2,133 Miles To Go

It Seems We Have Finally Arrived!

2008-02-28T10:58:00.003-05:00

Well, it's finally here! The city inspection passed and our occupancy permit was issued this morning.

The keys should be released to us within the hour. The house is finally going to be ours!

The walk through yesterday went very well. There were a number of outstanding issues that were being taken care of later yesterday or early today. They ordered us the wrong shower door, so we may have to wait a few days on that. Some of the screens needed to be put into the windows. Paint needed touching up, and the garage floor needed to be poured.

Those things aside, the house is amazing. I'm feeling more excited, and less resentful of what a horrible experience the build was. We will never build with Reid Homes again, nor will we recommend them to anyone we know, but at the end of the day the house is pretty much exactly what we wanted.

I took some photos at the walk through yesterday, and I promise more photos of the painting this weekend and next week. Click on any image to see it larger:

Master Bedroom

Master Ensuite Shower

Master Ensuite Bathtub

Master Ensuite

Kitchen

Family Room

Dining Room

Basement

Basement Bathroom

Kitchen Back Splash

Counter Top

Dining Room Floor

Carpet (It's really like a honey color)

Main Floor Tile (Also in out ensuite)

I hope you enjoy the photos! Sarah and I are hoping to start taping this afternoon and tomorrow, and then begin the painting tomorrow evening and continue through the weekend. It's going to be very nice to have her help with this project, and in exchange, I am going to help her tile her bathroom and re-paint some of her apartment. Seems like a great trade off for both of us.

Lincoln is home from school today with a bit of a cold, but I didn't think it would matter much if we took them to the new place for a bit. I'll plan to take the portable DVD player perhaps, so that they can watch movies while we haul in the paint supplies and the light fixtures.

The builder was supposed to put up the light fixtures we purchased on our own, but no one called us to bring them over and then they claimed that was our responsibility. So, I picked up a book on basic wiring at the hardware store, and I'm going to put them up myself. None of them are ceiling fans, so it should be pretty simple. Two connections and a ground, nothing complicated. Our site supervisor showed me where the master breaker switch is, which kills power to the entire house, so that way I don't have to worry about isolating specific switches. We will just shut off the entire house and do all of the fixtures in one swoop during daylight.

Tomorrow morning the water softener people are coming to install our water softener and reverse osmosis system in the house. Jay is certainly looking forward to that, since the seriously hard water in the rental here has caused his eczema to flare up like crazy. I think it's gotten so bad he might start driving over to the new place to shower in the morning before work (OK not seriously, but I know he can't wait to move).

I think I'll just be happy to get out of this cramped little townhouse and back into a space large enough for us to actually unpack more than a few boxes.

The phone call should be coming any time now, so I'm going to get the kids rounded up so we can go over and pick up the keys immediately! Wish me luck this weekend with the painting. I'll try to get updated photos posted early next week :)

We've Just About Made It!

2008-02-26T22:43:00.004-05:00

This evening Jay and the kids and I drove into Toronto to sign all of the papers with the lawyer in regards to taking possession of the new house. The transaction will be completed on Thursday, after we do a walk-through tomorrow and the house has been deemed complete (or close enough to it that a permit of occupancy can be issued). As long as everything is taken care of, the funds will be released to the builder on Thursday, and they will turn over the keys to us.

Quite a thing really, the whole process.

One of my friends at the gym asked me if I was excited, and you know, I think I am just too tired of all the waiting and of the arguing with the builder. I mean, don't get me wrong, part of me is excited. I'll be relieved on Thursday, once it's all said and done and we can just put this horrid building experience behind us.

I bought paint for the main floor, the kids rooms, and our room this week. I'm actually really looking forward to painting, and my friend Sarah has offered to help me as much as possible. We're going to get started this weekend, and I'm hopeful we can get the main floor finished before Monday.

I'm going to take my camera to the walk-through tomorrow, so that I can update the pictures here and also to document anything that needs to be fixed/changed. I'll also take photos again as the new paint is going on, and after it's all finished!

We are really looking forward to my Mum and Grandma coming out next week. The kids have been excited and asking every day how many more sleeps until they visit. It will be lovely to have time to visit, and to have help with he kids while I finish anything that needs to be done at the new place and then packing stuff up over here at the townhouse.

In many ways, it's been such a long process that it's difficult to believe we're right down to the wire. Only 2 more sleeps until the house is ours.

A Little Of A, A Little Of B

2008-02-19T13:52:00.004-05:00

You know, I really wouldn’t win any awards for consistency when it comes to this website. I want to apologise for the long absence. Jay and the kids and I are all wonderful, perhaps so much so, that I haven't had much time or inclination for writing.

January felt like a blur. We got home from our trip and it seems as though I didn't have time to catch my breath before February was upon us. Jay and I celebrated 6 years of marriage on January 19th. Sarah babysat the children so that he and I could go for sushi in Milton. We found an excellent sushi bar that also has some kid friendly options, so we ended up there last night for supper as it were, and the kids loved it. Who knew that they would be so fond of green tea and pork dumplings?

We had a pile of snow last month. I can't even tell you how many times we dug out of it. So much different than the winters we were used to in Calgary.

At the beginning of February we made a weekend trip up to Bobcaygeon to visit Jay's Aunt Vera and Uncle Elmer. They have a cabin in the country, near the lake, and it had snowed a whole bunch the days before we arrived. We spent most of the weekend outdoors, sledding and building snowmen!

It was a lot of fun spending the weekend up there, and we're looking forward to going back sometime soon. Hopefully we'll be able to go boating and fishing up there this summer with the kiddos. I think they would really like that!

We're on the count down to the house being finished. We are still on for February 28th closing date. They've sure been working on it steady, often through the weekends and there were even people there yesterday (which was Family Day here).

Only 9 days to go! I can hardly believe they will be done by then. I was in there over the weekend and took some photos:

March is going to be a very busy month! My mum and grandma are coming out to stay with us from the 5th to the 12th, to help with packing and to play with the kids while I do some painting at the new place. It will be really nice to have them out for a week, I am sure there will be time for some good visiting too.

Jay's mum and dad are coming out for Easter and staying for just about 2 weeks. We will do the remainder of the moving and begin the unpacking while they are here. It's going to be a lot, but I can hardly wait to have space again!

We had to cancel the trip to Ottawa we had planned for this past weekend. The forecast was for snow and rain, so we decided we would be smarter to wait until after we settle into the house. Perhaps in April or May we'll make it out to visit Tina again, and see more of Ottawa.

I've been going to the gym regularly again. Sarah and I have decided to be workout buddies, and so we do classes together 4 times a week. It feels good to be getting back into shape and I've already lost a few pounds! It's really nice to have someone to go with, and also since I know she is counting on me to show up, I don't skip going. The kids really like going to the childminding as well, since they get to play with all the other kids, so everyone is happy!

This post wasn't as thorough as I'd planned, but I have to dash off to pick up Lincoln and getting all of those photos sorted and put up took longer than I had anticipated. I promise it won't be long before the next update!

I hope all of you are healthy and happy! Keep your fingers crossed that the house is done on the closing day, with no outstanding issues!

Happy 2008!!!

2008-01-09T21:39:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!!! Another year behind us, a fresh new one laid out ahead, full of new possibilities and adventures.

Our trip to Alberta was wonderful, filled with family and friends. We spent our time in Edmonton and Rocky Mountain House, visiting and eating and getting caught up on all of the happenings. It was relaxing and laid back, which was just what I needed after the craziness of the house and Christmas and all that sort of thing. The kids adored all of the time they got to spend with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Jay and I got some much-needed time away from the kiddos, which we appreciated a great deal (Thank You SO much Mum & Dad D and Mum G).

Sydnie, who had a touch of the flu when we left, made a quick recovery. Her fever broke just after we boarded the plane to leave for Edmonton. She seemed right as rain from then on.

I had a bit of excitement while I was away. The photo I mentioned in this post, which was being considered for that Ottawa travel guide, was chosen for use. No, I won't make any money from it, but it's exciting none the less!

The gym where I volunteer also offered me a paid position there as the coordinator of the child minding. Basically the same job I was doing in Airdrie. As flattering as it was to get the offer, I decided to say no. I would have to take on more shifts, and I don't want the hassle of struggling to cover those when I need to take trips away. Also I enjoy the free time I have, and I don't enjoy working at the gym here as much as I did the one in Airdrie due to the fact that I am the only staff down there during my shift.

Yesterday the kids and I embarked on The Great Hamster Hunt Of '08. They were begging me all morning to do something about the empty cage sitting there, just waiting for a furry critter to occupy it. Finally I relented, loaded them up in the van, and headed to PetSmart. We were there for half an hour, waiting for someone to help us with hamster purchase. After having one of the clerks page twice, I was annoyed enough to leave a cart full of litter, hay, and toys and walk out with the kids. Off to a second location, not far away, in the hopes of more useful staff.

The second store was much better, the service was fast and friendly. Unfortunately they only had ONE hamster left, and it wasn't what we wanted (we were looking for a teddy bear hamster, since they are the friendliest). The older woman who was helping us felt bad, and quickly offered to call another store, to see if they had hamsters. They did, and off we went, now quite frustrated, but hell-bent on bringing home a pet regardless.

Finally, at the third store, a nice young man was quick to assist me in picking out, packaging, and purchasing an adorable little girl hamster. We were in and out in less than 20 minutes, our new addition scratching away in the cardboard carrier.

Lincoln wanted to name her Charlie, and who was I to argue? She is all kinds of cute, and has provided us much entertainment already. Although she's still a baby, and still pretty wild, she's good natured. She hasn't at all attempted to bite, despite me handling her quite a bit. The kids are in love with her, even though she's not quiet enough for them to hold her yet.

Jay and I have an anniversary coming up on January 19th. We will be married 6 years, which seems incredible, considering all that has happened in that time. I've asked Sarah to babysit for us that evening, so that we can go out to a movie or for food or something. We are looking forward to that.

We are also planning a trip to Ottawa in February, for the Family Day long weekend. It will be great to see Tina again, and it will be something to distract us from the lag of the house building.

Speaking of the house, it seems that they were insulating in our absence. We are going to take a peek inside it this weekend, and I'll take my camera. I'm looking forward to moving in there eventually, and doing my very best to avoid getting frustrated.

2008 is going to be a great year, I can just feel it!

All I Want For Christmas...Is A Hamster

2007-12-27T20:42:00.000-05:00

Christmas is over for another year for most people, but for us, we're still in the thick of it, as tomorrow we fly out to Edmonton and do Christmas at two more houses!

I have some video of Lincoln's Christmas Concert, but I am having some trouble uploading it, so you will have to wait for that I am afraid. I also have an audio clip of him singing his song all by himself, so I will work on getting those posted here once I figure out the problem.

We took quite a few photos of the two rugrats on Christmas morning. Naturally the little rotters were spoiled. The four of us totally enjoyed the day together, playing games and eating treats, and trying out our new presents! It ended up that we did not have guests for dinner, which was just as well, even though I cooked for 15 people (as always). I think I made enough stuffing to fill half a dozen birds. Tonight I am portioning it all out into homemade TV dinners for freezing and eating later on.

Here is a slide show of the photos from Christmas Day. Just click on the arrow button to view:

Tomorrow night our flight leaves for Edmonton, and the kids are looking forward to that very much. Unfortunately, Sydnie seems to be coming down with some sort of flu. This evening she was running a bit of a temperature, seemed lethargic, and got a bit sick at supper. We put her to bed with a shot of children's Tylenol for the fever, and hopefully she feels better in the morning. It could be a very long flight tomorrow night at any rate. Please keep your fingers crossed that she gets better and not worse.

Despite that, we are sure excited to see a bunch of you. We fly into Edmonton and will be staying at Mum and Dad's there until January 2nd. We head down to Rocky Mountain House that day and stay with Mum and Rayna (Dad will probably be away for work during our visit) until the 7th, when we drive back to Edmonton and catch a flight home. Not nearly enough travel this trip, as compared to our last one in October, which is nice although we won't see as many people.

For those of you we miss this time, we are planning a very lengthy trip out in July. It will be just the kids and I for the first half, and then Jay will join us for the second half. Not too many details on that just yet, but I'll keep you posted.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and we wish you all an excellent New Year as well!

No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed

2007-12-19T08:23:00.000-05:00

Well, we are hurtling towards Christmas at record speed this year. Things seem to just keep happening one right after the other, so I apologise for the lack of updates here.

Earlier this week we received some very unfortunate news. Jays grandmother passed away, peacefully in her sleep, at the age of 100 years. Despite the fact that she was long lived and it had been expected for some time, it's still been very difficult for him, and for me. The kids are too young to understand yet, which is probably just as well.

Due to the timing, I'm not going to be able to go with him to the funeral this Friday. It's in Regina, and since we've already booked tickets for Alberta on the 28th, it seemed ridiculous for us to all trek out to Saskatchewan, then come back, just to fly back out a few days later. Also, most flights are sold out and it was hard enough to get a ticket for just Jay, let alone the kids and I. Admittedly I am rather upset at having to miss it. We have no one to watch the kids though, since everyone is trying to get ready for Christmas. Jay was asked to be a pallbearer, and his Aunt Reta and mum and dad and Brian are going to be there, so I am sure he will manage.

He will get back very late on Saturday night, so I intend to distract myself with the last minute Christmas baking and grocery shopping while he is away. I have also been entrusted with checking on the pets of a friend I made recently through the gym while she is away at her parents for a week. She and I became friends a couple of months ago and she has a couple of cats and rabbits and small rodents. The kids and I get to go over and feed and water them twice a day, which they are really excited about. I don't mind helping her at all since she was able to watch the kids for us the other morning, on last minute notice, while we did our first walk-through of the house.

Speaking of the house, they are actually working on it at a fairly good pace these days. We got a new site supervisor (I think our third or fourth since the house got started) and he doesn't waste any time. As I mentioned above, we did a walk-through with the electrician last week, and everything seemed to be going well.

We have another walk-through tomorrow morning, and I am going to ask Sarah (my new friend with the pets) if she would be able to come over and hang out with the kids again while we do that. Apparently there was an inspection of the framing this week and our house failed. I kid you not. The site supervisor claims it was just a few minor things that needed fixing, but it doesn't give me a lot of good feelings about our builder.

They want to start insulating and so forth next week, so I suppose that's good. I am starting to believe we actually might make it in by January 31st as they promised. More pictures are coming.

On an additional note about pictures, you may have noticed something about My Daily Photo on the side of the page there. I decided to create a separate page on which to post my photos not related to family/house/etc. Every day I put up a new picture I have taken, so I hope you will take a look. Yesterday I received a bit of an exciting e-mail in regards to one of my photos. It seems that a picture I took of the Peace Keeping Monument in Ottawa is being considered for part of an online guide to Ottawa. The photo will include credit to me and will be linked back to my collection of photos on Flickr (the photo hosting service I use online).

