Catching Up!

I have not disappeared! I promise.  Instead, we have kept life interesting and continued on our gypsy ways.  But it's coming to an end...

3......................MORE........................SLEEPS

On Thursday, July 31st, we get posession of our very little, but bigger than the trailer, house!  It is a 1 bedroom, 700 sq ft box of a house.  I do not have pictures yet, but will try to follow up with some soon (sooner rather than later).

So why did we buy a 1 bedroom house? I am sure it is hard for many of you to understand why we would do that when we have 2 girls.  Well, there is a large walk in closet that will easily fit a bunk bed, so for now that is where the girls will sleep.  Maybe in the near future, we will build a small addition off the back to make another bedroom. Back to why?...  John's dream, which quickly became our dream, has been to build a house.  It has not been feasible yet.  So when, we put our house in CHilliwack on the market, we started looking for houses in Dawson Creek.  We had a price range, a very low price range, keeping in mind of the possibility of either renovating an older house, or being able to tear down existing structure and build a new one.  Well, between JOhn and I, we looked at between 10-15 houses.  All, but 2 were not livable, as in needing thousands of dollars of renovating.  Most had foundation issues, which we weren't willing to deal with.  So back to the final 2.  THey are basically across the road from each other.  The lots are the same size.
--One lot is subdividable, the other lot is not.
--One has a 3 bedroom old and outdated smelly house.  The other has a 1 bedroom well kept small house
--One is on a busy street, but backs onto  a quite street.  The other is on a quiet street (the same quiet street as the other backs onto) and backs onto a green space that will never have houses on it.

So, we decided to start small.  Rather than buying the subdividable property and deal with building 2 different houses right away, we chose the 1 bedroom property (it really wasn't a hard choice for me)

What we hope to do is to build a house right behind that existing house. The garage of the new house would go where the old house is. The city really didn't like this idea as then there would be 2 single dwelling homes on one title.  But they have talked amongst themselves, labeled us "those guys" and have figured out a way that we will be able to get it done.

It is very exciting! VERY exciting!

After Kelowna

So after we left Kelowna, we went to Chilliwack.  This was the last weekend in May.  We got there on  Friday night. We visited with some family before heading to bed early.  Saturday we spent all day working at our house.  The plan was to redo the basement concrete floor and work on the flower beds so that we could put it ON THE MARKET!!  This was very exciting for us.  We owned this house for just shy of 4 years, a long time for us :).  I was sad that I wouldn't be able to enjoy my kitchen anymore, but it took up so much time almost every time we came back to visit in Chilliwack.
John worked on it on Monday (I did not as I was preparing for my birthday dinner BBQ), we both worked half days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and left for Quesnel on Thursday.  Our wonderful and amazing brother in law of a realtor (!!) listed the house on Thursday.  By Saturday we had 4 showings, and by MOnday night/TUesday morning, we had an accepted offer.  Less than 4 weeks later, the house was no longer ours.  It will feel strange driving in the neighborhood, and not being able to stop by.
So, back to Quesnel.  We were still living in our trailer.  We wanted to make sure that the job would work our before we rented a house.  Well, it didnt.  The boss made several promises of excavator work that never happened, so after 2 days on the job, and a few days catching up with friends, we headed north back to Dawson Creek.  John had "secured" a job there before we left, so we were comfortable going, knowing there was work.  But a few days in, and we realized that they were just putting him off.  So, John went on a job hunt.  He got the name of a few businesses, one being the company he is at now.  He went in on Tuesday morning with his resume.  They asked him to come back in the afternoon so that John could show them how experienced he was on the excavator.  They thought he had potential, and asked him to come back Wednesday morning at 9:30 for an orientation.  8:30 on Wednesday morning, JOhn gets a phone call from the boss.  "Please come with your bags packed as you are heading out to work right after orientation.!" And that was that! Within an hour, he was gone.  And it's been going good since.  He has had lots of machine time, and the boss really likes him and says that JOhn has been operating like hes got thousands of hours under his belt, not just hundreds!  The only negative thing about this job is that he is in camp.  We were hoping to be able to get away from it, but we need to be satisfied that he has a job. He is hearing from guys that he went to school in Kelowna with, that they are not able to find a job.

Now for a picture overload.  I don't have much, but I will give you what I got- Emmy's birthday.

Her requested birthday cake.  A home made peanut butter icecream cake.  On the bottom is Nuttin Butter icecream.  Then it has chopped up Reece's, then vanilla icecream topped with chocolate syrup and peanut butter.   

Miss animal lover :)   

What you do to not have to pay $3 every time you want a load of laundry dried!  It's bad enough having to pay that every time you need it washed! 

Enjoy your day friends!