November

Carter's begun curling, while he's enjoying it, we're trying to take lots of extra time with him on the ice when we can and you can definitely tell when he's gotten an extra practice (someone at my league today even commented "you must have brought him out Saturday" (it was Sports Day in Canada)). 2 of my nieces have also joined the junior curling program and another niece has been out to try it as well as my sister-in-law.

 (he's in the white helmet)

Henri is counting the days until next season when he'll be old enough (they start at 6 here-Seattle was 8) to curl and even talks in an educated manner about things like the house, the hog line and the boys are starting to get strategy enough that we're watching some on TV and they properly figure out the call and can score games.

Personally I'm doing well enough that I've been asked to play in some bonspeils :)  which is a nice way to get to know people a little better and get some extra games in.  It means I get to curl 2 times a week guaranteed, but with a bonspiel I can get an extra 1-2 games in.

We got to have lunch with my High School Spanish teacher who was touring the Toronto area before a cross-Canada tour by train.  Then my parents came shortly thereafter and we visited the local canal and lock system...

 

 

And the falls...

 

 

We started off a day of shopping while Paul was gone with a Fairy Princess. We almost also had a blue bird as well, but ended up with just the fairy of the 3 kids....

 

People were so sweet to us when they'd see her all dressed up.  We started off at the mall welcoming Santa with a presentation with some Disney princesses.  We don't have cable or Disney and Disney's not plentiful on Netflix, so V is a little late to the Princess obsession (we're currently entrenched in Dora who does make it into our house with our internet subscription). 

 

Valerie saw the princesses and shouted, "Princesses!"  and watched their song presentation with rapt attention...

After a quick pop into Sears, we came out to find most of the crowd gone and walked right up to  the princesses...

Henri actually also thought it was awesome to meet these "beautiful princesses"

Henri had his actual birthday on a Monday night when Papa and Dad were driving our 2nd car cross country, so we had Nana over for dinner and cupcakes after dinner. Auntie & Cousins stopped by

Then Momma got dressed up and headed out for a girl's night with a curling teammate while Nana held down the fort.  Yes, it was Henri's birthday, but it was also a week into a 10 day long business trip...

Henri was excited about the clothes he got.  Such a sweet boy... Angry birds sweatsuit from grandma and a TMNT (yes, they're back!) long-sleeve shirt from his aunt on his birthday dinner night...

Then we got 5 inches or so of snow.  The kids were ecstatic and it was so weird to send them to school in snow pants!  Esp on American Thanksgiving.  Then we got another 2 inches.

 

Luckily not only is our backyard a great sled hill, but we live next to the school, which is supposed to be "the bed tobogganing hill in town" 

Valerie who discovered dresses and tights has now discovered dresses swirl out as you dance and she dances throughout the house singing, "Sing! I! N! G! O!"  and yelling, "Dance Party!"  She's excited about Christmas and yells, "Christmas!" whenever she spots snow or Christmas lights.

P and my FIL got home just in time for our 10th wedding anniversary :)  That Sunday we had family over for Henri's birthday where he finally got the blueberry bluebird cake he'd been asking for (Funfetti mix cake with blueberry jam inside, it was a hit! and decorated like a Bluebird from Angry Birds)

And random picture time...Carter's telling on his brother.... via note...
Good news is his spelling is getting better.

We're starting to get in the holiday spirit. We're doing our advent devotion time every evening and got lights on the tree.. since we don't have the high ceilings anymore, it's fat and got no top ( a few years ago the bottom 2/3 got stuck together, so setting up the top two sections which would have resulted in a smaller, more conical tree is no longer an option).. we plan to put ornaments on tomorrow evening...

And Paul and I decorated the outside, since the snow is mostly melted and it was nice and sunny out today...

Gotta say I'm not missing the super tall roof this year :).

So that's a little of what we've been up to.  Paul made 2 trips to WA last month for the release of their current product so he gets to be at home on a lighter schedule for December, for which I'm quite happy. :)

We have a 2nd bathroom!

