Train and Newspaper

Okay, I'm getting really bad at keeping this blog up to date. Too busy working, renovating, and playing video games. We went on a camping trip last weekend, but I'm waiting for pictures from Afton and Don before blogging about that. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I have two things to blog about.
I don't know why it took us so long to do this, but we finally took Kenny to see the steam engine on display at the health unit (the one that used to be a train station) in Lethbridge next to Chapters. He loved seeing a real steam engine up close. He has seen trains up close before, but they were ugly CN diesel engines.

Alex just loved running around outside and splashing in the puddles left from the rain earlier in the day.
A few weeks ago, I was featured in the Sunny South News (based out of Coaldale and circulating to most of Lethbridge County). The reporter who interviewed me is in my ward, and we found out as we spoke that I went to the same singles ward as her younger brother. The article didn't scan very well, so I'll just quote it here:

"The Town of Picture Butte is reaping the benefits from an internship program developed by Alberta's Municipal Affairs.

"Mike MacKenzie was studying business administration at Lethbridge College when he heard about the internship that allows students to work with municipalities and encourages them to consider careers in local government adminstration.

"It was during his final semester that municipal affairs came to the college for a career fair and he learned about the municipal internship program.

"'It's a great program.'

"He feels it can help students get their foot in the door with municipal governments. He had completed his local government administration training and year long internship working out of Trochu and Three Hills when he applied for the Assistant Administrator's position in Picture Butte.

"'I enjoy the small town feel.'

"He said his end goal was always to get involved in government and he saw business administration at the college as the first step.

"MacKenzie was born in BC but moved around a lot as a kid living in four different provinces, and managing to visit all but one, Newfoundland.

"'I've been all over the country.'

"Having lived in the Lethbridge area a few times over the years he decided he wanted to get back to Southern Alberta and Picture Butte afford him that opportunity. Now having relocated his family to the community he said he's found the town be nice and the people friendly.

"His wife, Avril grew up in Foremost so she also has a small town background. They have a couple of boys, the oldest Kenny is turning three and the youngest is 14-month-old Alex. Their family has already lived in six places so they feel now is a good time to set down some roots.

"'We actually bought a house which is good incentive to stay put.'

"Outside of his normal work week MacKenzie likes to write. If he can find the time he would like to become a published author of science fiction. He also likes to play the guitar and sing having performed with the Raymond Show Choir and the MT Vibes featuring 12 male voices.

"Music is something he shares with his wife who is classically trained."

The reporter also turned out to be related to Carol Dahl, so that's why the MT Vibes are mentioned. It's a pretty good article (more impressive than the two lines I got in the Three Hills Capital), even if my direct quotes weren't incorporated very smoothly and seemed to come out of nowhere. There's also a picture of me looking fat and smug, but like I said, the article didn't scan well, so you'll just have to imagine it.

Renovations

Okay, I've been meaning to post pictures of the renovations we've done so far since before Kenny's birthday, so I figure I better do it before you guys stop checking my blog and just assume that I've abandoned it.
What we've done so far:
-painted everything upstairs and a room-and-a-half downstairs
-laminate throughout the main floor
-linoleum on the stairs and in the main floor bathroom

What's left to do:
-new windows
-reshingle half the roof
-finish painting downstairs

For the before pictures, follow this link.

Kenny's Birthday

It was Kenny's third birthday yesterday. We had a small party for him at home with his grandparents and a couple of cousins. He has been looking forward to his birthday ever since Alex's birthday back in March, so it was nice to finally be able to celebrate it. He requested pizza for supper, so that's what we fed him.

Avril decided to get creative with his cake. He's a big Thomas and Friends fan, so she made him a Thomas cake. It turned out very nice. It also reminded me of my own third birthday. Mum made me a train cake, too.

He got some pretty cool presents. Grammie and Papa gave him a basketball net that attaches to his door. Jane and Lucy gave him a squirt gun. Auntie Afton gave him a train (Emily) and a the movie Wall-E. The present from Gramma and Grampa was in Lethbridge, so he'll be getting it later.

He had a lot of fun playing with Jane and Lucy. There was a lot of running and screaming. Even Alex joined in, even though he can't go as fast as the older kids.

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.

Playing in the Dirt

That's me in Prince George, 1980. I was two years old.
That's Kenny in Three Hills, yesterday. Also two years old (pushing three, though).
Alex wanted in on the dirt action, too, but he wasn't quite as into it as his big brother.

Happy Birthday, Avril

This last Thursday (April 9) was Avril's 24th birthday. We had quite the little party. Avril's parents and her sister came, and my parents and my cousin Beth (they were passing through on their way to Arizona) stopped in, too. We had lasagna and cheesecake and good company.

Now I'm going to do a little tribute to her, not unlike what Mum does for her kids on their birthdays. It'll be a little different, though, because I'm only going back as far as I've known her.
I met Avril in the summer of 2003. She was 18 years old and fresh out of high school. She went to school in Foremost, Alberta for most of her life, but graduated from Stirling High School. She missed a few months of her senior year due to a bad case of pneumonia, but still finished second in her class. The above picture is one of her grad pictures, and that's pretty much how she looked when I met her, only she wasn't wearing a prom dress and didn't have those pretty flowers in her hair. She was the little sister of two of my friends, Dalin and Afton Laqua (brother and sister, not husband and wife). She doesn't remember meeting me. We didn't make a huge impact on each other at first.
This is the first picture of the two of us together. We weren't dating at the time. In fact, we were both at this dance with different dates. But it was posing for this picture, when I put my arm around her waist, that I first felt a little spark.
Near the end of March, 2004, after sitting next to each other at a play, Avril and I started a month-long stretch of flirting with each other. The above picture was taken at Avril's 19th birthday party. Her parents had given her a vacuum cleaner, and I was helping her put it together. While I was reading the instructions, she figured out how to do it on her own.
We started dating near the end of April, 2004. The above picture was taken during our courtship. Ain't she hot?
We got engaged on May 26, 2004. We were both living in Lethbridge, Alberta at the time. In fact, we were living there since we had met.
We were married on September 17, 2004 in the Alberta Cardston Temple. She was the most beautiful bride in the world. I know all husbands say that (all good husbands, anyway), but it's actually true in my case. We spent the first few months of our marriage in Stirling, Alberta.
This picture is from Avril's 20th birthday (April 9, 2005) in Stirling, her first birthday since we were an official couple. I made that cake, by the way. She's so adorable. This was also near the end of her college career.
Her convocation from Lethbridge Community College was in May of 2005. She graduated with an Office Administration diploma and immediately started working at North & Company law firm in Lethbridge as a legal assistant. Shortly after this, we moved into Lethbridge.
While we were living in Lethbridge, Avril gave birth to our first son, Kenneth, on June 2, 2006. It was a hard, long labour, but she got through it and naturally gave birth to the 9 pound 11 ounce baby with a 38 cm head.
Almost two years later, on March 24, 2008, she did it again. Alexander was an easier birth, in part due to his more reasonable size (7 pounds 15 ounces with a 36 cm head).

Avril is a wonderful wife and mother, and I'm so blessed to have found her. Happy birthday, Avril!
(This is the most recent good picture of Avril I could find. The batteries in our camera were dead on her birthday, and I forgot to have Afton upload the pictures from her camera while she was here. I snuck in some of her past birthday pictures, so that's something.)