Here is the photo in question, snapped in August during our visit to see Tina over the summer:

I won't get paid for the use of my photo, but it's still very flattering, and who knows what other opportunities might come about as a result.

Tomorrow is Lincoln's school Christmas concert. He is playing a lamb apparently. I will be taking the camera, and I will attempt at least a few clips of video. He has been very secretive about it all, which is very cute.

Last weekend we picked up their final gift, which I have to say I might be more excited about then they will be. We decided (or rather I decided and then prodded Jay into agreement, HA HA) to get them a hamster from Santa. Since we are going to be going away right after Christmas, I went and got the cage and food and all the hamster related stuff one needs, and Santa will leave it under the tree with a note about picking out the hamster themselves with Mommy and Daddy. That way we don't have to worry about having someone look after it while we are out west. I know they are going to be thrilled.

Most of you heard about the big dump of snow we got last weekend. Jay figures just over a foot of it fell here, and it seems to be staying, which means we will have a white Christmas. The kids are quite enjoying having snow to play in, and I'll admit that as much as I dislike the cold, I prefer to have snow for Christmas than dead grass or slush.

I can hardly believe that Christmas is only 6 more sleeps away. Where has the year gone?

Counting Down To Christmas

2007-12-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

15 more sleeps until Christmas!

We are sure excited around here :D The kids especially. Jay and I are pretty much finished up our Christmas shopping, which is a great feeling. Most of the gifts are already wrapped and under the tree.

Over the weekend we all took a trip to IKEA to get a filing cabinet (which will eventually go into the den in the new house). While we were there we found a few extra odds and ends for the new place. Bathroom hard wear for one (the builder only had one option for us, really cheap white plastic stuff, so we just removed that from the plan) and some light fixtures for the kitchen (we have two spots for light fixtures going into the kitchen). I found these product images on the IKEA website to show you guys!

Or Kitchen Light Fixtures

Toilet Paper Holders For Each Bathroom

Towel Bars For The Bathrooms With Showers/Tubs

I really like the towel bars we found because they have the double rods. You can hang the bath towels in the back and the hand towels on the front.

Also, the lighting fixtures are actually three rods, with two flexible connector sections between, so you can make them into different arrangements, like 'Z' or 'U' (as shown) and all of the light holders themselves are movable, so you can point the lights the direction you want. I think that will provide a lot of light in the kitchen.

The filing cabinet we got is actually quite attractive looking. I found an image of something similar, except the one that we bought is only two drawers high, not three.

In the future den we plan to have two cabinets like this, one for filing (the one we already have) and another with doors on the front like this, to hold our printers, scanner, etc.

There are also some really nice wall cabinets that go along with it that we are going to put up in the den, for office supplies, books, binders, etc.

All very exciting, ha ha. We got rid of our big old corner desk before we moved, so for a work surface we are just getting a small table type thing.

Can you tell that we really like stuff from IKEA? I think that the espresso brown furniture will go really nice with the golden yellow paint I have picked out for the den.

Enough about that, I don't want to bore you all to sleep!

The kids are getting super excited about Christmas. Every morning the first thing they want to do is open a new door on their chocolate Christmas calendars. Generally I make them wait until after breakfast at least, hee hee.

This coming weekend Jay and the kids and I are going up to visit Uncle Elmer and Aunty Vera at their place in Bobcaygeon. They live within walking distance of the lake and I'm looking forward to visiting with them. I'm going to take my camera too, so I promise photos once we get home.

I also plan to take a lot of photos, and maybe some video clips of the kids on Christmas morning for everyone. I've figured out how to post video online, so I'll do my best to get some put up here for you guys.

There are some pictures of the inside of the house I'll be posting within this week, so check back for that.

Just Call Me Picasso

2007-12-04T12:03:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to do a quick update because I finally got around to taking some pics of the paint colors I've chosen for the new house. You can check them out full-sized by clicking on them:

The Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room Color

The Main Floor Bathroom Color

The Den Color

Sydnie's Room Color

Lincoln's Room Color

The Second Floor Bathroom Colors
(I'll explain them later)

Guest Bedroom Color

Second Guest Bedroom Color

Craft Room Color

Our Bedroom Color

I still haven't settled on a color for the ensuite bathroom. I want something soothing and relaxing, so I'll get that posted when I pick it out.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

2007-12-02T15:15:00.000-05:00

Greetings from the snowy lands of southern Ontario!

We are just enjoying some hot chocolate, after playing outside in the snow with the kids, and I wanted to share some of our recent photos.

In case you hadn't heard, we've gotten a bit of snow here in Guelph. Oddly, we are enjoying it rather than grumbling about it. The kids had a great time playing outside this afternoon, helping Daddy shovel and making snow angels.

Click on all of them to see the full-sized version.

The house is coming along, although they still aren't done the shingles. They put in temporary stairs so we could check out the upstairs. The kids really enjoyed taking a look around, and they both got to check out the beginnings of their new rooms.

It's looking good inside so far, we haven't taken too many photos of the inside because it really won't make much sense until the dry wall is up. Hard to really visualize much.

Here's a front shot though:

The Kitchen, With Pipes

The kids are getting soooooo excited for Christmas! Jay bought us some really cute stockings, even though there is no fireplace/mantle.

None the less, I hung them up. The kids get the two big ones, and the smaller ones are for Jay and I:

We've gotten most of the Christmas shopping done, which is one less thing to do this month. Lincoln has a bit of a Christmas concert coming up on the 22nd, and I promise to take photos and maybe some video of that.

It looks like we are going to have a few guests for Christmas dinner on the 25th. We invited some of Jay's co-workers over, who came from Calgary as well, and who aren't going home for Christmas either. I'm looking forward to cooking a turkey and all of the trimmings.

We are hoping to have our sitter, Shay, come and watch the kids one more time before it gets too close to Christmas. His company isn't having a Christmas party this year, so we wanted to get in one more night out together before the holidays and then our trip back to Alberta and all of that. I'd like for us to see a movie, or maybe go out for pub food or sushi.

Our last night out, we had dinner at The Aberfoyle Mill, and it was amazing. It was the best dinner I'd had out in a long time. The atmosphere was rustic and festive, the service was impeccable, and the food was absolutely delicious. We plan to go back there again sometime, maybe for our anniversary in January.

The kids keep asking for Shay, and when we got home after dinner at the mill they told us all about the games she played with them, and showed us all of the pictures they had colored together. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful sitter for the kids, so that Jay and I are still able to spend some time with each other out of the house.

This week we have our brief parent-teacher interview with Lincoln's teacher. Also the food drive starts at his school and I am going to have the kids help me bag up some donations with me to drop off there. They are also collecting some items for a group home here in Guelph, and I want to donate to that as well.

We are all counting down to Christmas here. The kids have those chocolate Christmas calendars, and Lincoln brought home an Advent Chain from school, which is made out of paper and ever night before bed he gets to take one of the rings of the chain off. Of course Sydnie wants one too, so I will help her make one this afternoon.

I hope everyone enjoyed the photos :)

This, That, And The Other Thing

2007-11-22T13:31:00.000-05:00

A bit of an update on the house and life in general. We are enjoying a bit of a 'day in' since the roads are a little slick with recent ice and snow fall. I decided it would be a great opportunity to upload photos, write a blog update, and maybe get my Christmas cards done!

I don't have any recently house photos unfortunately. The guys have been working on the house almost every day (even through last weekend) and I feel weird snapping pictures while they are mucking about on the roof or having coffee out front of the place.

At any rate, the shingles are getting done. Last time I checked, they were almost done, and I hope they finished yesterday because last night something very odd started to fall from the sky. It was like rain drops, except frozen. Nothing like snow, or hail, but literally rain drops that frozen solid on the way down. All of the school buses in the county were cancelled today, although most schools remained open.

Speaking of school, today I got to observe Lincoln in class for an hour. It's part of the parent-teacher interview process for the younger children. Parents are given the chance to spend some time in class watching how their child is doing, and then a very short feedback session is scheduled with the teacher in the following weeks.

Lincoln was SO excited that I was going to be in his class today. His teacher said he was just about beside himself all morning. I really enjoyed getting to watch him in class. They learned a new letter and did an activity while I was there and I was very impressed with both him and the teacher. He sure has good listening skills, although I think I was distracting for him because he had a bit of a hard time paying attention to the teacher while he was smiling and waving at me.

His teacher told me that she just loves Lincoln and that he is always so polite and sincere. She remarked that his writing (especially his name) and his coloring skills have vastly improved since the beginning of the year. He certainly is better at staying inside of the lines and his printing is really coming along. All in all, very good.

We've also had much excitement around here with Sydnie, who is finally totally potty trained. At the beginning of the week we ran out of diapers, and so I just told her "We don't have any diapers, I guess you'll just have to wear your big girl underwear" and she hasn't had a single accident since then. She doesn't even wear pull-ups at night or anything. We're very proud of her, and she's really good about letting us know when she has to go. Hooray! No more changing of diapers for me :)

5 years and 20,000 diapers later...

This week we have been gearing up for Christmas. Since all of our Christmas decorations are in storage, we decided this year was as good as any to buy a new tree. Jay took yesterday, today, and tomorrow off of work to get the Christmas shopping and preparations done.

Perhaps we have the tree up a bit early, but I figure the kids love it and I'd rather have it up early instead of late.

Sydnie even got a tiny tree of her very own:

Our New Tree

The kids are getting very excited for Christmas, and they were really pleased to see snow on the ground this morning. It's amusing how thrilled they are to be able to wear their winter boots.

Hmmmm... I thought I had more to say, but it seems I've either forgotten or I'm less wordy than usual. I hope everyone is having a good Thursday, and hopefully I'll have more updates over the weekend or early next week.

Really, We've Seen Enough Now

2007-11-15T08:45:00.000-05:00

Since there is no real progress on the house to report, and the kids and adults of the household are all well and fine, I thought I would dazzle you with another of my food posts.

Oh the excitement. I can feel how thrilled you are to read that!

In an effort to try new things, I picked up a couple of pepper squash the other day, to have with supper. Right on the label for said squash I found some simple instructions for cooking it that sounded appetizing enough:

"Cut in half, scoop out seeds, fill with brown sugar and butter, bake until tender"

Well, ok, they were a little more detailed than that, but you get the idea.

I present to you now, a photo series about the squash. I know, there is no end to my coolness.

They certainly looked delicious. Sadly, that's about the best part of the story. Jay and I each had a half, and the more of it one ate, the worse it seemed to taste. Perhaps because once you get beyond the part that is saturated in butter and sugar, it just tastes like...squash.

Not our favorite thing, by any means, but it was good to try it at any rate. Squash is cheap so I didn't feel especially bad about not liking it.

Unlike the dragon fruit.

Lincoln had picked out this bright pink, fabulous looking fruit on a trip to the grocery store. I've had it before, and it's really not the tastiest thing in the world, but it's not terrible either. It tastes very much like a really mild melon. Think honeydew, but with next to no flavour. I had a feeling the children would not like it one bit, but I did say they could pick out whatever they wanted.

Since no food post is complete without photos, here we go.

After cutting it up, I was not the least bit surprised that both kids rejected it with horror after their first taste. Since I didn't want to waste it, nor did I want to eat the whole thing myself, I decided to attempt to salvage the fruit and make it more appealing to the minions.

Since even squash tastes good with butter and brown sugar, I decided to try that with the dragon fruit. I mean, it couldn't possibly taste any more boring.

After caramelizing it in a pan with the butter and sugar, the kids were more than happy to eat the remaining fruit, so at least it wasn't wasted.

On our last grocery store tour Sydnie got her starfruit and Lincoln wanted some of those really miniature bananas, so I'll inflict those experiences on you sometime in the near future.

House Plans? Finally?

2007-11-13T06:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, we're going to try this out :) I managed to save all of the house plans as images, but in doing so, the quality was decreased somewhat. Still, the names of each room is legible, as long as you view each plan in the largest size.

So, what you need to do is click on each of the smaller images below. They will open up larger in a new window. Above the image should be a small grey magnifying glass that says "All Sizes" beside it. Click on that, and you will then be able to select the Original Size option (again, it's above the image).

Basement Floor Plan

Main Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

Loft/Master Suite Floor Plan

Let me know if you have any trouble with them. Hopefully this helps everyone to visualize it all better.

Who Lives In A Pineapple Under The Sea?

2007-11-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

Many good updates today! Time to grab a cup of coffee and get down to writing it all.

On the weekend we stopped by the new house to take some inside photos and show the kids around. They were sure excited, and ran through each room asking "What is this going to be?" over and over.

Mac and Wesley and their parents moved into their new house a couple of doors down from us. The kids can hardly wait for us to move too so that we can all be neighbours again.

I took some photos of the inside of the main floor (there aren't any stairs yet, so no basement/upstairs pictures). I will try to explain what each photo is of:

Jay's Future Office

The Kitchen

Main Floor Bathroom

Living Room

Dining Room, 'Library Area' and Front Door

From The Front Door, Looking In Towards The Dining Room, Kitchen, And Living Room

Back Yard

Sydnie And Daddy, Checking It Out

Lincoln And Sydnie Approved!

We got a letter last week informing us that our new closing date has been set for January 31st. I guess that's better than the end of February, but we remain unimpressed with Reid Homes overall. I certainly would not recommend anyone else build with them.

That aside, we are looking forward to moving in eventually. We don't plan to move in immediately after we close on the house. Since we will have to pay rent for February anyway, I plan to get as much of the painting done as possible before we have to start hauling in furniture. Yes, I am crazy, and I plan to do quite a bit of interior painting myself again.

The kids both want their rooms to be painted similarly to the old place, so I am going to do that. Also, our room will be black again (we got quite attached to that color in the last place) and the bathrooms are going to have to be painted as well. The painter just uses that cheap construction-grade matte paint that cannot be washed or wiped of spots. If we want to upgrade the finish to sometime just slightly less crappy, it'll cost us 25 cents per square foot. Not money I am willing to spend when I can do it myself, especially since I actually quite enjoy painting.

The painter is still going to be painting the whole house with a grey color that I will leave on the walls in the basement, hallways, closets, etc. That way if I don't get everything done before moving day, there will still be something on the walls at any rate.

Jay and I really enjoyed a few hours out on Saturday night! The babysitter (Shay) was great. The kids were still up when we left and she had no trouble putting them to bed. Jay and I went to this little pub called The Penny Whistle and had a pint of beer and some nachos. They serve pub food and Indian food of all things. It was really tasty, and apparently on Thursday nights they have a curry buffet, so we are going to see about try that sometime soon. We had a really good time, and talked a lot about our plans for the new house. Being kid-free for just a few hours was wonderful.

We were really impressed with the sitter, and the kids adore her. Sydnie was upset in the morning that Shay had gone home, so I don't worry about leaving them as much. Clearly both Lincoln and Sydnie like having her over (they hardly even cared when Jay and I left) and she does a great job playing with them and listening to all their stories. How fortunate for us to have found her!

