Sliding with Friends

A wonderful day was spent at Manning Park yesterday with my friends and their families to celebrate a certain young man's birthday!

Ski bunnies forever...right girls?!

My men and myself. Keith stayed home with Liam. Liam wasn't tall enough for the sliding.

We enjoyed the changing weather from our lawn chairs in the snow!

Sun, cloud, snow but no rain! Thanks be to the Lord for that!

The whole gang of kids ready for some birthday cupcakes!

Happy 11th Birthday Curtis!

Hope you liked your gifts.

Chad really enjoyed himself.

Sliding down and getting a ride back up. Is there a better way to spend an afternoon when you're a kid?

Thanks for the invite Jones family!

Flowers Make Houses Beautiful!

I have been blessed with many bouquets of

flowers from people since we have moved here. I love fresh flowers and am enjoying them so much!

These tulips are from my cousin Erin.

And these pink gerberas are from a friend and neighbor Susan!

And finally from our new neighbors across the street is this pretty hanging basket which I found on my front step this afternoon!

Saturday Stuff

Okay...now my blogger is randomly placing my photos on my posts and I can't change them! Am I the only one having trouble here?

Anyhow. Good surprise today in that our new sofas were delivered a few days early. We went shopping last night all over town and with five minutes before the last store we went to closed we bought this floor model for a good deal. They are a very comfy loveseat and couch. It nice to have a place to sit down now. We have furniture in our 'living room' but didn't have anything in the family room yet.

Then my brother very kindly came over to hook up our multitude of wires and electronics. It's not that Keith is incapable but just that I have Keith working on so many other projects that he just can't do it all! So now we are back to watching TV and Liam can be entertained with his favorite programs now and again. Keith has been busy today ripping up the carpet on the stairs as he's going to be doing a few modifications before we get new carpet in the next few weeks.

We have some big decisions to make about chosing carpet and if you know me well, you know that I am not good at making decisions and I really need lots of input. My fairy godmother decorators came by today to give their two cents and next week the lady from the flooring place is coming for a consultation as well. Getting new carpet is a massive expense so we really want to get it right!

Anyone have any advice about types of carpets or what has or has not worked for them? I'd love to hear it.

Miss Fusspot

For me, it's often the little things. Little things such as worn out and ugly looking cupboard shelves. This is an older home so it's well used and that's fine. But look just how easy it is to improve those worn out edges!

Voila! Very inexpensive edging from the local hardware store and now I can rest easy :) Some people would not even notice these things but I do. So be it!

Don't even get me started on the paint job in this house. I am a painter's daughter and the shoddy paint they used and the sloppy job they did is not sitting well with me.

FATHER!

BROTHER!

NEED HELP...STAT!

A Walk Around the Neighborhood

Not sure why I can't centre my photos today. Stupid blogger and it's never-ending glitches! Anyhow...here's the front of our new abode. Starting to feel like home a little bit.

I took Liam and Nathan out for a little walk last night. Liam had already walked all the way to MEI from our place this morning (no stroller!) to visit mum so we didn't go too far.

The slide at the local elementary school is fabulously slippery!

And the views are stunning. I just love looking at snow covered mountains. Soul therapy!

I may not have this view from my living room window anymore BUT I just have to walk a little ways down the street and there they are!

A Barrel of Rhubarb

One of my concerns upon leaving Chadsey Crescent was that I was leaving behind my beloved rhubarb plant. I do love rhubarb desserts and was finally getting a good crop from my plant. My thought was to dig it up and then transplant it to the new place. In all the frenzy of moving I forgot about this. When I explored my new backyard I found in one corner a wooden barrel just full of a good strong rhubarb plant! I was just so pleased! Sadly I did have to say good bye to my raspberries but perhaps I'll plant some again.

Keith has been doing one project after another to get this place just the way we want it. We are impatient and far from done. Last night he installed a new programmable thermostat. A 'must have' as far as I am concerned. We are adjusting to the new way of heating this house. We have the furnace running heat to the main floor and basement but the upstairs is all heated with baseboard heaters. We'll see what the heating bills are like next winter but maybe it's smart way of doing things...I'll keep you posted on that!

Looks like we'll be getting that new paint job sooner rather than later!

Washing & Drying

A good thing. I have a fantastic set of fancy shmancy laundry machines!

A bad thing. I have to go down two flights of stairs to get to them. Actually, since I need to move my butt more that is actually a good thing.

So....no bad thing about it.

Settling In

Liam is doing so awesome in his new room. He's sleeping well and is sleeping without his bed rail now. The only problem with his room is that his baseboard heater doesn't work. It's very cold in there! Just one more thing to add to the project list.

Since the TV is not hooked up yet the boys have had to resort to old fashioned play to entertain themselves. They got creative and made themselves into robots and have made forts with all the boxes.

A picture of our first sit down gourmet Costco pizza supper on Sunday night.

Slowly but surely we'll make this feel like our house. When I walked inside today after work it still smelled like someone else's house. I look forward to that changing...hopefully soon!

Not Too Tired to Blog....

