Getting There

Sorry I haven't been updating this blog much lately. Things have been excessively busy over the past two weeks. But hey, I updated hyperblogianism twice and Memories of the '90s once, so you haven't been completely out of my loop if you've been following those blogs.
See how tired I am because of all the busy-ness? I hate napping, yet there I am, falling asleep on the couch with a baby on my lap.

We're in full renovations mode. As of this morning, the main floor of our house is officially painted. Every wall, even the bathroom and closets, and we painted the kitchen cabinets, too. I also stained the deck. We're going to paint every wall in the basement, too. This evening, we painted the feature wall in Kenny's room. We let him pick the colour: dark purple. Kenny was eager to help, and Alex even started helping by the time we got to painting his room.



















The people we bought our floors from are coming tomorrow to install new linoleum in the main floor bathroom and the stairs. Our laminate should be arriving any day now (they had to order it from Calgary), and Don Laqua will be installing it for us.

My new job is coming along well. People take me more seriously now that I'm an Assistant Municipal Administrator rather than a lowly Municipal Intern. It's always interesting to get to know a new town staff and a new town council. The Sunny South News will be interviewing me tomorrow, and there will be a little write-up about me in next weeks paper. I hope they don't ask me where I'm from, because I always have such a hard time answering that question succinctly.

On Saturday, Avril and the boys went out to the Laqua's cabin in the Crowsnest Pass to visit her parents and her sister. I was feeling a little under the weather, so I stayed home to stain the deck, mow the lawn, and play video games. Kenny went fishing for the first time. He and Grampa have been planning this for weeks, and he has been very excited about it. He caught three fish in half an hour. Not bad for a rookie.
He named all three fish. Then he ate them.
Alex enjoyed the cabin, too. He has been able to walk since a couple of weeks before his first birthday, but it hasn't been until this past week that walking has become his preferred mode of transportation. He's getting much better at it, and he's getting close to being able to run.

That should about bring you up to speed. I'm saving all of the after pictures of house until we at least have the new floors installed.

Big Move

Well, we're in Picture Butte. Avril and I are officially home owners. The piano was moved out of the Three Hills house and into the Picture Butte house without killing or maiming anyone, and there was only minimal damage done to the house. And the casters broke off the bottom of the piano, but it still makes music fine.

It's been awhile since I've posted. I have nothing really to update besides the move. I'll include lots of pictures to make it more interesting.

My last day of work in Trochu was Thursday, April 23. We came down to Lethbridge on the 24th to close the deal on the house. Avril and I left the boys with their grandparents in Stirling, and we came back up alone to finish packing the house up without boys getting underfoot and screaming about all of the toys we were packing away. (And throwing away, in some cases.) We loaded up Don Laqua's trailer, and he came up to tow it to Picture Butte. Then last Wednesday, we rented a U-Haul to fill up and take the rest of the stuff. I made the reservation online, and we were supposed to pick up the truck in Beiseker, which is only half an hour away from Three Hills, but the day before, when U-Haul called to confirm the reservation, the truck was in Airdrie. I wasn't very happy about that, because it meant two hours of driving before we could even start loading the truck. We had some help from the branch loading the truck, and that went fairly quickly, and we left for Picture Butte late that afternoon. We moved everything in on Thursday, which is also when Sears delivered our new appliances. They were nice enough to move the previous owner's appliances out into the yard so they wouldn't be in the way of our stuff. I was pretty angry that the stuff was still there. Don made some calls, and they came to take their fridge and range, but they left their dishwaser for some reason. It's still sitting in my side yard.

We're in the midst of renovations now. We're painting every room in the house, and we ordered new floors for the main floor. We're also getting new windows, and half of the roof needs to be reshingled. I don't start work until May 11, so Avril has me around to help with everything. Don is going to install the laminate, and we're getting professionals to do the linoleum, windows, and shingles.

Kenny and Alex are adjusting nicely to their new house. Kenny loves to help paint. He really gets into it, and we have to watch him closely to make sure he doesn't paint anything that he shouldn't. He had a little mishap the other day. Avril was napping, and I was taking a break from work by playing video games. The boys had been playing in the family room with me, but they migrated upstairs. I heard a thump, but didn't think much of it until Kenny came downstairs and said, "I spilled the painting." I ran upstairs and found the can of white paint on its side in the living room. The lid had come off, and there was half a can of white paint soaking into the carpet. I was able to salvage enough so that we could finish painting our kitchen cupboards. Kenny got off relatively easy, partly because it was an accident, but mostly because the carpet is so disgusting that the paint was an improvement.