Category Archives: General

The master bedroom is (almost) complete

Leave a reply

We have been slowly working on the house. Things aren’t moving as quickly as we’d like, but we’re happy with the end results. We are essentially done. There are just a couple of touch-ups to do.

Below are a bunch of pictures from the master bedroom showing the progress:

The hardest part of all of this was getting the wallpaper off the wall. We are pretty sure it was original.

The water damage wasn’t fresh. I patched some of it up and then we put some decent primer on it and it looks fine.

We were amazed at how great the floor looked. It looks like the carpet was put down almost as soon as the floor was finished.

Lisa did a great job painting the walls and trim

Today we put up the curtains and a couple of decorations.

We rearranged our room. We originally didn’t want the bed in front of the window, but it worked better with the dressers this way

Our room isn’t huge, but it is the biggest master bedroom we’ve had yet

World famous product reviewer Alisa W

3 Replies

Last night Lisa was looking through the flyers we received. Walmart usually has a grocery flyer and a regular flyer. This week they also had a special one with toys in it.

Lisa opened the cover and on page 3 was a comment from someone about the Barbie Camper. It was by Alisa W. Lisa asked me if it was Alisa, and we guessed that it was, but weren’t sure.

Lisa flipped the page, and on page 4 was a review by that same Alisa W about a Furby Cool or Furby Hot.

I checked with the real Alisa W this morning, and it is indeed her. That’s both funny and cool at the same time!

Buckhorn Observatory

Leave a reply

While at the cottage this year, we finally made it to the observatory. we’ve talked about going for ages but never made it happen. But this was the year.

The day before we left, Andi, Brie, her friend Sarah and I drove down a very dark County Road 507 and had an amazing time. This guy John has a huge telescope on his property and a love for space so he set up an observatory on his property for everyone to enjoy. It was a bit cloudy when we first got there but the clouds blew away shortly and we had an amazing view of Saturn, a dead star and even the International Space Station.

I would love to go again, we should get a big group of us to go next year.

 

http://www.buckhornobservatory.com/

Our groundhog adventure

3 Replies

So, you’ve heard about our raccoon adventure. How about our groundhogs? Our neighbour has a big concrete patio at the back of his house. Last year we had a groundhog living under it and we named him Willie.  This spring there were 3 babies, and still only one adult. We assume that Willie was actually Wanda (and apparently was a floozy). Occasionally we would see all 4 of them out at the same time. Over the last week or more, we’ve only seen one of the smaller ones out.

Anyway, yesterday it came out, and I followed it to the front yard. It hid beside our air conditioner, so I had Matthew grab a net and after a bit of work I caught it. Dad and I took it across the canal and set it free. We’ll see if there are any left…

Matthew is beginning to think that I can catch anything. His friend told him they had a mouse  and Matthew said that his dad could catch it 🙂

Our raccoon adventure

1 Reply

Yesterday we had around 15 people over to help us with our yard. We shovelled dirt into our hole, we leveled the front yard, and we dug up weeds all over the place. The missionaries came over just after everyone had left and apologized for not making it over earlier, but they’d been at an appointment. We were talking with them outside when we saw a raccoon around our chimney. Let me fill you in on that a little more…

On Wednesday morning Lisa heard a noise coming from the fireplace. There were “chirps” and even some growling. It was apparent we had an animal with babies in our chimney, which we assumed were raccoons. Lisa called around to a few places, and it was going to be $300 or more to have someone come and remove them. When Dean first showed up, I asked him what he would suggest, and he said he’d had success with loud music.

So, back to the missionaries… I threw some rocks at the raccoon to scare it away so it wouldn’t go back down the chimney. Now the problem was how to get the babies out. We decided to “smoke ’em out” (as someone said). We got a fire going and not too long after, a baby raccoon fell down. Elder Hanks had some gloves on (and one of my t-shirts over his dress shirt) and grabbed it right away and took it outside. Another 10 minutes or so later another one fell down. We still heard some chirping, but the last one wasn’t coming out. Elder Hanks was using some different sticks/rods/hooks to try to get it out, but it just wouldn’t come. He eventually knocked it down and we got rid of it as well. I then covered the chimney and so we’re good now.

By the time Elder Hanks put the third raccoon outside, the other two were already gone, so we assume the mother took them. This morning, the last one was gone as well. As far as we know they were all alive when we left them in the ravine.

As Elder Hanks was leaving, he said with a big smile, “Is it wrong that this is the highlight of my mission?!” (he’s from the midwest and loves the outdoors and hunting).

Here is a picture of Elder Hanks with Andrew and the second raccoon.

Brie Update

2 Replies

Hello family.

I am currently in the great north of Canada! There was even a blizzard today. I’m currently in Kirkland Lake working on a forensic case with my professor Dr. Dean Knight. I thought I would give you a couple links that talk about it so you know what I’m doing. So far it’s been one of the best experiences of my academic career but I’m not allowed to talk about it much because I’m still here working and it’s an active murder investigation. I even had to sign a form saying I wouldn’t talk about it and everything!

http://www.northernnews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1581854

http://www.northernnews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1585164

Everyone mentioned in those articles is so ridiculously nice and friendly and they couldn’t be better people.

Oh! I’m not afraid of cops anymore. Working all day with 15 officers quickly removes that fear.

That is all for now. Hope you enjoyed the articles. I don’t know if any of you saw something about it on the news (I know it was on in Toronto because one of my friends saw it) but if you did see a segment then you saw my butt!