected a minute later. 

We found lots of treasures.  Not necessarily the same treasures that I'm use to finding at Brule on the Norththumberland Straight of Nova Scotia - but treasures.

In Brule my sister, cousins and I spent entire summers out on the sandbar.  We'd build snail farms, catch crabs and starfish and play hopscotch on jellyfish filled mounds of sand.  We also spent entire days building barricade forts around us that we were positive would keep the tide from covering up our snail farm of the day.  Each fort would have thicker walls than the last, just a little taller, but our forts could never hold back the Atlantic tide.  It's a force not ever the strongest sand fortress could hold back.

Here's a sampling of what we found on our journey along the Arctic Ocean.

Caribou Skulls

I'm not sure where this floated in from, but I am certain it's not from close by.

There is a little sandpiper on a rock in the middle of this picture. I hope he gets a move on and heads South soon.

Lots of little jelly fish were beached along the shore

This is my favorite picture of the day.  He is so inquisitive.  I'm not sure what he was checking out. It could have been one of the many jelly fish, a little shrimp that he caught a glimpse of as it squiggled by, or maybe he saw his reflection.  I love this picture.

This was Sunday afternoon, and on it's own it was magnificent.  This was not all of our busy Paulatuk weekend.  There were no suppers at a fancy restaurant, no glasses of wines on the deck, no appointments to make, no traffic jams to avoid, no shopping errands to run.  But it was busy, Paulatuk style.

Busy Paulatuk style includes of course our walk on the beach, a gathering at a friends house to say good-bye to family off to their next adventure, preparing appetizers for a UFC gathering at our house.  Appetizers included homemade garlic bread with homemade donair sauce (yummy), homemade chicken wings, and a cheese dip.  And what are appies without our near beer.  I have to say, I'm not sure if it's because it's all we have or I'm just tricking myself, but near beer isn't that bad. 

It was a wild week-end : )