This weekend I learned a little bit about my Scottish ancestry. I was privileged enough to be able to witness and take part in the celebration of the well known Scottish poet, Robbie Burns Day. For those who attended... this event needs no further explanation.
For those who have never been... there are no combination of words which I am capable of putting together which may accurately describe this event. All you need to know is that this is an event that you should mark on your calendar and experience... at least once, in your lifetime.
And - I ate Haggis for the first time. I was told by the organizers it's actually mostly oatmeal. ... and then they laughed.
Please enjoy the pictures from the evening! Here's the link to see them all.
When entering Alli Peck’s home it is clear the fun and warmth that unfold here. She is a mother of four and has no issues joking about the chaos that often comes with having children. Alli is a local artist, mother and wife who has been involved in photography for six years. Originally trained in commercial photography, Alli knew that her direction needed to change when she moved into the North. With Fort St. John being such a young community, Alli began her company Glow Portraits, specializing in Belly, Baby and Boudoir photos.
Unfortunately, moving to the North meant Alli had to leave her parents. Saying goodbye was a hard step but Alli continued to speak with her mom on the phone everyday. It was in September, however, that Alli received a phone call she will never forget. The news that her Mom, Patti had been diagnosed with Cancer. A disease, that hits all too close to home for many families, and it was no different for the Pecks. The family was devastated and with the doctors being unable to pinpoint the main source of cancer, Patti was diagnosed with what is assumed to be Pancreatic Cancer.
After beginning the aggressive treatments, common side affects took place including the loss of Patti's hair. Not long after that she decided to shave her head. Confiding in Alli one phone conversation about her difficulties with her hair loss, Alli suggested pretty hats and scarves but Patty replied "Alli I feel ugly. You just don't know what it's like." Alli left the phone conversation knowing that nothing she could say would make it okay but instead was inspired to make a stand. If her Mom, someone who meant everything to her had to go through Cancer and deal with the loss of her hair, than Alli thought the least I can do is shave my head as well.
That night Alli called up Jennifer Jarebek, a local friend and hairdresser, to come over. The two of them decided to shave their heads bald without telling Patti what they had done and send her some photos with the final results. "As long as she has no hair I will have no hair. I will be bald" claims Alli.
But for anyone who has worked with Alli it is clear her everyday goal is to encourage women to feel confident and beautiful in their own skin. She continually finds way to keep on inspiring and she truly is a role model to her daughter and women everywhere that beauty lies much deeper than in our hair and skin.
"The truth is I'm not the real hero in all of this. The real hero is this woman. My Mom. It is the one who is fighting the cancer. The ones battling cancer who are Mom's, sisters, wives. They are the heroes. I just shaved my head" says Peck.
Last night I was blown away (once again) by the local theatre community. I went to see, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown", put on by Stage North.
Charlie Brown is my kinda humor... and these guys had me laughing the whole night. It actually didn't work out in my favour, because I went to take pictures and had a hard time getting shots that weren't blurry because of my chuckling. Therefore... if there are any blurry photos, I'm putting all blame on the cast. ;)
There are still a few more opportunities to go see the show... so if you can... go!
Nothing makes a mother more proud than her baby screaming in public because a creepy bearded man scared the bejeebers out of them!
The verdict is in and it appears this year there are more funny, akward, goofy Santa photos than frameable ones. So we decided that instead of picking one winner in the nice photo category we would pick three in the funny category. Take a look at these priceless Santa photos and let us know what you think!
We want to thank everyone who submitted photos and send a special thanks to our top winners:
Taylor - Grande Prairie, AB
Addisyn - Grande Prairie, AB
Landon - Fort St. John, BC
We hope you all enjoy a little laugh! Wishing you a Merry Christmas from the all of us at the Northern Groove!
It's official! Santa Claus has made a stop in the Fort St. John area and will be hanging around the Totem Mall for the month of December. Give him a big hug, have a photo shoot and tell him what you would really like to find under your tree this Christmas season.
Once you have your photo in hand send it my way at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . We want to see the good ones, the bad ones and we definitely want to see the ones where one kid is crying and the other kid is picking their nose! You have until December 20th to submit and then we will choose the best and the worst Santa photo of the 2011 year and post them up on our website!