Yesterday we took the kids to see Bee Movie after lunch. They sure enjoyed that, and so did we. They both behaved so well and sat through the entire movie without having to go to the bathroom or making any noise. What a cute movie! Now that they are old enough to get into movies more we are hoping to take them to the theater once in a while for a treat. There aren't always good kids movies out, so I doubt it'll be too often, but it was a great way to spend the afternoon. Especially now that the weather is cooler and they don't want to be outside as much.

Jay has a couple of days off coming up here later in the month and we plan to do all of our Christmas shopping then. With the Canadian dollar being so good, we were thinking of driving down to Buffalo, NY to do some shopping. Apparently they have outlet malls there like you wouldn't believe! It's only a little over and hours drive to get down there, so it might be a fun day trip.

Speaking of Christmas shopping, I wanted to mention a few things in regards to gift giving when it comes to the kids. I know we've already talked about it with pretty much everyone, but now that we have to fly back and forth, we cannot possibly handle the amount of stuff that the kids usually receive. I really hate to restrict what people can buy for them, but realistically, we'll have to leave some of it behind or spend money to ship it out here if everyone gives them a lot of bulky gifts.

So, we are requesting politely that everyone try to keep it to something small, and then if you want to give something additional, a gift card would be ideal. They both need clothes (long pants, sweaters, long sleeved shirts) and Lincoln especially likes having new clothes for school.

Lincoln wears size 5, or even size 6, or else youth small. He really likes all superheros and Transformers stuff. Sydnie just started wearing size 4, and she really likes anything with horses, puppies, kitties, or butterflies on it.

Books are ok as well, if you don't want to give clothes. Also gift cards from pretty much anywhere are fantastic, especially if they can put it towards stuff for their new rooms (they are both getting new beds and will need new bedding, pictures for their walls, etc). Since the move has been difficult for them, we are letting them choose as much of their own stuff as possible (they both picked out their own paint colors already).

I really hope that doesn't seem too restrictive, however, with the luggage limits and all the stuff we have to bring just to visit everyone for 10 days, we just can't haul much back with us.

The birthday party that Lincoln went to on Saturday was a lot of fun. He didn't want to roller skate because there was a huge play area in the Rollerama, which kept all the kids well entertained. The owners of the Rollerama (which is in Cambridge, another city near to us) are building one here in Guelph as well. It's just like an old roller rink. They have special nights where they play music from the 60's and 70's as well, which I think is really neat. Jay and I are thinking we will all have to go as a family sometime in the spring. I might have to go by myself a few times to learn how to roller skate though, or I'll be falling over more than the kids, HA HA.

Lincoln is already talking about plans for his birthday party next summer. I am just hoping they get the sod in before then so that we can have something in the back yard. Honestly, I'm not holding out much hope, but you never know. If not, we can throw a party in the house, since we'll have the big basement and such.

We hope everyone had a good weekend! Keep your fingers crossed that they get the shingles on the house this week. I'll post another update if there is more progress.

Actual Conversation (Act 3)

2007-11-09T18:32:00.000-05:00

Apparently, saying:

"Lincoln, I don't want to hear any more about Hot Wheels for the rest of the day!"

actually means:

"PLEASE TALK ABOUT NOTHING BUT HOT WHEELS FOR THE NEXT 45 MINUTES, UNTIL MY EARS START TO BLEED!!!"

Whatever You Do! Don't!

2007-11-08T21:10:00.000-05:00

I promised more updates on the house! They are getting ready to shingle, but it snowed here all day so they had to postpone. However, the doors and windows are in, so you can take a look below. As always, click images to see them full-sized.

Jay figures that one the shingles are on, it'll be 6-8 weeks before we move in. So, hopefully mid-January if they keep up the pace.

Today we had our first snowfall (as you can see in the photos) but it didn't really hang around. By the time Jay got home from work he couldn't even tell that it had snowed.

I took a few photos at the gym the other day (no, NOT the locker rooms, ha ha) so that you can see what our Childminding Room looks like.

Lincoln is enjoying school. He's doing really well with his numbers, and we're still working on learning his letters (identifying them by sight and knowing what sounds they make). I also got his school picture order form this week. He looks so cute! We ordered a larger package so that everyone who wants a photo can have one.

Recently, in order to help them behave at the grocery store, I've started letting them each pick out an item from the produce section that they have never tried before. During the last trip, Sydnie picked out a pomegranate, and Lincoln picked out a dragon fruit. They really enjoy this little 'tradition' of ours, and Sydnie informs me that her next choice is going to be a star fruit.

The other day I cut the pomegranate open and cleaned out all the seeds into a bowl for them. They were fascinated by it, which was quite adorable. You'd think Christmas had arrived, they were so excited. I didn't really expect them to like it so much, but they ate the entire bowl full.

I think it's good to encourage them to try new things, food-wise. Letting them pick the items themselves makes it more appealing because it's not like us forcing them to eat something they aren't sure about.

They wanted me to take a picture of it, and so I did.

This weekend we are having the sitter over for a few hours on Saturday evening. I am having her come at the time when the kids go to bed so that I can show her their routine in case we ever have her watch them at a time she will have to put them to bed. She'll stay after they are sleeping so that Jay and I can go to a movie, or to the pub for wings and beer. I'm looking forward to that.

Lincoln also has his first classmate Birthday Party to go to on Saturday. A girl from his class sent home an invitation last week, and he said he wanted to go. The party is being held at Rollerama, which could be interesting. If Lincoln ends up on roller skates, I will take pictures to show everyone.

We booked our flights this week, for our trip out in Dec/Jan. I'll write out our itinerary closer to the date, so that people who are able to visit us, can coordinate times/places.

Hopefully everyone had a good week!

Beneath A Shelter Built By Many Hands

2007-11-03T21:42:00.001-04:00

More pictures of the house! I'm starting to feel a little more optimistic that we'll actually be in before the end of February. Click on the images to see them full-sized.

Now that they are actually working on it again, I will post more regular updates of the progress.

A couple of weeks ago I taught myself how to crochet. It's nice to have a hobby that I can take with me to the gym (when I am volunteering there, sometimes it's really slow and I have lots of opportunity to crochet) or while watching the kids, etc.

I've made two projects thus far, basically to experiment and get some practice in before I attempt anything more difficult. Sydnie and Lincoln have already requested that I make them hats, so those are next on the list.

So Spooooooooky!

2007-11-01T21:51:00.000-04:00

I promised Halloween photos! Here they are :) Lincoln went as Spiderman, and Sydnie went as a kitty. They both had a blast, and got so much candy that we had to stop at home and unload half-way through our walk in the neighbourhood.

We had quite a few kids at our house. Seems that the row of townhouses is a popular stretch. We had just over 60 kids (Jay kept count) which was actually a nice change from Airdrie where we only got 10-15. A lot of the kids commented on our pumpkin, which we had lit up with a red glowstick inside (much safer than a candle). They seemed to like that a lot. Usually I light my pumpkins with a string of mini lights tucked inside, but all of our Christmas stuff is in storage.

Luckily, everyone was done Trick Or Treating when the rain hit. Our pumpkins looked really neat in the rain, glowing away on the steps. Those glowsticks last a long time.

I have updates to post on the house as well, so check back for those after the weekend.

Not For A Month Of Sundays

2007-10-26T16:32:00.000-04:00

I apologise for the lack of updates! I've been procrastinating about it, which just won't do.

Anyway, everything seems to have settled back into our semi-chaotic routine after returning from our trip. Lincoln continues to enjoy school, and he had picture day last week, so whoever wants a school photo of him, get in touch!

Sydnie has adapted well to being without him during the day. We generally keep ourselves busy, some days we have so many things to do we are running around the whole time he is at school. I think she enjoys being my special helper, especially on Tuesdays when we volunteer at the gym.

I've also taken to attending an aerobics class on Thursday mornings, and she loves going to the child minding, while I work out. It took me almost half an hour to get her to leave with me yesterday. She gets a chance to play with other kids while her brother isn't around.

They are both getting very excited for Halloween. Lincoln wants to be the Bumblebee Transformer, but he may have to settle for SpiderMan if we can't find him a costume. Sydnie wants to be a puppy, which I know will be SO cute. I promise to post photos here of them in their costumes.

Progress on the house has been slower than we would like, but it's moving forward at any rate, so I guess we can't complain. I drove by today and they were laying the floor for the loft. I didn't get a photo, but the ones below are fairly current anyway, since they hadn't touched it in some days (prior to today).

Click on any of the following images to see the full-sized version. I make them smaller here so that they fit on the page better.

I'll take some more updated photos once the roof is on. We also went to the plumber supply to pick out the bath tub for the Master Ensuite. You can see the product details if you click here. Because of where the tub will be situated we were able to chose a square one, which I think we will like better over the corner tub we had before.

We've decided to upgrade some of our faucets as well:

This is the primary kitchen faucet we chose

Due to the water softener, we will also have a separate line/tap for drinking water at the kitchen sink. This will be our beverage faucet

The bathroom faucets will all look like this:

Our ensuite tub filler looks like this:

Jay and I recently did a short 'test run' with a babysitter for the kids. I met her through the gym, as she is a volunteer there as well. She's 17 and seems very responsible. She has current CPR/First Aid training and was really fantastic with the children at the child minding. We left the kids in her care for about 4 hours last weekend, and they have been asking me when she can come and watch them again! That is a really good sign, and Lincoln tells me that she played games with them and cooked them pizza (she also did the dishes after supper, which I appreciated). Being so far from family, it's such a blessing to find someone we can trust with the kids for a few hours.

Her family seems nice and her mother or father drives her to and from her baby sitting jobs. She also has a weekend job at a grocery store, while going to high school during the week.

So, we have booked her for two Saturday evenings in November, just a few hours each time. That way at least Jay and I can get away for dinner or a movie. He and I are looking forward to that a great deal.

I am going to make a better effort to update this thing more frequently. We miss and love you all!

Have A Happy Halloween!!!

Just Close Your Eyes And Pick One

2007-10-09T18:05:00.000-04:00

We had a WONDERFUL trip through Saskatchewan and Alberta. It was amazing visiting with so many members of our family. We've missed all of you so much.

As always, I took a ton of pictures. I've compiled the best ones into a slide show for your enjoyment. You can see the full sized versions by clicking here.

There are lots of stories to share from the trip, but putting together all of those photos has used up all the spare time I have for the moment. I also have house updates to write up as well, so make sure to check back in the next couple of weeks.

A special note for everyone who fed us, gave us a place to sleep, or had time to visit with us during the trip

We really appreciated everyone who went out of their way to accommodate us. The trip was fantastic. We're looking forward to our next visit back to Alberta already!

Is It All In My Head?

2007-09-17T21:22:00.000-04:00

A little more progress on the house thus far. The foundation was poured, the forms removed, and now it's been sitting (to cure I suppose) since last week. I am hopeful they will start doing something else to it tomorrow or the next day.

(Click on any of the photos for a larger view)

Lincoln came down with a phlegmy, rattling, chest cold yesterday. I had to make a run to the 24 hour grocery store for some cough medicine last night at about 1:00 am while Jay cuddled the little guy in the bathroom and ran the shower on hot to get some steam going so it was easier for Lincoln to breath. I got one spoonful of medicine into his mouth before he promptly threw up a couple of times. Eep! We put him in the tub and washed him off and then went for a second attempt. Daddy showed him how to hold his nose to help with the taste (he's old enough for adult medicine which of course tastes awful). He took it better that time and went to bed, and didn't cough again all night!

In the mean time Sydnie woke up from all the ruckus in the bathroom and it took a while to get her settled back down. It was quite a night!

Jay left this morning for a three day/two night work retreat up in cottage country. Lincoln and Sydnie were climbing the walls all day because I was making Lincoln take it easy and told him he couldn't go outside because he's still not well. That made him upset of course. I already got a replacement for the gym for my volunteering tomorrow and I don't plan to let him go to school. Melanie's younger son, Wesley has the exact same thing so I don't want to risk exposing a bunch of other kids to it (assuming it's contagious, and lets not find out the hard way). Besides, Lincoln still sounds like a squeaky toy when he talks and I don't think his teacher would appreciate him hacking and coughing the whole day. Hopefully if he keeps resting and taking his medicine (I've taken pity on him and he only takes some before bed so that he can sleep and get better) he'll be ok for Thursday.

Since they were so displeased at being house-bound I decided to distract them for a little while, so we went for a drive this afternoon to get out for a bit. They both promptly went to sleep and so I went by the house to look and then drove around Guelph a bit, since I am still getting to know it. After about an hour I woke them up and took them to Dairy Queen for a treat, they were very pleased by this.

Lincoln took his medicine tonight without any extreme theatrics or pleading for mercy.

We have come up with a new system for him and Sydnie that seems to be making a big difference in their behaviour. I went to the dollar store last weekend and picked up a couple of bags of those little round glass 'rocks' that are used in fish tanks and that. I was looking for marbles actually, but that was as close as I could find. I also let them each pick out a special little wooden box for their special stones. Sydnie picked on with a horse head carved int he top and Lincoln picked a blue one that kind of looks like a treasure chest.

We took these home and I wrote their names on their boxes and put all the glass rocks into a container. I explained to them that when they are good, they earn stones that they get to put in their boxes. When they misbehave, fight, or make Daddy and I repeat ourselves too many times, they have to give some of the stones back. Every Saturday we count the stones and if they have 10 each, they get a treat!

It started off very interesting. At first they didn't really get it until suddenly Sydnie had enough stones for a treat and Lincoln didn't. Once I told him that she would get a treat and he would not, then he started to take the whole thing more seriously.

On Saturday they both had enough stones, so each of them got to pick a book from the school book order that Lincoln brought home. Every Saturday they start with zero stones again, but it really doesn't take them long to earn them. Lincoln helped me tidy up this afternoon and got a stone and Sydnie used the potty so she got one too. I make sure to let them put the stones into the boxes themselves (and then usually we count them to see if they have enough yet) and also when we take stones out they have to open the box and pick out however many stones they lost and hand them to me. I think it gives them more of a sense of gaining and losing, rather than if I just did it and showed them.

They have been begging for a pet as well, so I told them that they each must have 15 stones on the Saturday check-in and then they can have a pet as their special treat. A hamster to be more specific, since anything bigger would be too much right now. They seemed satisfied with that, and I am relatively confident it will take at least a few weeks of the Stone System before they manage it. Even though they understand how it works it takes a little repetition before they actually remember it enough to prevent bad behaviour.

Since I'll have both of them tomorrow and no volunteering I think I will get them to help me with some small tasks around the house. They actually really enjoy assisting me and I am working on making this place feel more like home, even if it's only temporary. Might as well be comfortable and organized while we are here after all.

