35 year anniversary gift

Once again, these are pictures off my phone.  They may be blurry because I don't email them as large files.. I'm not sure.  But they are clear enough to get an idea of what went into this quilt.  It started with a text from my sister in law wondering if I had any idea what to get my mom and dad as a gift for the 35th anniversary.  So between her, another sister in law, and my sister, we came up with the idea of making a quilt.  We have a cousin that makes quilts as a business, so we made contact with her and away it went.  The layout is hard to see, but that is what she designed with the what information we gave her: there was 11 grandkids that would draw a picture on a block (the twins used one block), and then 10 kids that would choose a verse or quote which I was to embroider on another 10 squares.  Then we also wanted mom and dad's wedding text on there too.  Then he gave her a few color options, which is the next picture, the material that she came up with.. beautifully matched!

We weren't sure what fabric markers worked best, but these were the winners!

(they are found at walmart!)

So my cousin cut out 6" squares out of white material, for the grandkids drawings.  She had to mail me a package and a package to Alberta.  Here are a few pictures of the work in progress.  My brother had texted me some pics of my niece working on hers but I must have deleted them. Too bad, because they were super cute! 

The square were taped to the table so the fabric didn't move 

So all the kids picked a text, and sent it to me.  I fooled around with different fonts before I found the ones that would work best for small type.  It took alot of time to do that, but also to load them onto the machine, line it all up, cut the threads, remove the stabilizer, etc.  But it was all worth it!!

I posted this picture to show a before and after scenario.  With the embroidery machine, the letters are all connected by thread that can be cut with affecting the stitching.  The top one is complete, the bottom one still has the thread attached.  

Everything is complete!! 

Mom and Dad's wedding text, you can also see that some of the thread hasn't been trimmed. 

The finished quilt.. absolutely BEAUTIFUL. 

I was able to FaceTime my parents as they opened it. It wasn't the same as being there, but I guess it was the next best thing.  All my siblings and nieces/nephews were there at that time so they weren't able to talk much.. But when my mom called later on, and my dad talked to me, he got quite emotional when he was trying to thank me.  That made all the hardwork of organizing, texting, embroidery, etc. worth it :)

Backyard visitors

There are a few perks to living this far north. Wildlife!  When the snow gets deep, wildlife, specifically deer and moose, tend to move into town for food.  Although the snow is not that deep as we have been having very mild temperatures, a cow and calf moose ventured into our yard.  We have seen this couple before, on a walk on the path behind our house.  But to be able to open your living room window, and basically have a moose within arms reach is quite the experience.  I think the closest I got to the cow moose was about 12 feet.  I was on the deck, and the moose was on the lawn, so there was a barrier between us!  Here are a few pictures

They came from the road, and went straight for the back yard.  The first few pics are blurry cuz I got them off my phone.  My battery on my camera was dead of course so I quickly plugged it in, captured what I could on my phone, and when the battery had just enough juice in it to do its job, I used my regular camera.

The mom stayed near the house and ate from this tree, while the baby went farther into the back yard to eat off the smaller bushes

mama heading out to the calf (sorry for the crooked pictures, I was too lazy to fix them!)

calf

cow in front of calf 

this is when I was only 12 feet away.   

Mama left before the calf was done eating.  When she realized that mama was gone, she started calling for her.. The girls also heard it.  What an amazing sound!! 

Great fun!

I'm back!!

Unfortunately my method of blogging is to not blog for a long time, then do a blog posting overload. It has been a very long time since my last post, and so much has gone on in that time:

A trip to Alberta

A trip to Chilliwack

John home LOTS

and now John has been gone since January 2.

Fortunately we were able to go see him for 3 nights, as he staying in a hotel, has the room to himself, that has 2 queen beds. I am currently keeping very busy. This is kinda what my schedule looks like

Monday: Clean church ( I am currently the janitor for the Alliance Church), homeschool, race Emmy to swimming lessons on time to be able to drop Kenna off at gymnastics, drive back to Emmy, watch her finish swimming lessons, and crack the whip at her to hurry up since we have to be back at Kenna in 15 minutes as she is finished gymnastics.
Tuesday: HOME ALL DAY, until 4:30 when Kenna has rock climbing, go home until 5:45 to bring Emmy to girl guides, straight to Kenna to pick her up, home for 45 minutes before heading out to pick Emmy up
Wednesday: homeschool, leave at 3:00 to go babysit (babysitting is 2 weeks on/2 weeks off) until 5:30, go home for half hour before bringing Emmy to swimming lessons.
Thursday: baby sit from 9-3 (also 2 weeks on/ 2 weeks off), try to fit schooling in there, and home for the rest of the evening.
Friday: homeschool, clean church, and then home
Saturday: babysit from 9-1
Sunday: thankful for this day of rest

As long as John is working, I don't mind being this busy, and away from home.  Especially in winter, when there is not much else to do outside.  Today was a crazy warm day, 6 degrees, which has cleared up the roads alot.  With John being gone, I was responsible for clearing off our flat roof.  There was about 2 feet on it, the top half was light and fluffy on the first day that I started.  The bottom half was ice/hard snow.  The second day I worked on it, it had started raining, and that made for an all around heavy snow.  I wouldnt be surprised if I burned 3000 calories ;) 4 hrs of continuous shoveling??? Maybe????

The girls had a blast.  A pile of snow + rain = an Olaf making day ( Olaf is the snowman in the movie Frozen).

This is a quick update for now.. I am heading off to bring Emmy to girl guides, and then pick up Kenna.  I will try post some pics soon. (The computer that has all our pics on is also the computer the girls use for schooling, so I don't have access very often to it!)

One season to another!

We are all settled in. It took about a month, as we had to go through each box and figure out what we wanted to fit into the house, and what we could do without for an unknown amount of time!  John also had to go back to work, so I had to finish emptying storage units, and finding a place for it all in the sheds.  We have had a busy but enjoyable summer.  We are quickly heading into fall, and have already experience the first snowfall of the season :)  I will tell our story with pictures, as well as I can!!

OUR HOUSE

(before we moved in)

girls room 

The shed we had to build, since the ones that are there already are in the way for when the excavator needs to get in the backyard and are not sturdy enough to be moved.  I don't have a finished picture of it on my computer, but we finished it to match what we hope to make the house look like! A steel blue, with white facia and cedar shakes in the gable.

This is what Emmy did while we were building 

Kenna made her own little house with the scrap wood 

It was HOT! So they took a dip in our pool to cool :)

Framing is fnished. Notice how close the trampoline is to the shed? That was JOhn's idea, so Mckenna could jump off

Next up.. a day at the river with friends

and

our trip to Chilliwack

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!