I was shocked and dismayed today to read this blog entry today: Hate groups don’t belong in Canada – Go home Westboro Baptist Church!  I can't believe a group that calls itself a CHURCH would invade the funeral of the victim of such a horrible crime. And their reasons make about as much sense as ... well, I can't think of anything as poorly reasoned.

It also makes me sad that they smear the reputation of our good friends and neighbours to the south, who already have such a bad rap to deal with. I have met few individual Americans who actually deserve the reputation the country has. It's stories like this that fuel the fire.

Well, the balloon glory has been over for a long time. The middle of April was the last time I could even barely consider it floating. Just a bit...

 It's almost like it's waving goodbye. It gave me joy for four whole months, first far above my head, then later at eye-level, and finally just getting in the way of my feet as I tried to use the stairs. Ah, balloon, what a prankster you were.

Goodbye, balloon!

Yellowknife is far. Far from what? - you ask. Far from everything. The nearest town is over an hour away, and it is really small, and far. After that, everything else is really really far. It's just far.

We had fun there, though. Even though it was April, the lakes were all frozen and there was lots of snow. We went walking on a lake. OK, actually, it was a tailings pond.

I drove on Great Slave Lake. It was really cool.

Heather and Lee and Chris tried to figure out how deep the ice was, but they just couldn't figure out where to put the ruler.

I ate lots of wild meat.

My hair stood on end because it was so dry and cold.

We saw the coolest Northern Lights EVER!!!

It was all pretty darn awesome.

Well, my balloon is not doing so well. Its little string is not as taut as it used to be, and when the furnace comes on, it dives for the floor. I think we're seeing the last weeks of my balloon.

In preparation for its journey to balloon heaven (I'm guessing before the end of April? We'll see...), I gave it a sticker from the War Amps reminding it to drive safe. Since I live in the National Capital Region, I made sure the sticker was in French.

Almost 11 weeks old now. That's pretty impressive.

I love my ballon, even if it has started to bore me.

My balloon is more than 10 weeks old. It's starting to lose its resiliance a little when people walk by it and disturb the air. It used to just drift a little then pop back up, tightening the ribbon; straining against the weight holding it down. Now it takes a few minutes before the ribbon is taut(-ish).

And, it's definitely lost its plumpness. It's kind of tired and sad looking, but still very pretty. I gave it a nice sticker for Easter.

Chris says the weight of all the stickers probably adds to its recovery time when it's disturbed. But I don't care. It likes the stickers.

And I love my balloon.

My balloon is now almost 9 weeks old. It's not as plump as it used to be, but it's still as shiny as ever, and it still floats just as high. It is a very spunky balloon.

I know I said below that I couldn't find a sticker for St. Patrick's Day for my balloon, but then I went to the doctor's office. The lady that took my blood pressure had rolls of stickers in her blood pressure-taking room, so when I screamed, "YOU HAVE ST. PADDY'S STICKERS!!!! OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET ME HAVE ONE??!!!!" she kindly let me take one from the roll.

Whew. Just in the nick of time.

I love my balloon

I sat in the snow for about 30 minutes getting these pictures (except the first one - Chris took it). It was fun. My bum is cold.

A special shout-out to my friend Rick who did some crazy voodoo to ensure a clear night.

I think my balloon might be starting to lose some of its pleasant plumpness.  However, it is still beautiful. I gave it a little heart for Valentine's Day.

I love my balloon.

Well, we did it. Unlike what they claim in that annoying commercial, chicken pot pie is not the most comforting pie. It really is macaroni and cheese pie (for the beginnings of this concept, click here).

So here is how you make macaroni and cheese pie:

1. Boil some salted water

2. Cook a random amount of macaroni (I picked a random amount because I really didn't know how much would fit in the pie shell - turns out, a random amount was too much)

3. If you're OCD about pre-preparation like I am, grate some (a.k.a. a random amount) cheese for the top of the pie while the macaroni is boiling - better yet, get Chris to do it

4. Make some cheese sauce

5. Put the right amount of macaroni into the cheese sauce (determined by taking the cooked macaroni and filling up the pie shell with it then putting the rest of the macaroni in the fridge for later) - then put the macaroni and cheese into the pie shell

6. Put the cheese that Chris grated for you on top of the pie - better yet, get Chris to do it

7. Bake the pie for a while, at the temperature they tell you to on the pie shell box (in other words, I don't really remember what I did)

8. Lesson learned - let the pie cool for a bit before cutting into it

9. Watch Chris nervously take his first bite

10. Watch the delight quickly spread over Chris' face

Now that, my friend, is Comfort Pie.

My balloon is now three weeks old. I was going to take another picture of it, but that would be silly, because it still looks exactly the same. For an idea of what my balloon looks like now, please see last week's post.

An update, however, is that Chris has stopped trying to steal it, although it often scares him first thing in the morning when he starts going down the stairs.