This week my Aunty Leann from Moose Jaw will be out in Toronto for some work training, and is going to be staying with us Friday night so we are looking forward to that.

Only 11 sleeps until our trip as well! We really cannot wait to see everyone.

When It Rains, It Pours!

2007-09-11T20:58:00.000-04:00

All kinds of updates, so you might as well settle in with a coffee for a long read, Ha Ha!

First off, Lincoln just attended his 3rd day of school! He's loving it so far, and is behaving really well. I sent a note to his teacher about our recent move here and to let her know that Lincoln hasn't done the Junior Kindergarten like most of the children here. She says that he seems to be adjusting well and isn't at all behind the other kids.

I took a few photos of his first day:

It was kind of a chilly morning

Lincoln's Brand New Superman Backpack

Being a supportive sister
(even though she was furious about not getting to go to school as well)

All three of us (Daddy included) saw him off to class

It wasn't nearly as emotional as I expected. He was so excited and his teacher seems very sweet and capable. We just kept our fingers crossed that he didn't have one of his tantrums or something. Sydnie was devastated and cried because she couldn't go to school and then cried again when we left Lincoln there. I had to go to the gym for my volunteering so Daddy took her shopping and bought her some princess shoes and a new outfit. It's quite sensible, starting her early on with using retail-therapy to sooth upset feelings. Buying clothes and cute shoes is much more enjoyable than re-telling your life story to a psychiatrist.

Apparently on the first day he wanted to play ball with some older kids at recess, but they said he was too little. So, he did the only logical thing, and stole their ball from them. We never did get it straight what happened after that, but he still dislikes those older boys.

Today he brought home his first library book, which he is very excited about. They also learned all about the letter 'S' and he has some words to practice and a snake picture that he colored. It's the early stages of the phonics program they use to teach reading, which is going to be a lot of fun.

The school is having an Open House next week as well, so we can talk more to the teacher and meet some of the other parents. I think we also get to take a better look around his school and his classroom. Jay and I are really looking forward to that.

Sydnie has gotten better about Lincoln being at school. She still asks if she can go to school but today we did a lot of fun things, just her and I. We went to Starbucks and I got her a piece of cinnamon cake. We did some shopping (for me, not her this time) and generally just had a really good day with each other.

I think she'll be fine in a couple more weeks. I'm going to plan to do some special things with her on the days that Lincoln is at school, even if we just sit down at home together and read a book or color or something.

* * *

There is progress on the house!!! Our neighbours, Melanie and her husband, wrote a very upset letter to Richard, the owner of the company that is building our houses. I guess they just tore a strip off of him for how awful the building process has been and how ashamed he should be of his crappy company. They also mentioned us and how really embarrassing it is that "people moved all the way across the country, counting on being into their house before Christmas, and now they will be stuck in these crappy rentals until the 10th of never" or something along those lines.

At any rate, the very next day an enormous hole appeared on our lot:

(Click on the photos to see them full sized)

And today there are forms up for the foundation (I didn't look to see if they had poured any concrete yet):

Jay and I are both really pleased, but it's apparent that we have to stay right on top of them to keep the progress going. There is still a tiny smidgin of hope that we can get in there either during or just before Christmas. Please keep your fingers crossed for us and pray that the weather stays nice well into winter.

* * *

We're counting down the days to our trip back to Alberta! I thought I'd let everyone in on our rough itinerary of events. Nothing is set in stone as of yet but this should give everyone a general idea:

Friday, Sept 28 - Fly into Calgary in the late evening. We are going to be staying with my best friend, Veronica, that night since she lives right in the city and has generously offered to let us stay with her.

Saturday, Sept 29 - Early morning breakfast date with some of my former co-workers from GoodLife Fitness. Departing for Moose Jaw between noon and 1 pm. Arrive in Moose Jaw in the late evening and stay with my Aunt Leann and Uncle Jeff so that we can visit with them.

Sunday, Sept 30 - Head in to Regina, spend the day visiting with family and friends. Might be staying with Hank and Mary Lou (if they will have us...pretty please?)

Monday, Oct 01 - Spend the day with Jay's grandma for her 100th birthday!

Tuesday, Oct 02 - Leave for Edmonton early in the morning. Arrive there late evening. Stay with Mum and Dad Desjarlais.

Wednesday, Oct 03 - Visit with family and friends in Edmonton.

Thursday, Oct 04 - More of the same.

Friday, Oct 05 - Head to Rocky Mountain House around early afternoon. Arrive mid-afternoon, stay with Mum and Dad Gamblin.

Saturday, Oct 06 - Visit with family and friends in Rocky.

Sunday, Oct 07 - Thanksgiving Dinner

Monday, Oct 08 - Leave for Calgary very early in the morning. Catch our plane back to Ontario at 12:10 pm

If any of you who we plan to impose...I mean, visit with, have questions, get in touch :D

We love and miss you all! I promise more photos of the house as it progresses, as well as some of the awesome Ontario autumn that is just beginning.

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

2007-08-31T21:21:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling a whole lot better than I was the last time I posted :D The house is still pushed way back and I still miss everyone, but Ontario is starting to feel a little more like home. Sorry there haven't been any photos for a while. There's been a bit of a lull where I haven't taken any actually, but I promise I will on Tuesday when Lincoln has his first day of school!

I can't believe my first child is starting school, already! It seems like not so long ago we were having his 1st Birthday with the train cake, and so many gifts we could hardly haul them home in one vehicle. He's gotten so big and grown up all of a sudden.

He's absolutely THRILLED to be starting school. Today was actually a very exciting day all around, so allow me to begin at the beginning.

This morning was my first morning at GoodLife, the gym I'm volunteering at. I was actually supposed to start on Tuesday this week but I wasn't feeling all that well so I didn't end up going in.

Since I know a few of the gals from my former gym read this, I'm going to talk a bit about the Child Minding here. Their room is smaller than the Airdrie one, about the same width but shorter, and they don't have a fenced off area for the tiny babies. It's open pretty much, except a bit of a desk area with shelving that is recessed into the one wall.

They don't have any of the complicated paperwork that we had either. Only one group sign-in sheet that is different from the one I am used to. They don't keep individual files on the kids either, which I find a little unsettling due to the medical conditions/allergies some kids have. They don't even write that on the group sign-in sheet.

Also, they only have one person on per shift, and volunteers are allowed to be by themselves. In fact, they don't have any paid staff for Child Minding, it's all volunteers and their CSM is the 'coordinator'. They don't have staff meetings, and most of the volunteers have never even met each other. Since the gym is co-ed they also have at least one male volunteer that I know of as well.

No communications book or having to enter stats or anything like that. We don't have a cleaning checklist and they don't have regular toy clean (they clean the toys that got slobbered on at the end of the shift and that's it). Also they have carpet! The girl who worked with me today didn't know who vacuums it though. I'm hoping they have cleaning people.

They don't have a change table, you have to change kids on the floor. They don't have shirts (yet, apparently they are getting some) and they don't have a very rigid dress code either. The child minding doesn't get nearly as busy. Her and I had 7 kids in there today and she said that was pretty busy. The most they've ever had at once was 11. I guess that's why they only need one person in there per shift. They have similar hours to ours though, except only open until noon in the mornings instead of 1pm.

The club itself is 2 floors, each being about the size of the GoodLife in Airdrie. They even have the RPM classes with the bikes. Many more classes in general since they have no shortage of instructors. They also have a larger selection of free-weights and benches and stuff to go with that. I don't think their group ex room is as big, and they have more offices. The GM here is male, and I haven't met him yet.

To get into the club you have to check in or else they have those 'gate' things with the rotating bars (like the kind they have at the gates to Stampede and stuff like that) and it won't let you in if you don't swipe your card. If you're a staff person you can bi-pass them though.

I got my membership card already, although I can only ever use it at that club. I don't see that being an issue at any rate. Everyone seems nice there, although apparently I am the oldest volunteer. All the other girls (and guy) are students I guess, they have to put in so many hours of volunteer work for school.

Their club is mainly populated by men it seems. Most of the people who use the child minding are instructors or trainers. It's kind of weird to get used to, they are so laid back compared to what I am used to, LOL.

Anyway, after we finished at GoodLife, I took the kids over to Lincoln's school to drop off the last of his registration papers. As it were, his teacher happened into the office while we were there and so we got to meet her. She is a tiny little thing, and late 20's I'd say. Seems very nice, and Lincoln seemed very excited to meet her.

I got all the info on his first day. We have to get him there bu 8:45am when the bell rings for school. Everyone goes into the gym for O Canada and prayer (being a Catholic school) and then the teachers call off their students, and march them off to their classroom. Once we get him settled in and find out what school supplies he needs (we don't get a list until his first day apparently) that's our cue to leave! I'm not sure that I will be able to handle it, HA HA.

After we finished there I took the kids over to Wal-Mart to get Lincoln a backpack and a lunch kit. Even though we live nearby, I'll probably send him his lunch to school on Tuesdays and the Fridays that he goes, because of my volunteering. He doesn't seem to mind that idea at all and asked me already if I will pack extra snacks for his friends (which he hasn't met yet, he he, so cute).

He picked out a Superman backpack, and I got him a nice insulated lunch bag. Sydnie is totally beside herself that she doesn't get to go to school yet, so I bought her a princess backpack that she picked out and I plan to make her a lunch to take to the gym in it on the days Lincoln takes a lunch to school. That seems to have pacified her for now. Next fall she will start Junior Kindergarten (JK) and will be going full-days as well, twice a week with the occasional Fridays. I'm not sure what I'll do with myself with both kids out of the house for two days a week. Maybe sleep, Ha Ha, or read. I could have hobbies again! Yippee!

Once we got home from Wal-Mart they put on their backpacks and practiced school. Sydnie wanted to eat her imaginary lunch every five minutes and Lincoln just wanted to ride around on the imaginary school bus. He's disappointed by the way that there isn't a school bus for him. One of his favorite shows is Timothy Goes To School, and Timothy rides the bus, so he should too damnit! Actually he didn't say damnit, but I'll bet he would if he liked the taste of soap more.

We also wandered over to this restaurant supply store in Kitchener to take a look around. It was a little warm today so being in the air-conditioned Nitro was more appealing than being at home all day. Wow what an amazing store! I know exactly there I am going first once we get into the house (which will probably be, oh, I dunno, maybe November 2010 at this rate). Many neat things to see there, and the prices were fair in my opinion. Way less than a department store anyway.

On Sunday Jay is taking me to the big antique/flea market in Aberfoyle (a little town next door to Guelph) so that we can look at some furniture and stuff. Melanie, our neighbour here, bought a really beautiful, solid wood desk there for $40 bucks last weekend. It needs to be sanded and refinished, but it's just such a nice desk. I'm going to keep an eye out for some furniture pieces for the new house, since we are going to have a few more rooms to furnish than we had before.

It might seem crazy to buy furniture right now, but we have lots of room to store stuff in the basement here. Plus the flea market closes for the winter and I'd at least like to take a look. If we really fall in love with something I don't see the harm in picking it up now. 2/3 of my stuff is in storage anyway, who cares about adding two or three additional things to it.

We booked our plane tickets for October! I'm really excited about that trip already. We're flying into Calgary and renting a car, then heading to Regina for a few days to visit Jay's grandma for her 100th birthday! Next we'll go to Edmonton to see Jay's family and then to Rocky Mountain House for my family and Thanksgiving dinner. We head home, out of Calgary, on Thanksgiving Monday. The whole trip will be a whirl wind I am sure.

I think this update is rambly enough for tonight :) I hope all our family and friends have a great long weekend! Take care all.

XOXO

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2007-08-22T22:20:00.000-04:00

It's really difficult moving so far away. I don't recommend it to anyone if you don't have to. It can be very lonely here. Jay is back in Calgary for the week on business and I am feeling quite sad about being so far from friends and family. Paul and Valerie do live quite close but I don't think I could find their place on my own. I'm not confident enough with driving here yet, besides venturing around Guelph which I am getting quite good at.

Yesterday I had an interview at the GoodLife Fitness here (the same gym chain I worked for in Airdrie). I applied for a volunteer position there, and they very gratefully signed me on. I start Tuesdays, which will be really nice for the kids and I. The gym is open 24 hours so I can go work out whenever I want, late at night or early in the morning. I feel that this is a good move towards making friends and getting out more. Also going to the gym will be good for my weight loss (I'm down almost 20 pounds since the beginning of June and quite proud of myself).

I decided to volunteer twice a week. I get a free membership for me, plus use of the tanning beds if I want (which I don't since they fade my tattoos). I also get either a free membership for Jay or free childcare for one of the kids while I am working out. Jay isn't sure that he would use the membership, even though there is a GoodLife club right in his office building, but I don't see myself dropping the kid(s) of there while I work out either because I never did when I worked at the Airdrie club. Sooooooo I am going to get Jay the membership anyway and if he doesn't use it then I'll have it changed into free childcare for Sydnie or something.

Still no news on the house, but my new friend Melanie and I were talking today (the kids and I actually spent the day at her house with her two boys so the kids could play and she and I could visit) told me that their possession date has already been pushed back 2 months and she is expecting them to push it back again any day.

We had a really great visit so I probably shouldn't be complaining about not knowing anyone here. It's just because Jay is away and I am missing him and I talked to my mum today and I am missing her too.

The kids seem happy though. They loved the play date today and Melanie and I have plans to get the kids together tomorrow too. Lincoln starts Senior Kindergarten (SK they call it) in less than two weeks! My baby starts school! Ack! He's excited but Sydnie is furious that she can't go too. It's going to be hard on her so I work at the gym on the Tuesdays so that she won't be so lonely. Thursdays we'll just have to come up with some fun girls-time activities that she and I can do together. Maybe I'll start taking her to the pool or look into some play groups for kids her age.

We sure miss everyone back home though. I'm really looking forward to our visit at the beginning of October.

Building A House Can Result In Homicidal Urges

2007-08-20T22:18:00.001-04:00

I could strangle someone at Reid Homes right about now.

Jay and I got a letter tonight informing us that our tentative possession date has been pushed back...

TO FEBRUARY 28th!!!

Do you want to know how I feel about that?!??!??!?!

I'm so upset and angry at the thought of having to live in this townhouse over Christmas (with all of our decorations packed into our garage which now looks like a sardine can filled from front wall to back wall, floor to roof, with boxes). It's so very disappointing. I am aware that these sorts of things can happen when you build, but they assured us that they RARELY have to push back possession dates. I guess we get to be the special lucky ones!

It's still puzzling that the estimated time necessary to complete construction went from November 15th all the way to the end of February. That just doesn't make any sense and just serves to make me angrier. I can see having it pushed back a month, even two months, but three and a half??!?!?

I'll keep you guys posted. There is still the tiniest glimmer of hope that we'll be moving in sometime before the end of February, but I am not optimistic we'll make it in before Christmas. We're going to see what can be done.

Miss you and love you all!

