I could get used to this

This was yesterday's sunrise. Unfortunately by the time I could get my camera the pinks and purples were gone, but it is still a nice view. There's no shop, windsock or other buildings to zoom out of the camera view! I can hardly wait for summer to come so I can enjoy these while eating breakfast on the veranda.

Birthday Party Madness

We finally had Nathan's birthday party last week. His birthday's in August. Mother of the year I am not! Having a kid born in harvest, during summer break doesn't make for the best birthday party timing and with building a house this year as well there was no way I was having his friends party close to his actual birthday. Last year we had his party in November as well but he wanted to go to a hockey game so there was no choice there. This year he wanted to go bowling. He had 11 friends on his original guest list. I was the mean mom and made him dwindle that list down to 5 friends. Do you know how much six 9 year old boys wrestle? We were at home for 3 hours before we could go to the bowling alley and I think those boys wrestled for 2 of those hours! I grew up in a house of girls and Ron's family wasn't into sports or wrestling so it's not something we're used to, at least not to the extent that these boys wrestled! They did take breaks to play tag (which we discovered can be played at the table with feet moving side-to-side), ping pong, and "jam" a little bit on the piano, which all lead to more wrestling! The bowling was a hit and the boys all had fun but I told Nathan that we were not going to have 6 boys in our house at the same time again. I know, I know, I'll get suckered into doing it again but it won't be for a while!

I couldn't believe how much some of those boys could pack away, some of them had three burgers, they out-ate Ron!

A viscious game of ping pong

One of the boys must have had a good shot (is it called a "shot" in bowling?). If you did something that was considered difficult there would be fun images on the tv.

The girls were along for the whole party and thought it was great that there were 5 older boys at Nathan's party. I think Ron's going to have to be prepared for the future!!

Halloween Fun

The kids have always loved to dress up so Halloween isn't necessarily special for that reason, it is fun though to show off the costumes and fill your pail full of candy! This year Nathan wanted to carve the jack-o-lantern all by himself. He had a little bit of help from Larissa, Bethany and my parents when it came to cleaning out the "guts" but I think the rest was done by him.

Nathan's got the pattern all ready to go

Working hard. Look at the concentration on that face!

Holding the finished product.

Nathan had been a scuba diver for his school party that afternoon but his air tank kept falling off his back so we had to quickly change costume ideas for the evening. That is my old jersey he's wearing from 1988! Larissa looks more like a scarecrow but she is a farmer. Bethany is a cheetah. Thought I would clarify that just in case you were thinking she was a jaguar or leopard (Grandpa V  :D)!!

One Week Later....

We are feeling well settled. Not everything has a home yet and pictures aren't up but we feel very comfortable here, it feels like home.

My parents came out from Sunday to Tuesday to help get the house set up and cleaned most of the house trailer. They also brought this beautiful hibiscus plant, which is a cutting from the plant Dad gave to Mom on her first Mother's Day, which was with me! (Dad has corrected me, this IS the plant he gave Mom. Now there's even more pressure to keep it alive!!)

The girls room all set up.

Nathan's room might be as set up as it's going to get, I'm not sure I'll ever see that floor clear!

Our bedroom

Not sure the kitchen will ever look this way again!

Living room

This railing is Ron's creation and I absolutely love it!

The lockers! The are well used and so far the kids are putting their jackets & backpacks in them every time!

We are obviously missing window treatments as well but when living in the country we can wait a bit before we need them! It's also dark when the kids wake up and when they go to bed so we don't need to keep the light out for sleeping purposes either. We still have a few finishing touches to do but if you want to see those you will need to come see them in person. Please take that as an open invitation, just call first so we can make sure we're around!!

This officially concludes the house tour portion of the blog. I've been encouraged to keep the blog going with our family life happenings so I will do that, just know that I may not update as often as I had updated the house progress. Thanks for following!!

Moving Day

Here are some pictures of our moving day. I didn't get many taken (I was rather busy!) so here are some of the few I have.

Last sunrise in the "mobile mansion"

Kitchen and living room all packed up

Office housed a few boxes from other rooms in it too

How many guys does it take to move a piano???

Will this room ever look like a bedroom? Yes! Thanks to one of my very hardworking friends, Larissa and a nephew.

Half of the kitchen had been moved over the day before and a lot of what had been moved this day had been put away before this picture was taken. I was amazed at how many kitchen "things" I had that I actually got scared not everything was going to fit into this one! It fits and it functions quite well. (Uncle Brian, do you see the palm tree?!)

We're Here!!

We are in our new house! Today was a very busy and tiring day but so full of blessings. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated our friends and family this week, it's been filled with many people willing to help us. There were 5 women who came to help me clean the house, another two helped me set up most of the kitchen before we moved, my Mother-in-law looked after the kids, helped with cleaning, and fed our family and moving crew, a friend took Bethany a couple of times so I could get things done, that same friend brought meals today (made the other part of lunch for the moving crew and spoiled us with supper), friends from Iowa came out to help us move (they did happen to be in the province but not close enough the we expected them to come!) and we received many texts from friends who were wishing they could be here but circumstances just didn't allow it. It's very overwhelming to see that kind of support and excitement for something that is exciting for us. I was moved to tears a few times today!

The kids were so excited last night they hardly slept. They were at Ron's parents for the night so Ron & I could get some last-minute packing done which means we didn't deal with their lack of sleep, unfortunately that was left for Grandma and Grandpa. I think they had about 6 hours of sleep. Nathan and Larissa helped all day today, I think they had their rooms all set up before the boxes were all moved! Bethany played at her cousin's house all day, she's four as well and they're basically inseparable so Bethy was happy as a clam to not be part of the moving. When she got to the house she was thrilled to see things set up and wasn't upset at all that she hadn't been a part of it. She said, "Mom, I'm so comfortable in this house!" Larissa fell asleep before we left her room after we tucked her in! Bethany took a bit longer, she always does, and Nathan was having some anxiety about the whole thing, but he and Ron had some good father/son time that he relaxed enough to fall asleep by 9:30. We're just hoping they sleep in tomorrow!

Ron and I are tired and are looking forward to sleeping in our new room as well, although Ron's not sure how he'll sleep with an orange wall by his head! I am hoping to post pictures in the next couple of days. I didn't get many of the move today, there weren't many opportunities!, but I will hopefully get some of the semi-finished moved-in pictures up soon.

We can't say THANK YOU enough to all those who have helped in the past few months and especially in the last few weeks. We feel very honoured to call you friends and family!

Thanks to all of you for your support, encouragement and shared excitment during this journey! I'm off to bed!

Family Pictures

Ron's parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We had a friend of ours (Alyssa Raeanne Photography) take family pictures of the whole family, then we had pictures taken of just our family too. Here are the results!

You can't take a picture of a (mostly) farming family without a tractor!

Our family

I'd like to post more pictures, however I'm having a few problems getting more pictures to load. The colours were beautiful that day and it was 25 C (75 F), it was a perfect fall day!