Mod Mischief

This week we got our first snowfall of the season. I'm glad we had already put up a bunch of our Halloween decorations, although it does hide many of the details, like the fresh mounds of dirt on the graves and the bones strewn around the yard. We're going for full-on, obnoxious-level, Halloween decor this year. Axel loves it, even if  he finds some of it scary. Hopefully it will help attract more trick-or-treaters to our house. I'll have to post more photos when it's all done - there's still lots to add! The snow has pretty much all melted away now, but winter is almost upon us.

The Canadian Arctic Aviation Tour was in town this weekend.  Sunday was a beautiful day; it was perfect for sipping lemonade and watching the trick planes from our front porch. We took Axel up the airport to see the planes up close. He was so excited he was skipping and jumping the whole way from the parking spot to the planes. Not a bad way to spend the day with a 2 year-old!

  While I was in love with his adorable curls, Axel has been brushing his hair out of his eyes an awful lot lately and we decided it was finally time for his first haircut. before Axel and Chris both went for a trim today at the Shed .   The stylists were awesome and handled Axel's tears and screams with incredible patience. I'm very impressed the final results considering all the squirming he did! after

The dog teams are making record time in their race to the end of the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest this year. Axel and I went to watch the start of the race, and it was a much warmer day than the last time  it was in Whitehorse. It is always great to see all the excitement at the start of the race. Axel loved seeing all the dogs and he was also a big fan of the Dakhká Khwáan Dancers. He was talking about the drums for the rest of the week!

This ol' blog of mine feels pretty neglected of late. It's not that we haven't been doing much, it's just that I haven't been finding the time to write about it. Despite it being long overdue, I thought I should share some photos from Halloween. This was Axel's first time trick-or-treating and getting into the spirit of Halloween. We read a lot of Halloween books and watched a bunch of Halloween kids specials on Netflix leading up to the big day, so when it came time to hit the streets, he knew exactly what to do. It was adorable, seeing him so excited to knock on doors and hold out his candy bucket. We wanted to make the most of the giant bird we had on hand, so we went with a cursed jungle decoration theme to work in Kevin. We put up our Teal Pumpkin Project signs at the start of the month, in the hopes that it would help attract more trick-or-treaters, but we still only got 5 kids at our door on Halloween night. We're the only hou...

We hope you had a wonderful long weekend! The weather in Whitehorse has been beautiful so we tried to make the most of it. Today was a little overcast, but it was still great for an Easter scavenger hunt at the Y ukon Wildlife Preserve.

Last year, the theme for the Sourdough Rendezvous was "the future is now" and the organizers decided that, in keeping with the theme, the annual ball would be a steampunk ball. The Steampunk Ball was such a huge success, the organizers decided to do it again this year. While YuKonstruct helped with decorations last year, the makerspace's only contribution was laser cutting gears out of cardboard. This time around, Rendezvous approached YuKonstruct to design and build some really impressive steampunk props. Chris and I jumped at the opportunity to build some epic steampunk decor. Chris designed an airship and porthole photobooth backdrop in SketchUp and then we built them with the help of several YuKonstruct and Yukon Comic Culture Society volunteers. Another YuKonstruct member made an awesome jacob's ladder and incredible compass rose for the stage. A video posted by Allison (@modmischief) on Feb 26, 2016 at 11:17pm PST It was a ...

Axel with the can can dancers The Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous wrapped up this weekend. It's a fantastic winter festival full of contests, events and people dressing up in gold-rush-inspired costumes. The weather over the weekend was too warm for the snow sculptors' liking, but Axel and I thought it was fantastic for walking around Shipyards Park and enjoying the sights. Axel said his first word, "dog", last week and he got lots of practice pointing out all the dogs in the park.

Yesterday, Axel and I braved the -35°C weather to watch the start of the Yukon Quest . It was awesome to see a big crowd cheering on the dog teams despite the cold. Yukoners are tough!   The dogs are so excited at the start of the race, it's really fun to watch. At YuKonstruct the other night, our friend Tom made Axel his own fur hat. Not bad for his first sewing project, eh? In honour of the start of the Quest, Axel wore it to look like a real Yukoner in his weekly photo .

YuKonstruct has been keeping us really busy! never too young to appreciate lasers Inspired by a cardboard plane costume I saw online, I talked Chris into helping make YuKonstruct's Winterval Santa Clause Parade entry. Chris did all the design work and we built a small prototype at home before using YuKonstruct's laser cutter to cut out all the full sized pieces. It was a great way to use up a bunch of the cardboard we had left over from our ongoing renovations! Chris' work on the planes even landed him in the news paper. "Elves with lasers" might be my favourite headline ever. We took a quick break from assembling planes to host YuKonstruct's Christmas card workshop and Chibitronics build night  this past Thursday. We rejigged some of our past cards to make craft kits for the event and made some cool new cards that light up. Yesterday was finally the big day for the parade and the planes were a huge hit! Air North, liked ...

This morning we woke up to snow! Whitehorse was hit by over 10 cm of snow today. I guess I should get around to harvesting the vegetables from the garden, eh?

This Saturday was Whitehorse's first Nuit Blanche . Chris and I were really excited about such a cool event coming up to the Yukon (we were already familiar with how awesome the Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto versions are). We were pretty tired from a very busy week showing guests around town, and we were volunteering for part of the night, so we didn't get to see all of the installations, but what we did see was pretty cool. Yukon Educational Theatre's Community Mandala What really makes Whitehorse's Nuit Blanche unique is the daylight. The sun sets after 11 pm but it never really gets dark this time of year. Chiaroscuro My favourite installation was Michel Gignac's Chiaroscuro . It was a small room with light bulbs full of water that you could "turn off or on" by pulling ropes that let in the sunlight. Koovy & the Groundwork Sessions Crew YuKonstruct , a local makerspace that Chris and I are involved with, was one of the ...

Spring has arrived here in Whitehorse. The snow has melted and the weather has been absolutely gorgeous for the last few weeks. Watching the swans on Marsh Lake Spring in the Yukon means swans. Hundreds of honking swans. Chris and I went to Swan Haven on Marsh Lake over the long weekend and the official swan count was over 990! My wingspan = about the same as a swan! Chris doing his best bird impersonation Spring also means that it's the perfect time for BBQ. I got Chris a barbecue for his birthday this month and  he couldn't be happier. When it's t-shirt weather in April, it feels like we should be cooking every meal outside!