And I Heard, As It Were, The Noise Of Thunder

2007-08-17T08:47:00.000-04:00

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted an update in a while. We've been keeping busy here with new house related stuff. Also the kids made some friends a few doors down and so I spend most of my time outside watching them all playing. Their mother, Melanie, and I have become friends, which has been wonderful for me since I still don't know anyone here. They are building a house two lots up from ours in the new area, so we'll still be neighbours after the move! She has 2 boys, who are 6 and 2, and the kids just love playing with them. Melanie's house is going to be done before ours and she has given me a lot of really useful information and questions to talk to the builder about.

They haven't broken ground on our house yet, but last night we took a look at the semi-final drawings and made any last-minute changes. We are really pleased with how it looks, I really can't wait at all. The drawings have already been submitted for permits, and since none of the changes are major as soon as they get city approval then the contractors can get to it.

We also had our appointment to pick everything out as far as cabinets/floors/etc during the past week. That, of course, is my favorite part!

The designer was really awesome and didn't try to push us into any upgrades. She commented on how easy we were to work with because we already knew what we wanted and there wasn't a lot of standing around trying to decide.

In this house I decided to go with dark cupboards. They will be espresso brown (basically a dark coffee color) and the counters are a medium brown/black/white combination of faux granite. We picked a really gorgeous porcelain tile for the main floor, which will go in the kitchen, entry, and bathroom. It's sort of a textured charcoal with some brown in it. You'd swear it's slate if you didn't know better. Really fantastic.

The carpet will be berber, a really light sort of pale honey color with a tight weave. I chose a color called Bamboo Shoot (which is a medium green shade with yellowy undertones) for the main floor. The basement and second floor are going to be a cool grey color (basically so that I can easily paint over it myself down the road) and our room is once again going to be black.

Our hardwood is going to be maple, stained a sort of dark antique brown. If you've ever seen Japanese Maple hardwood, it's sort of like that. Really beautiful.

The outside of the house is going to be reddish-brown brick half-way up. There will be a grey/red/dark mixture of stone on the front of the house, and the siding is going to be tan with cactus green trim. It's going to be different from all the houses near to us since they all picked brown-tones for the stone and trim.

My kitchen isn't going to be nearly as large as I am used to, which is unavoidable since we extended it as much as possible. We also won't have a pantry since the fridge/freezer we bought is 5.5 feet wide.

Here's a photo to give you a better idea what it looks like:

We do have a cold-room in the basement which seems to be standard around here, so I will have lots of room to store canned goods and anything dry. I can also keep extra small appliances downstairs, because we have a very large storage room were I can keep those sorts of things.

This new house isn't going to have a dishwasher either (save your lectures, we already decided) because we were quite content without one in Airdrie. We don't have one in the rental here either so it's really not a big deal.

We went with the same stove/oven as last time:

I still love stainless steel. Then again I am not the least bit disturbed by looking at finger prints all over it. I've found those Windex multi-surface wipes are also awesome for cleaning it. One quick wipe and all the finger prints are gone.

Once the builders start breaking ground over at the lot I'll be posting frequent photos of the progress. I'm skeptical that we'll actually be moving in during November, and Melanie from next door says that they have already pushed her possession date back by just over a month. It really doesn't matter at any rate. While it would be nice to be somewhat settled for Christmas, I don't care all that much.

As for the old house, the deal is going through with the people who made the conditional offer. They can't close on it until September 15th, but it's alright. We already received the money from the company for the guaranteed offer, so when the people who bought the house take possession we will get the extra money that they offered us.

So, all in all things are great here. We are making some friends and I already mentioned to Melanie doing a babysitting exchange sometime, just for a couple of hours in the early evening, since they don't know anyone here either. I thought maybe we could take turns watching each others kids from about 6-8pm just so that the other could get away for dinner or something. Even that much of a break is wonderful. The kids are usually playing outside together during that stretch of time anyway, so she thought it was a good idea too.

I can hardly believe that Lincoln starts school in just a few weeks. He will be going for full days on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then the occasional Friday. He's excited and can point out his school to me every time we drive by it. Sydnie's nose is out of joint though because she wants to go with him.

I don't want her to be too lonely so I am going to look into volunteering at the gym here on the days Lincoln is in school. That way she'll have a few hours of playing with other kids and I'll still get my free gym membership. The gym here is open 24 hours but it's also co-ed. I think it will be worth it anyway, since I'll be able to work out anytime, and I think if I volunteer twice a week I can get Jay a free membership too, which he can use at the gym right in his office! Since it's all the same gym chain.

So that all sounds really good to me.

It's been cooler here the last couple of weeks which we really appreciate after that intense heat wave. It still gets fairly warm in the day but it cools off just right during the night.

I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Ottawa Or Bust

2007-08-07T17:27:00.000-04:00

Our trip was a huge success. We all had a fantastic time, we saw a lot of different things, and got in a lot of visiting with Tina. She was our super-awesome tour guide and showed us all around the city.

Our first day there we went to ByWard Market, which is exactly like it sounds, a market place which is mostly outdoors. There were many tents set up selling everything from fresh produce to clothing and jewelry. The kids weren't all that interested of course. I bought some really excellent tea there, and some beads for my dreads.

Next we walked to The Rideau Canal, which recently became a World Heritage Site. They have skating there in the winter and a lot of boating in the summer. The lock system is so neat to see.

The National War Memorial was right there as well so we stopped for a look. It's a very large monument, and right in front of it is The Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier, which actually has human remains under it.

After spending some time there it was off to Parliament Hill. We took a lot of great pictures, and Tina had a lot of interesting tidbits to share about the buildings. We didn't take the tour this time, but perhaps on our next visit.

We walked all the way around the center and east blocks. There is a 'cat house' beside the center block where a man has built a shelter for all the homeless cats of the city. He also feeds them and has them fixed and immunized. We saw a couple of cats as well as a very fat raccoon and a ground hog.

The five of us wandered along the back of the building where they have a lot of statues and monuments. It was a great history lesson. We got to see the amazing recently-renovated Parliament Library.

It was getting to be time for supper so we called it a day and grabbed a bite to eat at The Elephant And Castle downtown.

The beds at our first hotel in Ottawa were terrible. The next morning we checked out and made a reservation at the Four Points Sheraton across the river in Gatineau, Quebec.

After grabbing breakfast and picking up Tina we went to The National Arts Center. The kids really loved the huge spider out in front of the gallery. They were mostly bored while we looked at all the paintings, but they LOVED the contemporary art displays. There were some very odd installations.

We spent a couple of hours there before we drove across the river into Quebec. We had lunch at this little bistro and the menu was all in French. Luckily both Jay and Tina can read it so they read everything off for me. It was sort of odd that many of the signs had no English on them.

Our new hotel was right across the street from The Museum Of Civilization. Tina had been telling us about the amazing Children's Museum they had, where kids could play and touch stuff while learning about different cultures. That sounded perfect. We went over and they had a ball! I didn't think we were ever going to get them out of there. Besides the huge indoor portion there was also lots of outdoor areas for play and learning. We stayed right until the museum closed, the kids didn't want to leave!

The five of us went for supper although the kids were both ready for bed. We dropped Tina off and spent a few minutes at her apartment so that the kids could play with her cat, whom they totally fell in love with (the cat is not totally used to kids and was a understandably annoyed by them chasing her).

We got a much better sleep at the Sheraton. The beds were awesome.

Monday morning we had breakfast and then stopped by Tina's to visit before we had to leave. We had such a great time in Ottawa, and we were so grateful for all of her help with touring around.

The drive home was long, but the kids managed pretty well. We got them home and then into bed. I think they were mostly exhausted from all of the fun.

I made a slide show of the trip. It's fairly long, there are lots of photos. I hope that everyone else had a great long weekend!

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd We're Off!

2007-08-03T11:33:00.000-04:00

Tonight we are headed towards Ottawa! We're only going half-way since we will probably be leaving late, once Jay gets home from work. We decided not to take the train this time. We're going to save that for a longer vacation, perhaps when we go to Montreal eventually. It just wasn't worth it for a weekend.

I'm very excited and I think the kids will enjoy getting out of the house. We have been without a second vehicle all week so the kids and I haven't been able to go anywhere. It's been too hot for them to be outside much so it's been a little stressful being cooped up in the little townhouse.

We did go out for supper the night before last, since it's way too hot to cook. Being in an air-conditioned restaurant was great!

So we are planning to go as far as Peterborough tonight and then stay there, and go the rest of the way to Ottawa early tomorrow. It's a 6 hour drive from here to Ottawa so we thought splitting it up would be our best bet, especially with the kids.

Jay and I have already been planning all of the things we want to see and do. We are going to check out the Parliament Buildings of course! Also the National Arts Center and the ByWard Market are on the list of things to do. Visiting with Tina is going to be the best part of course, although we aren't going to impose on her so we are staying in a hotel near her house.

I have my camera all charged up and I'll be sure to take a lot of photos of the kids and the various sites we see!

I hope everyone has a great weekend :) We miss you all!

The Heat Is On!

2007-08-01T15:59:00.000-04:00

It's 33° C here today, although with the humidex it feels like 40°.

Do you know how hot that is?? It's 'make your eyeballs sweat' hot.

Normally I would be basking in all the fantastic heat and humidity, but an unfortunate side-effect of the temperature is that it makes my kids miserable.

This, in turn, detracts from Mommy's general enjoyment of the day, HA HA.

It has however motivated me to search for their inflatable pool, since the rest of this week looks like it's going to be just as hot. Keep your fingers crossed that I can find it and save a little of my personal sanity.

Keep Cool All!

2007-07-30T14:36:00.000-04:00

The unpacking continues...Yup, it's going real good!

Please Note: The above photo is completely fictional and in no way reflects real life

But Here In The Real World It's Not That Easy At All

2007-07-29T09:53:00.000-04:00

Good Morning Everyone!

This kids and I were just having some breakfast (coffee for me) and I thought I'd put up a little update. We made it through our weekend without Jay. He got everything done with the old house and today he locks it up for the last time and hands the keys over to our realtor.

While he was gone I continued to get things settled in. All of the sorting methods we used in the den at the previous house are packed into boxes so the kids and I went to Wal-Mart to get one of those portable accordion filing cases. That way I can keep track of all the important move-related papers, bills, and other documents between now and getting the office set up in the new house.

I've wandered around Guelph enough now that I can find my way to Wal-Mart, Tim Horton's (possibly the most important thing, HA HA), Zehr's (which is our version of an Extra Foods) and the post office. So for Grandma Shirley, if you want to send anything to the kids, I know where to go to get it.

Speaking of the post office, if anyone doesn't have our new address or phone number, please e-mail me or give me a call on my cell phone. Jay and I haven't changed our cell phone numbers yet, so you can still reach us that way if needed.

The kids have been spending a lot of time outside. They have their Little Tikes mini van from Grandma Shirley and they push it up and down the back sidewalk constantly (usually Sydnie riding in it and Lincoln pushing). We also set up their sandbox in the back and they really enjoy playing in that. We don't have too much of an are for them to play, but they don't seem to mind. They generally obey the rules (no going past the end of the garage, since there is a busy 'alley' behind us and no going into anyone else's yard, since there are not fences between houses). I can watch them easily from the dining room table while I sort things or make phone calls.

They both know that this is not our long-term house. Lincoln often talks about the new house with the 'big back yard' which is his main concern, HA HA. Once they start building it (which should be soon) I plan to take them over there every few days to check out the progress. Of course I'll take pictures for this site too so that everyone can see.

Jay and I are talking about taking the train to Ottawa this weekend, since he has Monday off. I've never been on a train, and we know how excited the kids would be! Via rail is also having a special right now so that the kids can ride free. Jay and I would just have to pay for our tickets (and I get a reduced rate because I am under 25). It would be so neat to take the train! Jay has a good friend in Ottawa, Tina, who he grew up with. I've never been to Ottawa so it would sure be neat to see it. If we take the train then we will just take transit everywhere because they have a really good public transit system there, and Tina knows her way around. With the move and all we think it might be nice to take a bit of a family vacation during the summer since we didn't get a chance to go camping or anything with the kids.

If we do end up going I'll take a lot of pictures of the kids on the train and of Ottawa, and I'll update you all once we get back :)

* * * * *

I am already looking forward to next summer and planting new things in the yard at the new house. I drove by a greenhouse here the other day and saw that they were advertising a sale on fruit trees. Specifically pear, peach, and apple. Apparently we can grow peach trees here! Wow! I knew we could grow apples, but I am thinking I will buy a peach tree too.

Speaking of plants, I decided to try growing a mango tree from a seed. Apparently it is possible (they have to be kept indoors of course) so I saved the seed out of the last mango I ate and wrapped it in wet paper towel and left it in the cupboard. After a week of checking it and occasionally adding moisture, it began to send out a shoot. Yesterday I stuck it in a pot of dirt and I am hoping it will grow.

All of our houseplants survived the trip, if anyone was curious. We brought with us the jade plant that my mum gave me (it's 32 years old), a couple of aloe vera plants, a big spider plant, and a really small hoya that I'm growing from a cutting. What I did to move them is get the most enormous plastic garbage bags I could find. Then I put the plant in the bag, misted it really well, and packed balls of damp packing paper in around it. I sealed the bags and then we put each plant into an appropriately sized box (the jade needed a wardrobe box) and taped them shut.

All of the plants made it here in good shape. The jade was a little worse for wear. They are so delicate you know, it lost loads of leaves because they fall off at the slightest touch. However, I cleaned it all up, removed all the fallen leaves from the pot and propped up the branches which sort of fell over from the trauma. I think that it will be fine. The spider plant it excellent and has already started sending off new 'babies' as I call them (if you have a spider plant you'll know what I mean). The hoya and the aloe vera actually loved being in their little makeshift 'greenhouses' and grew quite a bit during the trip. I was really only concerned about the jade making it here, since it's something of a family heirloom.

* * * * *

Sydnie must know what a pushover her mum is. The two nights that Jay was gone she wandered into my room asking if she could sleep in 'Daddy's Spot'. We generally really discourage that sort of thing, we don't want to encourage them to be crawling into bed with us. Even all the weeks that Jay was here for work and we were at the old house I didn't let her sleep with me.

Last night though, I wasn't feeling inclined to say no, and she's just so sweet and snuggly. I relented and she cuddled up quite happily. I often refer to her as my little bed bug because no matter how hard I try to keep her out of our room, some mornings we still wake up with her in there. She has learned to be really quiet and sneaky about it, HA HA.

I also allowed it because the other day I overheard her telling Lincoln about a nightmare she had, that a bad man had taken me away and told her that she wasn't going to have a mommy anymore. Things like that just make my heart break. I think she is just feeling insecure and uprooted right now. I also noticed that with Jay being gone so much she developed a bit of an abandonment issue and was constantly asking me if I was going to leave them too. It's harder for her to understand at this age, so she's been having some nightmares about her fears. She is much better now that we are all together again though, so hopefully in a few months she won't be having bad dreams.