To Catch Jolly Ol' St. Nick himself before Christmas head down to the Totem Mall:
Thursday Dec 1st - 10am-3pm
Friday Dec 2nd - 10am-3pm
Wednesday Dec 7th - 10am-3pm
Friday Dec 9th - 3pm-6pm
Saturday Dec 10th - 11am-4pm
Wednesday Dec 14th - 10am-3pm
Friday Dec 16th - 3pm-6pm
Saturday Dec 17 - 11am-4pm
Tuesday Dec 20th - 10am- 3pm
Wednesday Dec 21st - 10am- 3pm
Thursday Dec 22nd - 10am - 3pm
Candy Planet 2011 at Evangel Chapel was another year of amazing costumes.. and of course, tons of candy!
Northern Groove and Evangel Chapel got together and offered free photos of all of the halloween costumes for anyone who wanted to participate.
Most of the pics have been posted to Flickr -- if we're missing anyone, let me know.
Download this year's pics pics from Flickr -- Click here!
...For more halloween pics, checkout last year's 2010 photos
If you're looking for photos from Candy Planet you've come to the right place! However, we're not quite done editing them, but we promise they'll be up shortly! The good news is that they're looking awesome, and it'll be worth the wait! Current ETA, Thursday morning.
In the meantime be sure to like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter... as soon as the photos are up, we'll let you know there -- so if you're a following us on facebook or twitter, you'll be the first to know!
https://www.facebook.com/northerngroove
http://www.twitter.com/northerngroove
Thank you to everyone who participated in our "Beauty of the Season" photo challenge. The pictures that came in were absolutely beautiful and it was really fun to see all the variety. This is something that we're definitely going to do again.
In addition to the joy in participating, we also wanted to honour the best liked photos (as determined by Facebook likes), by offering a gift certificate to the two best liked photos.
The most liked photos go to:
Steve Milner - Peace of the North Photography (picture above)
Charlotte Dyck - Photos by Charlotte (with this picture)
Thanks to everyone who took part and we'll keep in touch with more photo challenges! :)
So, I've recently been hearing from many people across the map that Egan's is closing and/or is already closed. Considering we at Northern Groove work with Egan's quite closely with events and promotion I was interested finding out the full story.
The verdict -- Nope, not a chance!
Egan's has been focusing on it's pub experience and has decided to temporarily close the resturaunt until the right time. There are some new events on the horizon that we can't talk about yet, and some other exciting things (insert mystery here).
In other news -- The Egan's Open Mic has been off the hook and so this last Wednesday I decided to take some pics of the event to show everyone what's been happening! Enjoy! :)
the day to day chat I've been hearing lots of comments about the winter. I'm not a big fan of the cold, however this great weather lately has reminded me that winter is not yet here, and not only that -- right now is possibly the most beautiful time -- and I think we should be doing everything we can to be enjoying it!
So here's the challenge:
Let's do our best capture the beauty of the season in a photo (or something visual), and share it the world.
This challenge is intended mainly for photographers, so I’m calling it a photo challenge, but may also include drawings, paintings, videos, time-lapse photography, cartoon drawings, or anything else that can be shared via our website / social media.
The rules of the challenge:
- Photos and content must be taken between today, September 9th, 2011 and September 20th, 2011
- Content must have been created locally (Peace Region)
- A max of two submissions per person.
To those who accept this challenge:
We are offering a bit of a prize as well... however, I’d rather think of it as a “thank you” than a “prize”. While spending time outdoors taking beautiful photos might not be the worst thing in the world to do -- we want to offer a gift as a form of consideration for the time and efforts from those who participate.
The person who’s picture on our facebook receives the most "likes" will receive a gift certificate for $100 from either JD Fitz ... Jackfish Dundees... Or Whole Wheat n Honey. Your choice.
The person who’s picture receives the second most "likes" will receive a $50 gift certificate. Same deal.
The submission cutoff is the 20th of September.
The cutoff for "likes" will be September 30th at midnight, local time.
A handful of the top photos may also be featured in the upcoming Northern Groove magazine... in which case we’d be in touch for more info, etc.
This challenge is intended to be fun!
Click here to submit your photos using the online submission form:
http://www.formstack.com/forms/?1112587-gKB7U3vmw2