When we moved in to this house, the upstairs bathroom had been remodeled, but the previous owners who had done a major project every year since moving in (ie: roof, adding a deck, etc.) had moved out in the beginning of putting in the 2nd bathroom downstairs.  They'd finished the basement (most homes here are sold with the basement not finished and the square footage not included in the house sales report) except for the bathroom and laundry room which had plumbing and had been roughed in.  The room is huge.

We thought about doing it ourselves.  Between our light bathroom remodeling experience in our old house and YouTube, we probably could have. However, with the kids all on different school schedules, Paul traveling one week out of the month and curling, swimming and other activities we figured we did not have the amount of uninterrupted time for our basic home improvement skills to finish it properly.  So we had 4 contractors who were all recommended come and make bids.

2 were pretty pricey, 2 were lower and one of those two was optimistic that he could even possibly have at least the shower put in by the time my parents were scheduled to come see the house for the first time, so we hired him.

Things started out well and Erin got shopping (not paying for that-- I've got awesome skills in that department).  Then the floor tiles started cracking.  The contractor told us that the tiles the previous homeowner had left that worked just fine on the shower walls were too cheap and we needed to go get new ones.  With our limited experience, we were skeptical and thought it had more to do with the installation, but bought some one grade higher and they spent 2 days chipping the floor out that they'd spent 2 days on.  Paul did an awesome job finding just enough boxes of instock tile that really matched almost perfectly to the tile already on the walls.  Needless to say it didn't get done in time for my parent's visit.  Because they had to redo the work, we compromised on not having them also tile the laundry room. We also told him we were doing our own painting which knocked $400 off the bid.

My honest review: While I'm happy it's done and know that paying someone to do it means the job was done a year before we normally would have had time to devote to the project, I will not be hiring this particular contractor again.   I think my initial disappointment was that the quality was what I probably could have done myself if I'd had enough long spurts of time available to work on the job and if I'm paying for it to be done I want it better than I could have done it.  They were over budget on time and while they'd work Monday through Saturday, some days they'd leave at 1pm, some days we'd peek in and think, WTH did they do all day?  The bathroom and laundry room were also FILTHY when they left.  I told Paul I would have been much happier with the job if they'd just spent some extra time cleaning up. Instead I did it and I noticed every higher tile, the 2 that were cracked and every other little thing that I never would have seen when I was awed by the job but that I noticed right away because my face was 6 inches from it cleaning.  I spent 2 days cleaning and painting. By 2 days I mean long days.  NOW that I've cleaned and painted it I'm quite happy with it. Now that I'm using it I'm happy with it.  But I asked Paul to stop asking me how I liked it most of last weekend ;)  Today we also changed to a tankless hot water heater so I now have an extra 4x4 foot area in my furnace room for storage.

Here's the end result...

The view from the bathroom door into my laundry room pocket door. Before putting in the pocket door, the door opening was to the right, in the corner, which meant you had to walk around the vanity, this is a much better flow.

 

To the right... I now have a corner to put my freezer in and storage for cleaning supplies. I'm keeping them in the bins until I move out the shelves to tile in there, then I'll organize it.

To the left, my laundry tub, laundry machines and pantry storage above. I took these shelves out of the garage and reused them to add some pantry space to our smaller kitchen. the tank water heater has been replaced with a tankless which is attached to the wall so that back corner is now all free space.

Looking into the bathroom with the pocket door closed, the other door is a linen closet, vanity to right, toilet to left.

 

New vanity and mirror with extra space in the corner for a plant, shelves.....??? The lights and mirror seem a little low because there's ductwork above the vanity area, good thing we're a short family

The toilet and new shower and his and hers towel bars. Both windows have a contact paper that's a privacy screen. Easily installed with an exacto knife and a squeegee.