Anyway, I think that is enough of an update for now! Take care all :)

Huzzah! Photos!

2007-07-26T20:36:00.000-04:00

Finally found the camera dock in one of the boxes (I had to open a dozen of them first but I suppose it was good motivation to unpack, HA HA). Here's a little slide show I put together of photos from our first weeks here. I hope you enjoy.

If you just want to view my photos at your own leisure, you can check them out here.

I Think Of That Day Sittin' Down At The Pier

2007-07-24T17:55:00.000-04:00

Finally an update! The crazier things become the harder it is to write about it, LOL.

I'll start with the weekend!

Saturday Jason took the kids and I to our first ever major league baseball game! We drove into Toronto to see the Blue Jays play at Rogers Center. Now even though I find baseball pretty boring on TV it was so much better to watch in real life. The whole atmosphere was fun and exciting. We had some popcorn and other snacks, the kids liked all the clapping and cheering, and the Blue Jays won the game. Thankfully it was a much shorter than normal game (the end score was 1 - 0) which was nice for our first time. We also didn't arrive until the beginning of the 5th inning, which was likely best. I think if we had been there too long the kids would have gotten bored and restless.

After the game Jay took us to one of his coworkers condos so that we could do laundry and we had planned a BBQ and then bowling after (the building she is staying in has it's own little bowling alley). One of his other coworkers, Craig, and Craig's girlfriend came over as well so there were five of us, plus the kids.

We had a really nice BBQ and then we went bowling. The kids loved it! Silly me though, I forgot to take any pictures of that part. At any rate, Lincoln caught onto it really quick and did very well for such a little guy and being his first time bowling. Sydnie and I bowled together and she did pretty good too, although every five seconds she told me that she didn't want me to help her, LOL. Little Miss Independent at the tender age of 3. Heaven help me when she becomes a teenager!

After bowling we headed home as it was quite late. The kids were exhausted from all the fun they had.

Sunday Jay took us down to St. Catharine's to visit Paul and Valerie (some of our cousins on Jay's side) who have a gorgeous little place right next door to a winery. I hadn't met Paul before, so that was really nice and their house and yard are beautiful. There is a vineyard right beyond their back yard and I thought it was so neat because I've never seen one that up close before.

We sat on their really nice patio and had such a great visit. The kids absolutely adored Paul and he took them all over the place, much to their delight. Alyssa was there as well, and Greg and Terri stopped in with their kids to say hi. That was so nice of them because I'd never been able to meet them before either.

Alyssa took me over to the winery next door to get some wine for dinner. I've never been to a winery before so that was really neat. Jay told me to pick up a bottle of something for us too while I was there. Hernder Winery is really a gorgeous place on the outside. We didn't tour the inside but hopefully sometime I'll get to.

I picked up a bottle of 2003 Riesling Reserve that was a pretty reasonable price and then we headed back to the house for supper.

Valerie and Paul made us a really yummy BBQ and we talked a lot about Niagara and Alyssa told us some funny stories about her job. We really had such a great time there.

It was 8pm before we headed for home. We passed though the town of Lincoln which I thought was pretty neat!

One additional note, over the weekend we got a conditional sale on the house in Airdrie! The paperwork and so forth is still in progress but one way or the other everything will be settled out here shortly. We are getting a little more than the guaranteed offer from Jay's company, so that's nice. A few extra bucks never hurts.

We got the drawings from the builders for our new house as well. Jay sent them to me but they are in PDF format and I am not totally sure how to convert them to JPEGS so that I can post them here. I'm working on it though :) I'll post them here as soon as I can.

So yesterday was the big moving day!

The truck arrived around 8am filled with our stuff. I found out we moved approximately 16,000 pounds according to the moving company, WOW! That's a lot of stuff, ha ha.

There were three men doing all the moving, and it took them most of the day to get it done. I say outside and checked off boxes as they unloaded and directed them to either the town house or the garage. We are keeping everything that is not essential to survival in storage in the garage and basement here until the next move. There is no room for it all in here anyway.

After they finished unloading everything and putting together some of the furniture (beds, tables, etc) they left and we looked around and the house full of boxes. Oh my! This is going to take a while to unpack, HA HA.

Another guy came later on and hooked up the washer and dryer so now we can do laundry which is excellent. We also unpacked our plates and glasses so no more plastic beer cups and Styrofoam plates.

Today the kids and I ventured out for a drive. I found my way to the Waterloo Airport, since I have to pick Jay up there on Sunday when he gets back from Calgary. He's going back this weekend to surrender our house keys and tie up the rest of the loose ends there.

Since the kids and I are going to be alone this weekend here I think we will go check out the Farmers Market on Saturday morning and then drive around trying not to get lost while I learn to navigate this city.

The kids seem to be adjusting well, although Lincoln asks for Calgary and the old house once in a while. We explained to him that it's pretty far away and we have to take a plane to get there, which is expensive, so we can't go back right now. He seems to understand that, although he has the odd moment of sadness. Sydnie is too young to understand the distance aspect. She isn't bothered at all by the move and doesn't really talk about the old house or anything. I think they will both be happier now that their stuff is here.

Sorry this update is so long! Once I unpack my camera hook up I have a lot of great photos to share so hopefully before the end of the week those will be up.

We miss you all a great deal and we send our love to everyone.

Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream

2007-07-23T23:44:00.000-04:00

All of our stuff arrived today on the truck. It took most of the day for them to haul it all in, put some stuff back together, etc. What a long and exhausting day.

Our weekend was fantastic. I'll post more details about it as soon as I have a little more time and energy. Likely tomorrow or the next day. I just wanted to let everyone know that we are doing fine and that our things made it here.

Lots of love to you all!

There's No Way But Up From Here

2007-07-19T08:47:00.000-04:00

Wow it gets hot and humid here! While I enjoy it very much (I love the heat) I know that Jay doesn't particularly like it, and I think it makes the kids a little grouchy. Yesterday was the first fairly hot day we've had yet, and today looks like it's going to be really sunny and warm as well. I can't wait for my truck to arrive, so that I can take the kiddos to the beach on hot days! There is a lake only 2-3 minutes away and it has a lovely sandy beach and swimming areas, which I think the kids will enjoy a lot.

Our house in Airdrie STILL has not sold. Oy! We dropped the price again on Monday, so it's now listed at $459,900 and our realtor has been getting a lot of calls and we've been having a lot of showings. However, not even an offer yet. At this point, to be honest, I don't even care. The company takes it over on the 1st of August, and since it doesn't look like we're going to make substantially more than the guaranteed offer, I'm just as happy to let them have it and not have to worry about negotiating a sale.

This weekend Jay was thinking of taking us to a Blue Jays Baseball game! That could be really exciting, even though I find baseball terribly dull. It's more about the experience than actually watching the game, and I doubt the kids could sit through all those innings, so we wouldn't plan to stay for the entire thing. Even if we don't go this weekend, we will eventually get tickets for at least one game this summer.

Today is our first 'garbage day' here and let me tell you, their system is interesting.

Guelph has a city-wide curb side recycling program. All costs involved are included in our monthly garbage fee and apparently our new city has it's very own recycling plant for certain materials.

So here's how their system works:

We buy three different kinds of garbage bags - clear green, clear blue, and regular clear.

Compostable stuff (this includes all food scraps/diapers/tissues/etc) goes into the green bag. Also known as 'wet recycling materials'

Recyclables (all plastics/tin/cardboard/glass/etc) goes into the blue bag. Also known as 'dry recycling materials'

All the rest (such as fabrics/grocery bags/dryer lint/etc) goes in the clear bag. Also known as 'waste'

Wet and Dry bags are picked up every week. Waste bags are only picked up every second week. There is a weight limit for each bag, but you can put out as many bags as you want (provided they each fall within the weight limit) unlike Airdrie, which only allowed two bags per week.

They also have special rules for things like light bulbs, broken glass, and batteries.

Personally I think this system, while it takes some getting used to (standing over the garbage bags for half an hour trying to remember what goes where) is actually really awesome. I like that they use food waste for composting and it doesn't just go to waste. I also appreciate not having to sort my recycling and take it in myself.

Guelph also promotes back yard composting for residents and you can buy your own back yard composter right from the city services building at a reasonable price. They even have all the instructions for getting started and maintaining your composter right on the city website. I plan to get one for our yard next summer, and I can use the compost for our trees and flower beds.

All in all things are going well here. It's starting to feel a little more like 'home' and less like a foreign land, HA HA.

A Little Bitty House And A Little Bitty Yard

2007-07-17T10:48:00.000-04:00

I am sure some of you are wondering how we are managing here in the new place (especially with no furniture yet). So far it's going pretty well. On Sunday Jay took the kids and I to his office building, to show the kids where he works now. Lincoln was certainly impressed, and they really liked that Daddy had a bag of cheesies in his desk for them.

We also went grocery shopping, which was a different experience for sure. I am going to miss my Superstore, since they don't have one here in Guelph. We have a Zehr's which is similar, but not quite the same. Instead of being able to do all of my shopping in one store it appears I will have to 'shop around'.

Yesterday the kids and I spent the day relaxing. I made some phone calls and that was about it. The Nitro hasn't arrived yet, so I am without a vehicle, which limits what the kids and I can do here during the day. There isn't a heck of a lot within walking distance. I am going to call today and find out where the truck is and when we might expect it to arrive.

Well according to the vehicle shipping company, we won't be getting our truck until Friday! Gah! I am going to have a hard time being stuck here with no vehicle all week. I wanted to start finding my way around with the kiddos. We are right on the edge of town, and walking to anything of interest to them would likely be too far for Sydnie, so I am not sure what we will do yet. Perhaps I will look into the public transportation system here and we can take a bus or something.

All in all we are managing quite well. The weather has been nice, neither too hot nor too cold. I am hoping it stays that way at least until we get the truck. The townhouse has no air conditioning so if the weather gets unbearable I want to be able to take the kids to the beach or at least for a drive in the air conditioned car!

I have been taking photos, but I have to wait for our stuff to get here before I can get them on the computer. Although this week I may just nip over to Wal-Mart and have them put all the recent photos onto a CD for me so that I can share them on here.

The kids are finding ways to amuse themselves, even though we only have a TV and two lawn chairs for furniture. We did pack them a few toys, but they mostly make forts out of the lawn chairs or watch movies.

I'm sure I'll have more interesting things to report once we get out and go places!

Just Give Me A Road And A Little Gasoline

2007-07-14T16:42:00.000-04:00

I'm writing this quick update from the plane. We are about 2 hours into the flight, and while the first hour went quite well, over the last hour the kids have become increasingly restless and irritable. Syndie in particular, who is seriously over-tired from being up late last night. I did get some cute photos of their first plane trip, which I will post as soon as my camera dock gets unpacked and I can upload them.

The loading of boxes onto the truck proved to go rather smoothly. The movers were efficient and attentive. It was so hot out yesterday that I spent most of the day hiding in the basement while boxes and furniture were shuffled to and fro.

Our things are due to arrive around the 23rd, according to the driver of the moving truck. That means just under 10 days of living out of a suitcase and getting by without cooking utensils and real beds. It'll be like camping, except less fun, Ha Ha.

Jay starts back at work on Monday, and the children and I will spend the days exploring Guelph and learning our way around. Grocery shopping will be the first order of business since I suspect that Jay has been living on pizza pops and lemonade.

My best friend, Veronica, saw us off at the airport this morning. There were only a few minutes to say goodbye before we had to clear security, but it was good to see her once more before catching our plane.

We are hoping to make our first trip back to visit in October, for Jay's Grandma's 100th Birthday. After we celebrate with her, we will spend a few days in Edmonton and then go on to Rocky Mountain House to finish off the week. That way we will get in a little visit with both sets of Grandparents and any other relatives that happen to be around.

I will be sure to take lots of pictures of our townhouse and the beginning stages of the new house!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend :D More updates to come.

Maybe I'll Hide In This Box

2007-07-12T15:34:00.000-04:00

I've had about enough of this move! It's not over yet unfortunately, but I'm ready to just crawl under a rock and stay there until our plane leaves for Kitchener.

Apparently neither Jay nor myself deal with the stress (or each other!) particularly well. He and I rarely squabble generally speaking, but I think today we each had a few moments where we wanted to throttle the other.

Not seriously of course. Both of us being sad, over-tired, and pushed to the limits of sanity takes it's toll and there is not nearly enough patience to go around.

Watching the movers pack stuff isn't the hard part. It's the fact that we have to leave. Neither of us want to go very badly and it's difficult not to be irritable and upset.

Tonight we are going out for a nice dinner in Bragg Creek. One last evening of peace before we have to trek across the country and settle into the townhouse. Before I know it Lincoln will be starting school and the new house will be done and Christmas will be upon us. It seems unlikely that Jay and I will have a chance to have an evening alone between now and then, so we are talking advantage of it.

Please don't worry about us. We'll make it alright.

Lots of love to you all!

Packing It In...

2007-07-11T12:16:00.000-04:00

The movers are here while I write this. They are packing our things into boxes and bins. I'm finding myself a little more emotional over it all than I expected. In many ways it's hard to let go of this house, and of the plans we had for this place. I'm sad, but it's ok. I still know that it's for the best.

We dropped the kids off at my mom's on Monday. We got to say goodbye to my Grandma and my aunt and my sister. It was difficult to say the least. I don't think we tend to realise how much we are going to miss someone until the farewells are upon us and it's time to go.

Last night Jason and I went to Stampede for a few hours with some friends. At the end of the night there were hugs and goodbyes all around. Tonight and tomorrow night will be more of the same as we try to get in a little more time with the people here before we leave.

Packing proceeds quite efficiently. Although it seems that everything is put into boxes with little consideration of the content. By that I do not mean that they are not gentle with our things, but that it isn't grouped together in any sort of order. Craft supplies, camping equipment, and toys all into one box, etc. I know that the focus for them is just to get it all done, but I am cringing at the thought of unpacking at the new house, once it's finished.

I suppose their method works well under normal circumstances. They pack one room at a time and then the boxes are labeled by room, not content. However, in the basement everything is sort of lumped together down there. At this point I am just letting go and allowing them to do what they are here to do. I am just going to be grateful that I don't have to do all of the work myself and enjoy letting someone else do the hard part.

3 more sleeps...

Gearing Up For The Home Stretch!

2007-07-09T23:54:00.000-04:00

5 more sleeps and we will officially be moved to Ontario. It’s still difficult to believe that it’s real. I go back and forth from being really excited to being sad about leaving. I think that’s pretty normal, although that isn’t a particularly comforting fact.

The kids have really been enjoying time with Grandparents. They spent most of last week at Grandma and Grandpa Desjarlais house. They spent a lot of time playing and they got to visit with Aunty Reta quite a bit as well.

