Packing Day

Yesterday morning we went to Port Stanley and unloaded everything out of the container that we packed all of Tim and Steph's things into in July. Tim had driven over to Port Huron in Michigan with his brother in law to pick up the moving truck and met us at about 12pm.

All their things unloaded out of the container waiting to be put in the truck.

Yes that all fit in there.

Packing the truck went quite fast I think. We didn't have to pack it as close in the truck as in the container because we had more room. We had it all loaded by about 2 and headed back to Phylis Kember's house where Tim and Steph have been staying. They had several more things at the house to put in. Once we had most things in we still had four feet to spare at the back so I don't think we will have to put anything on the roof.

The Big Yellow Truck.

Doesn't look like much but looks can be very deceptive.

We are hoping to get away by sometime late morning on Monday. I don't know if I will be able to blog during our llllllllllllloooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg trip but if not I will blog in the land of Tacos. I can't wait to get my mouth around one of those.

My Last Day of Work.

I haven't shown you any pictures of what we have been working on lately. We have had this house in the process for a few months. We haven't done much of the work ourselves it has been mostly contracted out, but we have put a few hours in here and there. It is almost done so if any of you are looking for a quality built house in Woodstock let us know and we can get you moved in by the end of next month if you want. We are just waiting on the carpet for the basement, there is hardwood all through out the main floor except for the bathrooms and kitchen which are tile. and the painter has to do a few touch ups and that's about all.

Building the deck is usually my job so here are a couple pictures of it in the making.

The stairs and railing are going to have to wait till I get back from Mexico. Hopefully no one falls off and hurts them self before then. It looks really small in the picture but it is 15' by 12' which is a good size.



John likes to do a nice job with the kitchen and bathrooms so here are a couple shots of them. Note the granite counter top, Oh no expense was spared here folks this is the house for you come on down get it before someone else does.

This is the shower in the en suite. (Hey I think I got this spelled right this time. Many people got a good laugh last time I was talking about an en suite bathroom and I spelled it on sweet. It worked for me.) Here Dan my bosses son is showing the proper stance before turning on the body jets.

This house here has been our project for the last few days. These people had the brick taken off the front of there house and put on this nice porch and roof and then had us install this Algonquin Stone. This was the last project my boss wanted to get finished before I leave. We really like this stone and it makes you think a little more while you lay it then laying bricks.

Last night Mark and Rebekah had us all over to their place last night after the tent meeting in St. Thomas. It was the last time for us to be to get with just our family. We had a great time and Mark bake some chocolate brownies and we had them with ice cream.

Today was my last day at work, well I actually only went in for two hours. Now my vacation starts. Well that is what some people jokingly say. I think they are joking? I will be taking about one month off work. I will driving down to Mexico with Tim and Steph, their three girls and Steph's parents Gary and Bonnie and then spend a few weeks there with them. Lord willing we will leave Monday morning and arrive in Hermosillo, Mexico some time Friday evening.

Shaelyn, Tim, Mika, Steph and Kyla.

Oh ya I still need to pack. I cannot break my tradition of packing the night before. You know why I do that? It makes my luggage lighter because of all the things I forget. Well this might not be quite true, I haven't forgotten anything major for a few trips now. I had better not say that too loud or you know what will happen.

Two Days in a Row

I can see the shock in your eyes as you realize that I have blogged two days in a row. I know I am shocked myself. I figure this will have me caught up for about a month now.

Here are a few more pictures from our time at the cottage. Blogger was happy today and felt like letting me upload pictures. Thank You Blogger.

These first few pictures are from when we were doing a bit of recording. These maybe some of the reasons we only got a few songs recorded.

I have it plugged in but I am not hearing anything, any suggestions?

Hey, where did everyone go?

Steph was able to get the point across when we had practiced one song long enough and it was time to move on to another. She was quite subtle but we could read between the lines.

Here we are all cottaged out, well maybe not quite but it was time to leave so we got one last group shot on the dock.

We got back from the cottage two and a half weeks ago and lets see what have I been doing since then. Several of my Saturdays have been use for going and helping sell produce at Farmers Markets for Thames River Melons. The last couple of times I have gone we went to St. Lawrence market. We have to leave the farm at 2:30am so it is lots of fun getting up several hours before the sun. It is that bad though and it is nice to know that you are selling good quality fruits and vegetables and you can have a lot of fun doing it.

I had taken several pictures at the market with my cell phone but this was about the only one that turned out. It's a nice looking display too and I can say that because I wasn't the one that did it.

During the week we seem to always have more chimneys then we can do. They keep us busy most of the time but last week we took two days and shingled a roof for a bit of a break from chimneys. Here's a few shots of a chimney we did last week on a house built in the late 1800's. You kind of feel privileged to get to work on something like that.

Few More Cottage Pics

Here are the other pictures I had promised. It seems like it was such a long time ago since we were all there. Many of these pictures are courtesy of my sister in law Rebekah.

A sunset over the Lake.

Mika and I trying to fish.

Just waiting to pull in the big one.

Here we have a picture of the Nerds. I mean Rob and Ada showing what they got in their stockings.

Now here is a force to be reckoned with, doesn't the pink gear just make me look intimidating?

I am sorry I wanted to up load more pictures put it won't let me right now. Maybe I will try in another two weeks.

Where to Start

Wow it has almost been two weeks since I put something on here. Sorry about that, I have been very busy and tired since I got home last Friday night.

A week ago last Saturday Joia and I flew to Detroit and then drove 9 hours up to Minden, Ontario to meet the rest of our family at a cottage for a week. We had a great week together. I have a lot of pictures here sorry they are placed kind of randomly but oh well.

Since we won't all be able to be together at Christmas we decided we would have Christmas in July. Christmas morning we got up and opened our stockings and then ate yummy cinnamon rolls that Joia made.

All our stockings under the Christmas tree (The tree that just happened to be in the cottage.)

Joia and Keenan in a their Santa hats.

We have never been able to go swimming on Christmas day before. Here Mark and Shaelyn are having a great time in the almost warm water.

They had a great rope swing of some of the rocks.

The guys in our family have sung together a few times for different occasions and we thought that while we were all together we would try to record a few songs. Thanks to Mark we had some recording equipment. Unfortunately we weren't able to get as many songs recorded as we had hoped.

Mark, Dad and Tim

Rob and I

The ladies joined us for a song as well.

Rebekah, Ada, Steph and Joia

Me doing a little recording on my own.

That's a little about our week at the cottage I will try to post some more pictures at another time.