The shower. Shower bar with jets and rain shower, niche cut in between the studs with glass shelf-big enough for Costco sized shampoo, the window in there is also tiled so you can put stuff up there as well. Doors are Maax Halo 60 inch doors. Shower is 5'x5' with center drain. Gray tile line is same tile that's on the floor.

What does this all cost?  Here's the breakdown, including tax (13.5% here)

Labor & construction supplies (except cleaning & painting)	5,650.00
Door Knobs-privacy & closet	65.52
Molding & Shelving, Baseboards	132.60
Towel holders, TP holder	135.66
Faucet	122.04
Tile (bathroom and laundry)	271.38
Shower body bar-$150 off sale	449.74
Vanity & sink top-48 inch marked off $60 for scratches down by the floor	847.67
Vanity light	90.40
Pocket Door-primed	153.67
Paint-1 gal midgrade Benjamin Moore & 1 quart Zinnzer for molding & doors	70.00
Shower doors	733.37
Mirror	33.90
Accessories	32.70
	8,788.66

 

Our House and Halloween

First up, Halloween...  We had a Minecraft Squid, a knight and Dora the Explorer

 

 

The boys had a parade around the track at school (LOVE living next door to their school!)

 

We went Trick-or Treating down my Mother In Law's street after hitting the neighbours across the street...   the little ones would have gone to every house in town if I'd let them, esp  Valerie...

We went about 3 blocks and ended up with 3 bags of cotton candy, about enough crackers and juice boxes to fill lunchboxes for a week, a freezer basket of chips & two shoeboxes of candy-one Canadian (1/2 from the candy I bought and we didn't have that many trick-or-treaters) and one "other" candy.

We also carved pumpkins... A Minecraft Creeper, Dora the Explorer and a Hockey Mask.  Carter did his own drilling...

 

Also, beginning of October, Carter won an award for Academics.  He's excelling in Math :)

There was even a Mountie there!

He's on the left

And he got a certificate and a medal.

 

 

 

So Paul wakes me up at 3am the other morning and says, "listen" .  Rustling.  INSIDE THE WALL.  Ack!  The good news is it is next to the bathroom, which has drywall, but the screws are exposed and we could get in there because the bathroom's not completely finished. 

 

A few nights later, right after Paul leaves for Seattle, I'm settling into bed and I hear MORE RUSTLING INSIDE THE WALL NEXT TO MY BED.  This is a bigger problem because the other side is the cement wall of the cold cellar.  Crap.  So I go to sleep and it WAKES me  up the next morning.  Aggggg!!!!

 

2-3 days pass. I'm taking out the trash and go to put a new bag in about 5 minutes later and what is staring back up at me???

 

 

After the scream and adrenaline rush I see he's quite small and even a little cut with those big eyes and cute little ears.  I briefly consider keeping him. I mean we don't have any pets or anything.  Then the reality of him escaping back into my wall sets in and I take the trash can out and set him free in the woods and field behind the house.  The next day, I realize from all the tiny mouse poops under my sink he's been enjoying the buffet for awhile and promptly change to a trash can with a lid.

ETA 11/11/2013: He's come back, so at 4pm I set up a trap  with peanut butter. 11pm, I hear rustling under the sink.  He's a gonner.  Sorry, buddy, I gave you a get out of jail free.... now you've made a poor choice.  THANK GOD my dad was here and could take the dead little body out of the trap for me since Paul was at curling.....


We also hired a contractor!  He's really trying to get the second bathroom completed before my parents get here....  We had a toilet and plumbing and a stack of tiles the former owners left.  This week I've bought a vanity and top, shower bar thing, little tiles, shower doors and a pocket door, I'll finish shopping this weekend, including possibly heading over the border for a tankless water heater (there is just way more selection in the US than here in Canada)

First day was making the shower pan.  Today they put in some of the tile and carved in a niche for my shampoo, etc....

 

 

Random pics:

Now the boys get out of school and roll down the hill next door for 10 minutes before coming home....