As I write this we are driving them to my mum’s house in Rocky, so they can spend the rest of the week there. Besides the fact that Grandma Shirley and Great Grandma Pearl are looking forward to it, we also knew it would be best for the kids to be out of the house during the packing.

We are doing our best to keep it fun and positive for them. They know we are moving to a new house far away and that we get to take a jet plane to get there. Lincoln is particularly excited about that. They have a hard time understanding distance so we aren’t focusing much on that. Really they are both happy that we will be close to ‘Daddy’s new work’ and that he’ll be home again every night. The kids have had a difficult time with Jay being gone all week.

We have assured them that their toys are going to be there and their beds as well. They seem content with that.

It’s going to be an interesting experience having the movers come to pack everything. I am not sure how it all works but I am confident that everything will go smoothly.

Just to let everyone know, I intend to keep this blog going after the move and beyond. Many friends and relatives expressed interest in continuing to read and keep up on our happenings. I will still have lots and lots to write about, such as the building of the new house and Lincoln starting school in the fall. I’ve gotten the hang of this website thing now so I promise it won’t just die off like the last one did, HA HA!

I’ve also learned how to post videos on here, so we can share snippets of the kids and different activities we are doing. I have some footage of Lincoln’s recent 5th birthday to share, so I’ll try to get that up on here in the next week or so.

The house has received a little attention lately. It’s currently listed at $479,000 and we’ve had a couple of showings. Saturday a couple came and looked at it, then came and looked at it again later that day. Apparently they love it, although they are trying to decide between our house and another house. Also they don’t have their paperwork in order for financing, so possibly an offer will be coming in this week.

We have another showing this evening. If we get an offer I’ll make sure to let you all know!

I promise pictures of the place we are renting, and construction on the new house should start soon so lots of good stuff to come :D

It's Really Happening!

2007-06-26T09:31:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the delay in updates, things are getting even crazier around here!

I feel like I've made more phone calls in the past couple of days than I did as a teenage girl, HA HA.

So I called all the utilities companies in Guelph and got Jay all hooked up with water and light and internet. He takes possession of the townhouse we are renting on Thursday night. I think he's looking forward to being out of the little condo and having some room to move around, although sleeping on an air mattress may not be that appealing.

I really enjoyed spending some time out in Ontario with Jay a couple of weekends ago. I added a few pictures of us that we took while we were out there. You can take a peek here:

Ontario Photos!

The Niagara pics are new, the rest are from my previous trip out there in April.

Today we secured the dates for our move! Here's how it's all playing out:

This Tuesday, June 3rd the moving company is going to pick up our SUV to transport it out east. That way we won't have to go very long without a vehicle on that end.

Wednesday, June 11th the movers will come and start packing up our things. It's going to take them 3 days to pack and load our house worth of stuff. During that time the kids are going to be at my mum's house. The van is being put on the train on the 13th so that we will have something to drive right up until the end of our time here.

The truck leaves Friday the 13th (HA HA, I just now realized how odd that is) and that night we are staying over at Aunty Moe's house. My mom will bring the kids there, and the next morning we head to the airport. Our plane flies out at 12:30pm from Calgary to Kitchener.

Our stuff should arrive in Guelph between the 20th - 23rd of July.

Still seems unreal to me, but I am also really relieved to have solid dates rather than just floating around in limbo.

There haven't been any offers on the house. We haven't even had a showing in three weeks. It's ok though, the guaranteed offer will be enough. Our mortage has already been approved on the new house based on what the company is offering us for this place. All is well.

Our possession date for the new house is set for November 15th which seems like ages away at this point, but I know how fast it's going to go by. Lincoln starts school in September, and by that time we should be settled into the town house. I am sure that getting in the grove of him being in school will keep me busy until November.

Even though we are moving in two weeks, we will still own this house until the end of July. If we don't sell it before the 31st of July then by default we get the guaranteed offer and the company gets the house.

I e-mailed the people I have in my contacts list with our new address and phone number out east. Jason is going to be sending it to anyone he has on his contacts that I missed so if you haven't gotten it yet, you will.

I hope everyone is having a good week! I'll keep you posted!

Dinosaurs!!!

2007-06-11T13:40:00.000-04:00

Jay and the kids and I had a fantastic time at the Tyrrell Museum on Saturday! It was so much fun, everyone had such a great time. As promised, there are a lot of photos:

We left before noon on Saturday and headed to Drumheller. We stopped for lunch at McDonald's and ate outside amongst the aggressive seagulls (apparently me feeding them french fries only encourages them).

We got to the museum and the kids were very excited. We got inside and although the place was a little busy, it wasn't awful. We walked around, browsing the exhibits. The kids really enjoyed it. There was one display in a dark room where the floor was made of plexiglas and there was a pre-historic undersea display under the floor and up one wall. Neither of the kids wanted to walk on it, and I don't blame them, it looked like you would fall right through. We coaxed Lincoln across, even though he walked soooooo slowly and carefully, and Jay carried Sydnie. It was quite cute.

The liked looking at the dinosaurs, and there were a few kid-friendly displays that they got to try out. One of them featured a bunch of plastic butterflies on this board, and once you pressed the button you had to try and 'catch' the butterflies by tapping them once they lit up. Sort of like whack-a-mole. It kept track of how many of each color you caught. It was a lot of fun, we all played.

Eventually we got to the end of the museum and the kids each got to pick out something from the gift shop. Sydnie picked a really cute stuffed dinosaur which she calls 'Saratops' and Lincoln picked out a T-Rex puzzle.

There was a really awesome play ground outside of the museum and we let them spend over half an hour there climbing and playing.

We had to drag them away from there, much to their disgust, but I wanted to have time to stop at one more place. We used to go to Drumheller all the time as kids, and Reptile World was the main attraction for our family! I was pleased to see that it still existed, and had moved to a bigger location!

Reptile World is Canada's largest live reptile exhibit. The kids totally loved it! The glass enclosures were low enough that Sydnie could see in to them, and many of the snakes were slithering about quite actively. Jason and I enjoyed reading up on all of the different species they had on display, and they still had Fred the huge alligator that I got to feed once a long time ago. It was such a cool experience, and I am so glad we made time to take the kids there.

We had a really awesome time. I hope everyone enjoys the pictures!

Wild Animals!

2007-06-07T14:40:00.000-04:00

Aunty Moe and I had a great time taking the kids to the zoo on Tuesday! We were there for about three hours and we got to see most of the animals. The weather was great (we were there before the massive storm hit) and the kids didn't seem to get too bored.

I uploaded all of my pics, so you can see them here:

This weekend Jason and I are planning to take the kids to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. They have never been there before and I think they will enjoy it. Of course I'll take more pictures for you all to see!

Still no bites on the house. We lowered the price to $499,900.00 and we haven't had so much as a showing in almost two weeks. Not sure what the problem is.

The move is being pushed back into July, due to the house not selling. We can't exactly leave it here unoccupied before we secure a buyer. Once that happens we can move, even if the closing date isn't until later in July.

Jason flies home tomorrow so we are looking forward to that! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

A More Personal Update

2007-06-04T16:58:00.000-04:00

A few people have asked me how Jason is making out with his toe and the antibiotics. For anyone who doesn't know, he suffered for a long time from an ingrown toe nail on one of his big toes. A couple of months ago his doctor removed the nail (but did not kill the nail bed) and sent him for blood tests and a bone scan to get a better idea of how bad the infection was.

The bone scan revealed that there is a small infection in the bone of his big toe. This is serious, but not the end of the world. They have him on the strongest oral antibiotics possible. If that is not successful, he will have to go on intravenous antibiotics.

His blood work also revealed a slight concern when it comes to his blood sugar. His doctor is going to sit down and discuss the results, but basically Jason is at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, and preventative measures are in order. He doesn't have it yet, but there is a concern.

So, right now we are just waiting to see if the antibiotics work, I'll keep you updated on that.

The kids are happy and healthy. Most of you know that Sydnie has suffered from constipation off and on for all of her young life. These days she is regular and having bowel movements that are soft and not painful for her. It seems, as far as I can tell, that traveling makes her constipated. I think when we go somewhere she is either too shy or too distracted to go to the bathroom regularly. I'll be keeping a closer eye on that from now on.

Lincoln is good. He is feeling better about Jay being gone now. I can hardly believe he's going to be starting school in the fall!

As for me, I have decided that I need to get back on track with eating right and exercising. It got totally out of hand from last summer to now and I am heavier than I have ever been before. To that effect I have started a separate page, just for me, to write about that and keep track of my eating and working out. I didn't want to clutter up this website with all of that stuff. If you want to read it you can click below:

My Weight Loss Journal

Tomorrow Aunty Moe and I are taking the kids to the zoo for a few hours. We are really looking forward to it! I promise to take pictures and add them to my galleries for everyone to see.

Have a great week!

Down On The Farm

2007-06-01T17:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the delay in updates! The kids and I have been spending most of our time out on the farm in Rocky Mountain House. It's easier to just leave the house clean for showings and take off to my parent's or grandparents house during the week.

I've taken loads of photos, and added a few to my gallery, which you can find by clicking below:

Pictures!

Or just enjoy the slide-show!

I'm sure many of you are curious about the house situation. We still haven't sold. In fact, there hasn't even been an offer! Jason and I are becoming somewhat anxious. I had hoped it would sell quickly, and it's a tad discouraging that we aren't having much luck. I am going to call my realtor today and discuss some ideas.

We are still planning to build out in Guelph. We haven't signed off on anything as of yet, since there are some items in the building contract that we want to have changed. The builder has been very accommodating to us, which is a relief.

The move is coming up fast! Three weeks to go. I can't hardly believe it's here already.

I must admit that as it approaches it's getting harder to stay positive. I know in my heart that this is going to be a great thing for us, but leaving our family and friends is very sad. I am going to miss this house and our city a great deal.

It's been hard on the kids having Jason away so much. They miss their dad, and recently Lincoln commented to a relative that Daddy doesn't live with us anymore. I had to sit down and explain to him that Daddy is just traveling for work and that he still lives here. Soon we will all be together in our new house. That seems to have made him feel better. In that sense I am thankful that it won't be much longer until we make the move.

This weekend Jason and our neighbor are going to finish the one side of the fence that didn't get done last year. The posts are in, they just need to attach the panels. It got too cold last fall to do anything, and it might help with the house if it's all complete.

I am also planning to haul some things to Value Village to tidy up the basement a little.

Jason flies home this evening. He was in Halifax for work all week. Apparently it's beautiful out there, I can't wait to take a vacation there with the kids eventually.

I hope this finds all of you well. I shall make a better effort to update more regularly in the coming weeks.

Check out our house on MLS by clicking HERE.

Actual Conversation (Act 2)

2007-05-15T20:07:00.000-04:00

Me: Sydnie, what would you like to eat for your Birthday dinner?

Sydnie: Frog Soup

Where do they get this stuff? HA HA

Happy Birthday Sydnie!

2007-05-15T17:09:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't updated for a few days. I have been crazy busy getting the house ready for showing.

Today our house was included in a realtor tour. Basically this gives realtors a chance to check out houses for their clients to see if they find any worth showing them. Apparently it went well, and I am hoping we get some showings here in the next couple of days.

Tomorrow I am going up to my Mum's to spend a couple of days there. That way I can leave the house nice and clean and people can come see it as much as they want. Jason flies home Friday around supper time, so I'll be back by then.

This weekend Mum and Dad Desjarlais are coming down from Edmonton, and bringing Aunty Reta along. We are going to have a little celebration for Sydnie's 3rd birthday, which is today actually. Even though she isn't getting any of her gifts today, and her dad is away, I am doing my best to make it fun for her. I took the kids over to the gym to play with some of the other kids. It was awesome for me because I got to visit with my former co-workers.

After that I took them to Dairy Queen and bought them each a sundae with sprinkles. That seemed to make her very happy (Lincoln too!)

Tonight my best friend Veronica is coming over for dinner, and I think I will let Sydnie open the gift that Uncle Brian dropped off here on the weekend. She can't open our gift yet because we bought her this awesome Dora Pirate Ship and I want Jason to be home to see how excited she is.

I am hoping the house sells fast :) Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Actual Conversation (Act 1)

2007-05-07T17:14:00.000-04:00

Lincoln: Goodnight Mom, don't let the bed bugs bite.

Me: What should I do if they bite me?

Lincoln: Well...you'll have to kill them with a net.

Kids are so cute most of the time, HA HA.

Clean Sweep!

2007-05-07T14:03:00.000-04:00

My house is looking fantastic! My best friend in the world came over last night to help me clean up some things. She emptied my fridge and cleaned it out and pitched in to get all the finger prints off of our appliances.

Today I was blessed by my Aunty Maureen, who had the day off and stopped by to spend the afternoon entertaining the children so that I could tidy up. I feel like everything is under control, and I was able to send a lot of great pictures to our realtor for our MLS listing.

Have a good week family and friends! keep your fingers (and toes and arms and legs) crossed that the house sells fast!

We Can FINALLY List Our House!

2007-05-06T05:28:00.000-04:00

We met with our realtor, Colin this morning. Due to the relocation process and the paperwork and approvals involved, we were not allowed to list our house until now (well, tomorrow actually).

Colin took a look at the house and brought over some recent and current listings in our area. We looked everything over and we've all agreed that listing our house around $510,000.00 is our best bet to sell it relatively quickly, while still getting a reasonable amount for it. We are pleased with that number, and Colin feels that we will get a LOT of showings in the next couple of weeks.

Once the house is up on MLS I will post a link so you can take a peek at it.

Jason was home for the weekend and we got to enjoy a lot of family time together. The kids sure miss him.

The housing situation on the other end seems to be settling out. We just have to clear up a few questions with Reid Built Homes there before we sign on to build. They have been generously holding onto the lot we want, until we make up our minds (and they did not require us to put a deposit on it either).

Building a new house seems rather stressful and complicated to most people, but I actually enjoy the building process a great deal. We don't mind having to wait for a house if we are going to get exactly what we want. We don't spend a lot of time waffling over decisions, so generally the process moves along quite smoothly, and with minimal hassle.

We are going to be making some modifications to the floor plans. Mainly we are expanding the kitchen, adding a fifth bedroom to the second floor, and turning the loft into a Master Bedroom complete with en-suite and walk-in closet. That means we will have 6 bedrooms (and one in the basement). Plenty of room for family and friends who come to visit us.

Now to finish getting our house ready for viewing. I am hopeful that we will get a good offer quickly, so that we can get the showing process over and done with. Having the two little ones underfoot makes it especially difficult, but we shall manage!

I hope that everyone had a great weekend. I will continue to keep you posted, as always!

The Kiddos And I

2007-05-02T10:25:00.000-04:00

Here's the picture that Jason has sitting on his desk at work. I think it's a pretty good shot of the kids and I.