...But really quite tired. Today was a success mostly in part to family and friends who put their lives on hold today to help us move. It was a BIG job (especially the hot tub) but it got done and well, all we can say is thank you very much. The weather was very spring-like with plenty of showers and one or two sunny breaks.

My head was in a fog today so I really have to give a special thanks to K & K who kinda took charge and told me what to do. I need friends like that :)

Brent and Jill were kind enough to take Chad's bed and give it a new home. Bye bye loft bed....you were good to my boys!

Dave and Roger are work horses. They really did a lot of heavy lifting. I should pay for them to both get some massage therapy. We aren't spring chickens anymore!

Feeding the hungry troops.

From the sounds of it, moving the hot tub was the challenge of the day. With a few resouceful ideas and strong backs the job was done. We'll have you all over for a soak once it's up and running again!

They successfully manouvered it around the gate. Good job guys!

Today was the first time I'd seen the house from the backyard. I like it! Dave gave me plenty of advice on how to spruce up that dead grass. I think they'd had a trampoline there.

One last farwell to Chadsey Crescent. We did enjoy our first home and it was a lovely home! We'll miss the neighbors, the views and the familiarity of it all. The great part is that the house is on our walking route so we'll be keeping our eye on it regularly! I hope the new owners enjoy it. As we left the house there was a very pretty rainbow to the northeast and it reminded us greatly of God's goodness in all this.

In the evening the neighbors came over and introduced themselves and brought us some lovely flowers! What a terrific welcome. She told us that everyone looks out for each other on this street which sounds wonderful to me.

Liam was reunited with his family after two days with Nana (LIFESAVER!) and was happy to have a bath in the new tub. He's taking this move all in stride. What a little trooper.

All in all things are going well. Time to rest these weary bones and get used to the new night sounds of this place. Yikes!

Making a House into a Home

A really spacious entry awaits.

The main bathroom is very up-to-date. The ensuite is another story!

Not sure why the grass is so patchy but we'll aim to improve that....or maybe just plunk a trampoline on top of it!

A spacious eating area...no more bumping elbows and scraping against the walls!

And the previous owners left a lovely card and chocolates. How thoughtful!

A Day Like No Other

A most pleasant surprise last night was that we received the keys to our new house one day early! This meant we could start moving stuff in all day today instead of just starting at 6 pm. Our plan was to work our tails off while the kids were at school and Liam was with my mom. But FIRST, we had to attend a very special school assembly with Chad being the recipient of THREE awards.

He received honour roll, effort roll AND Student of the Month (virtue: Responsibility)

It meant the world to Chad that we were there. It was a surprise for him and he had a perma-grin on his face the whole time. His love tank was filled up today. That child needs words of encouragement and lots of quality time. That speaks love to Chad! And for the record, Nathan received an honor roll certificate today as well. They just don't do it in an assembly at ATMS....too cool for that! Proud of both my boys!

We left for home and picked up the rental truck on the way. Keith reserved the biggest truck EVER and he had a heck of time getting it backed up our steep driveway.

The goal was to get all the boxes in the garage in the truck and brought to the new house today. And YES! We were able to do it. My dad came to help in the early afternoon ( and on his Birthday too!) and then once the boys got home from school they were extremely helpful. I drove three loads over in the car and did a bit of unpacking. Now we are packing up all the bits and pieces in the house for tomorrow. We don't have to be out by noon Sunday but we'd really like to be out of here tomorrow night at the latest. I know the new owners are from out of town and would rather be here than in a hotel. We have a good posse of friends and family coming for the heavy duty stuff tomorrow and are so very thankful for all their help! We don't plan to move again for a very very long while.

Thank You List

It hasn't been the most fun spring break on record but there are MANY things to be grateful for. I'm sharing them for posterity!

-friends and family willing to help us move

-finding the right house for us in a great neighborhood with with an affordable price tag

-family support that goes above and beyond

-a fairly healthy winter as far as colds and flues go

-a brother that has professionally patched up all the damage we did to our walls over the years!

-a certain husband's back that has healed up in time for the move

-jury duty cancellation emails (BIG sigh of relief)

-address changes that can be done online....yippee!

-Amazing Race was renewed for another season

-self cleaning ovens

-unlimited curbside recycling pick-up

-more boxes than we needed!

I'm sure there is more but these are the things that come to mind today.

Working Working

We (mostly Keith) got our storage room completely cleared out this weekend. The kids enjoyed playing on the shelves. A great alternative to beds, wouldn't you say? You could stack 'em three high in here!

The garage is slowly but surely getting filled with all our 'stuff'. We have purged quite a bit but it still seems like we have an awful lot of things.

Keith had to remove the closet door to the storage room under the stairs to get our patio furniture out. It's stayed in really nice shape these past five years since we take it in each winter out of the elements.

And much to my amazement Chad offered to make his dad a cup of coffee. Unbeknown to me, Keith taught him how to brew him a perfect cup of coffee. This means it's official that he's given up on me. We've been married 16 years and I still do not know how to make coffee. He's shown me many times but I forget. Chad brewed up that pot like he'd been a Starbucks barista for years. All pressure if off me completely now. Thanks Chad!