Speaking of the kids, they just got back from a great weekend with Grandma Shirley and Great-Grandma Pearl. Great Aunt Lorna had them over to play at her house with all of her cool toys! They got to ride around on the golf cart at Great-Grandma's house and see a live mouse that got caught in the basement! Very exciting stuff.

Jason and I had to stay home and do boring grown-up stuff, LOL.

This week he is looking at a couple more houses in Guelph. I am going to get together with our realtor on this end to get our house listed. Jason flies in tomorrow night, which makes me happy :)

Not much new and exciting. I will write a little more as soon as I can. Hard to believe it's already May. Where does the time go?

Sanity Is Over-Rated

2007-04-22T20:18:00.000-04:00

Jason headed back to Toronto today, for his second week of work (or more accurately, endless training) out there. He seems to like his new office building, and his new co-workers. I think that he is trying not to feel overwhelmed by the amount of new information. He has a nice desk area, right beside a window.

It is somewhat lonely here without him. The kids and I miss him a great deal while he is away, and I know that he misses us. Today he took a photo of the kids and I, and had it printed off at Superstore so that he could take it with him and keep it on his desk. I also have a webcam for our computer so that he can see the kids. Once he gets his work laptop (they get issued one from the company) he is going to get a webcam for it too, so that the kids can see him. I will make sure to post some of the pictures he took today, the kids look so cute.

We still haven't heard anything from the appraisers. It's rather annoying, but I expect something for sure this week. I finished up at the gym, my last day was on Thursday. They were sad to see me go, but I feel spread a little less thin now.

Jason and I discussed the house situation and we are leaning heavily towards building a new house out there. Moving across the country, away from family and friends, will be an easier pill to swallow if we are getting a house that we love. I know that a lot of people have said that we shouldn't think of this house as a long-term residence, because we will likely move back sooner rather than later. However, I don't believe that to be true. Unless Jason gets fired and cannot find another job out there, we won't be moving back. We LOATH moving. I also don't want to have to uproot our kids once they start school. It's hard on kids.

Obviously I cannot predict the future, but I don't want to think that we are going to be moving in the near future, so I am looking at this as a long-term situation. I don't think I could do it otherwise.

My Aunt Leann and I had a good chat about this very topic. When she and my Uncle moved away to Moose Jaw, SK nobody in our family thought they would stay there for long. I don't think that they did either. They heard a lot of comments about it, and everyone expected them to move back within a year or two. Well I know it's been at least 6 or 7 years now and they have no plans to relocate.

All I am trying to say is that I would prefer people not assume that we will be back. We might be, but more likely we won't be. We are embracing this change, it's going to be good for us, and we appreciate all of the positive encouragement and support.

Back to my original train of thought. We are very seriously considering building with Reid Homes (a different Reid Homes than the company that built our house here). The house that we are considering is beautiful, and the lots that they offer are huge. The one that we are looking at backs onto a park, and on the other side of that is a protected bird habitat, with trees as far as you can see and a lake. It's close enough to provide a gorgeous view, and far enough that I don't have to worry about the kids near the water. It's also very close to a Catholic Elementary, and the price is within the range we had set for buying a house. We haven't committed to anything, and Jason is going to look at some more houses this week. If he finds anything worth seeing, I will have to make another trip out there.

I will update again as soon as I hear anything new, and once I get those cute photos uploaded. I hope that all of our family and friends had a good weekend!

Ontario Photos

2007-04-18T17:13:00.000-04:00

I uploaded and captioned all of my pictures from our weekend in Ontario. You can take a look at them (and my other photos) if you click on the following link:

Ontario

You can click on any of the pictures to see a larger version. You can also click on View As Slideshow in the upper right-hang side of the screen to see them scroll through.

Enjoy!

Shouting From Ontario!

2007-04-14T17:10:00.000-04:00

I apologise for the delay in updates, things were a little psychotic last week, and the week prior to that.

I am posting this from the condo that Jason will be living in between now and the final move. It's in Mississauga, which for those of you who don't know, is basically a subdivision of Toronto. There is no 'break' between the cities; they just mush together, like Edmonton and Sherwood Park. As the plane was coming down in the dark it was basically lights on either side, as far as the eye could see.

We arrived here on Thursday night and have been looking at houses for the past two days. I think we have been to around 30 or more houses between Friday and yesterday. It's been a little wild, LOL.

Our realtor has been absolutely fantastic. He acted as our tour guide and took us out to a couple of great little pubs for lunch both days. We got to see pretty much all of Guelph, not to mention Rockwood, Georgetown, Milton, and even Cambridge. Jason took me to see his office building in Brampton (I've got pictures, be patient) and I have gotten to know the 401 fairly well.

The streets in Guelph are confusing, and not at all as organized as the cities I am used to, but it makes for interesting driving. They don't have the same system of streets and avenues. They are just randomly strewn about, intersecting here and there, mixed up with lots of 'Boulevards' and 'Drives' and 'Ways'. Mapquest has become our best friend. Guelph is beautiful; I think I am really going to like it there a great deal. It has all of the amenities I am accustomed to, and a few other little extras. The architecture is INCREDIBLE! It's hard to find a house that isn't made out of brick (which we love) and many of the older homes have fantastic character. It makes the idea of buying one of these old houses very attractive.

We also checked into some Show Homes. The idea of having a house built, and making it exactly what I want it to be, is attractive. None of the houses we looked at made me fall in love with them. I really liked some, but there seemed to be something about each of them that put me off. The house we liked the best already has a pending offer on it, and besides that, the backyard was almost completely covered by the enormous deck.

The cost of building out here is dirt cheap, when you compare it to our area. We can get a house that is just under 3,000 square feet (on a huge lot) with a developed basement, a deck, and an enormous Master Bedroom in the attic (they call it a loft here) starting at around $400,000. That will also include 4 really big bedrooms on the second floor and a kitchen that I love. They aren't suffering the same labour shortage that we are so we could be moving in around September if we start the process right away.

We have been taking advantage of the kid-free time (and our daily food budget) by going out for nice dinners to try some exciting cuisine. Tonight we had some alligator at a Cajun restaurant. Alligator is surprisingly gristly. It didn't taste like chicken however, and it was interesting to try it once. I also had some catfish for the first time, which I actually found way too spicy (normally I can handle that but I am suffering from a sinus infection and my tolerance is lower). The atmosphere of the place was really amazing, and Jason really enjoyed the live Jazz music.

I have been taking as many pictures as I can (not of the houses, but of the area). I will post them as soon as I get home and upload them all.

Tonight we received some very unfortunate news. A very close family friend passed away last night. She was practically an aunt to Jason, and he has been best friends with her son, Curtis, since they were boys. Jason is understandably very sad, and he is making arrangements to attend the funeral on Tuesday. Curt is in our thoughts as well, and it's making us wish we were back home to offer whatever support we might be able to.

I am not looking forward to leaving tomorrow. I hate to leave Jason here, even though I miss my kids. I know that I will see him every weekend, but I am not accustomed to being separated from him. It's not going to be easy. Thank goodness it's only temporary.

So nothing definitive on the house front quite yet. I shall keep you updated.

Last week we had the appraisers come to our house in Airdrie. I should be hearing back from them on Monday. I am curious to find out what they think our house is worth.

This update is sort of all over the place, but in my defence, it's almost midnight here and I am pretty exhausted. I will do my best to get pictures up in the next few days, so stay tuned for that. Good Night!

I Like To Move It, Move It

2007-03-30T17:07:00.000-04:00

Things are starting to happen, at long last.

It's not even that I am eager to move, however, I can't stand waiting around in limbo. I'm one of those 'Lets get this show on the road' kinda people (as most of you know).

So, since the relocation specialist has been in touch with Jason, things have started moving. Documents are being sent to moving companies, Realtors, lawyers, etc.

We found out that the guy who sold us our current house (basically walked us through the entire process and listened to my griping and printed out 5,000 change-forms for us) is now a realtor. We figured who better to sell this house than the man who knows every minuscule thing that has gone into it? He knows the upgrades we did, and all of the extra work that went into it. He is the one who told me where to buy all the beautiful tile at incredibly cheap prices, and gave us advice on putting up the hood fan. He fought for us over the bathtub and made sure that reinforcements were put into the ceilings to hold the weight of the fans we put up in the bedrooms. He was absolutely excellent to work with.

Jason gave him a call yesterday and told him about the situation. He was actually in shock that we are going to be selling this house. Our dream house. He knows all too well how particular and meticulous we were when we built it. He knows that it is exactly what we wanted, right down to the placement of the electrical outlets. He didn't think that we would ever be persuaded to leave here.

However, he is quite flattered and pleased that we have chosen him. I know that he will be attentive, and that he will get us the best price he possibly can. I consider him a personal friend, and he knows what this house means to us. He is also a fairly new realtor, so he's not overloaded with clients. That means he will have time for us, unlike our last realtor who was next to useless. He will also respect my need for at least a few hours notice before showing the house.

In addition to all of that, the moving company called me this morning to arrange a time for a walk-through of the house. They just come by to take a look at how much stuff you have, so that they can book the appropriate amount of time, and the right number of movers to handle the job. He's coming next Thursday, April 5th at 8:30am.

We also have to have appraisers come and look at the house. We aren't going to do that until after Easter weekend however. The house isn't ready yet. I need to finally finish the tile in our bathroom (not a major job, just a row of tiles around the shower). It's such a messy hassle to tile, I can't usually do it when the kids are home and the entire process takes at least 48 hours no matter how big the job is because you have to let the mortar cure before you can grout. Anyway, that will get done and the basement organized and then we will be ready.

The actual move will likely happen in early June. It takes about 60 days to get possession of a house (once you factor in home inspections and mountains of paperwork) so between selling this house, buying a new one, etc. we are looking at early-mid June.

In our neighborhood houses are generally only on the market for 7-10 days before they sell, which is excellent. I dislike the hassle of showing the house, and of keeping it in a constant state of perfection (try it with two little rugrats home all the time, HA HA). Things should happen quickly which is the speed I like.

Jason and I have been sifting through MLS listings. He found a new listing last night that looks very promising. It's in Guelph, and it apparently has a huge kitchen (something that is surprisingly hard to come by out there). It's just under 3,000 square feet and the only drawback is that the basement is not finished. However, at this point, we are willing to take an unfinished basement in exchange for a kitchen that is bigger than a postage stamp.

We are aiming to take our first trip out there in the next few weekends. It depends on when we can get someone to take the kids for three days. I am excited to see the area and shop for a house.

Have a good weekend everyone!

For What It's Worth...

2007-03-28T17:03:00.000-04:00

Greetings All!

Jay and I have been busy getting the house ready to be listed. The ball is rolling now, and Jay has been in touch with the relocation specialist who will be handling the move.

The office in Brampton keeps pushing Jay's starting date back. I think it was moved to the 16th, last we heard. Not that I am complaining, ha ha. He found out that he will have a condo to live in out there, until we move, and he will be flying home weekly.

We went down to the showhomes here in Sagewood, to see what our house is selling for brand new these days. Once you buy the lot and build our house (minus the upgrades and changes we made) it costs $455,000 appox. That makes us very happy. The base price has nearly doubled since we bought our house. We also put in quite a number of upgrades.

We can't list it yet but hopefully soon!

Time Ticks By

2007-03-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

Not too much to update at the moment.

Jason's company issued a second offer to the people who had already been asked to move. Apparently they felt the initial offer wasn't enough money. We aren't complaining, that's for sure :D It's a significant increase, which is making the idea of moving a lot easier for both of us.

The kids are coming around a little to the idea. They are still so young, all we've told them is that we are getting a new house. They go back and forth on being ok with that and being against it. What can you expect from pre-schoolers though.

I am looking forward to the weekend. Jason and I are going to have a little time to start getting the house in order, so that we can list it early in April. The kids get to spend time with their Great Grandma and their Aunty Maureen, so it's win-win.

I hope everyone else has a great weekend! Thanks for all the love and well-wishes :D

Counting Our Blessings

2007-03-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update on some stuff related to Jason's job :)

It looks like he won't have to start in Brampton until April 9th. That would be nice, since Easter is the weekend before. We are going to my family's for Easter this year, since my Aunt and Uncle from Moose Jaw will be out, and it might be a while before we see them again. I am looking forward to the visit.

This weekend Jason is going to take the kids to see Mum and Dad in Edmonton. I am staying home to finish up my last weekend at Superstore and getting a start on sorting through some things that I want to get rid of before we leave. Perhaps I will put some of them on this site and our friends and family can pick out anything they want before the rest goes to the thrift store :)

Next weekend my Aunty Maureen is going to take the kids for a night so that Jason and I can start getting the house in shape for showing. Not too much needs to be done, but the boxes in the basement need to be arranged against one wall so that they are not scattered all over. The bathroom down there needs to be cleaned (we've never used it, but there is still a bit of a mess from tiling in there).

Support has been pouring in from all over. Many relatives have offered to take the kids while we fly out to Ontario to look at houses. Everyone wants to help in any way that they can. It's incredibly touching. We are so very grateful for all of you.

Stay tuned for more updates as they happen :D

Only The Beginning

2007-03-11T14:12:00.000-04:00

Greetings Family And Friends!

Welcome to the new website. I decided that in light of the huge life change we are embarking on, it would be nice to have a journal of sorts, so that people can follow along without having to rely on us to call you and give updates, LOL.

As most of you know, Jason has decided to accept a job offer with his company that will mean a move across the country for us. More specifically, the job is in Brampton, Ontario. We will likely move either right into Brampton, or perhaps into Guelph or another town/city in the area. We are just starting to look at houses online.

Jay will be heading out to start work on April 1st. He will likely be able to fly home every weekend, or at the very least, every second weekend. We hope to list our current house in the middle of April. I don't think it will take us long to sell. Real estate in the area is crazy, so we should get a good price as well.

We are both a little sad over the thought of leaving this house. We really consider it our 'Dream House' and so much of us has been poured into it. All the painting and tile I did, all the hours that we spent putting together furniture and arranging it just the way we want it. It's hard to let go of something that is so 'ours'. At the end of the day, it's still just a building. We can make a new house feel like home, I am good at that.

I have given notice at my jobs. My last night at Superstore will be this weekend. My co-workers are sad to see me go, especially Sherry, who was the other price changer. She said that my laugh always makes her smile, and she will miss hearing me giggling all night (a person gets awfully silly at 3am). The stock guys and my supervisors have all told me how much they have enjoyed working with me and are wishing us the best out east.

I will remain working at the gym until we move. I am training one of my staff to take over as the supervisor/department head. My general manager has promised to give me an excellent reference to the gym in Brampton or Guelph, in case I want to get a job there. At the very least I hope to be able to volunteer so that I can still have a free membership. I think that with Lincoln going into school, it would be good for Sydnie to still be amongst other kids on a regular basis.

The next couple of months are going to be a roller coaster. Thank you everyone for all of the support and encouragement we are already receiving. It really means a lot to us.

Hugs for everyone!