More photos of the house......

So exciting to see new developments of the house - electrical wires going here, there and everywhere, straw bales moving in and waiting for installation, Tina and her crew (the straw balers and plasters) arriving shortly and then the truly exciting part of the house-building should begin:-)

Wayne, as per your many, many requests, here's some more photos!!!!!!! I'm loving all the natural light and the wood everywhere, hopefully a lot of that remains once the windows and walls are in!

I was looking back over the blog a little and noticed that I hadn't shown many photos at all of the progress from slab to standing walls - so I thought I"d select a FEW of the MANY photos we've taken over the past weeks, to show the process. You'll notice a lot more metal brackets on the outside walls, as these will be hidden in plaster, and then more traditional framing on the interior where we'll be exposing the wood. The small pieces of wood criss-crossing the walls are just for bracing, and will be removed once the baling and plastering starts.

I find it so hard to take overview photos, it's fairly 'busy' to look at, but essentially as you look at the house from the front door, there's a long, high hallway down the centre, with windows up high to let natural light all the way into the back.  On the right side there's the office/spare room, living room, dining room and kitchen all in a very open concept and with a green roof on top.  To the left is the kids bedroom, a massive shared closet, bathroom and our bedroom, with metal on top.  At various times we've worried about different spaces being too small, but now that things are getting framed in, I think there will be plenty of space.  We're also realizing just how HIGH many of the ceilings are, especially in the back rooms, and are now drawing out plans for creating loft spaces, especially in the kids room, so that will increase usable space!  Very exciting:-)

Upper Canada Village

And here's a very small selection of photos from the 3 day camp Kea and I attended - it was pretty incredible to put on the clothes of the 1866's, and step back into time a little. Everyone stayed in character during the days, girls sewed and baked, folded laundry and swept floors. They couldn't run or yell, had to speak when spoken to and try to just been seen (remarkably hard for modern kids!!!!!) There was a remarkably patient cow there who let 20-plus kids learn to milk her, and I was amazed to see Kea squirting milk into the bucket within a few seconds! They attended school each day, which was remarkably strict - the first photo of school is of the morning prayer, and the second photo is of Kea working on her cursive writing while copying a moral tale, which she also had to memorize quickly and tell back to the teacher.....a bit nerve-wracking for her, but she did really well! Part of me would have loved to have stayed for a full week, but another part of me was exhausted after 3 days!!!!!

Happy Birthday Sweet Tiegan!

So, Sept. 13th was Tiegan's 7th birthday so we woke up to the requested breakfast of pancakes and nutella and celebrated our sweet little girl. Unfortunately that was also the day that Kea and I were leaving to go on a 3 day camp, but I understand Nana Heather spoiled her all day, and then Meg and Ian helped Jamie to make her dinner and cake very special indeed!

I'm always amazed at the resilience of this little girl - I was a bit worried that we only had a couple of small things picked out for her and didn't really know which ONE gift to get her. But she was THRILLED with whatever she got, no matter how small, and happily accepted that we would celebrate for an hour or two and then go on our way. It's so comforting to see how confident and happy she is to her soul, and I love her radiant smile! I guess that's one benefit to having a child who lets you know exactly what she needs - although the baby/toddler years might be a little *intense* at times, there's not a lot of guess work or games going on and she's now blossoming into a happy, well-adjusted, confident little girl. What a joy to be around!

Here she is on the morning of her big day, with a new puppy dog that she is firmly attached to (this is the closest she'll get to her own dog, I suspect!!!!) - and a shot of the other two as well. More photos of the party celebrations to come!

And finally, a few shots of the house progress...........starting with Jamie digging through piles of logs to find a perfect one for a post. Most of the posts are made from milled wood, but we have a few trees as posts, and a big cedar at the end of our hallway - it looks stunning!



This is a view of our centre hallway - most of this traditional timber framing will be displayed, I'm excited to see it once all the walls are plastered.


The windows are all being framed in, and here's a shot of the two windows in the kids room - they'll have a great view of the woods behind us, and hopefully lots of natural light.



And a couple of shots of Jamie working on the roof decking - fun times with a huge sledgehammer:-)




And finally, here's a couple of shots of Kris, our framer, putting on the final roof joists - those are some heavy suckers, but it sure feels good to be getting the roof up - means the walls will be soon! I think straw bales come in next week, fingers crossed! The HOPE is still to be in by the end of October. Of course, we're still remaining somewhat flexible (thanks to the heater in the Barth and the occasional stay in Meg and Ian's basement) but it would be REALLY nice to be moving in soonish!!!!!!

I always love going to the science museums with the kids, every time it seems I learn a few new facts that I'm amazed I didn't know before. For example, in Toronto I learned that hippo sweat is actually red, and that it is used as bug repellent. And that compost in the landfill has so little oxygen that it is not decomposing at all - they excavated a local landfill and discovered 'fresh' veggies from 30 years ago. Crazy.

Another thing we discovered was a diagram of how they cut boards from a round log - I always assumed that they just cut it into strips, but here is a diagram that reminds me a little of a butcher's diagram of cuts of meat!!!!!!!! Very appropriate, given how much we're dealing with wood these days.

Toronto

We decided to make a stop in Toronto on our way home from Stratford, since we were in that neck of the woods. We spent a couple of days there, seeing the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Science Centre, being chased by dinosaurs and checking out the Terracotta Warriors at the ROM. As torturous as it was to me, we were not allowed to take photos in either of the exhibits, so here's a couple of shots we took outside - and I guess you'll have to travel to Toronto yourselves if you'd like to see more!!! We really enjoyed ourselves, and as always wished we had more time to see so much more!

Shakespeare in Stratford

We went on a little family trip to Stratford to check out the Shakespeare Festival. I'd bought tickets ages ago through the homelearners group and at the time had no clue we'd still be so busy with the house building. However, I've always heard about what a wonderful festival it was and have always wanted to be able to check it out, so we decided to leave the chaos of house building behind for a few days, and go on a road trip. And I'm glad we did, it was a lot of fun:-)




The girls started off our adventure by going to see "Kiss Me Kate" with our friend Andi, while Jamie, Ryland and I wandered along the riverside, watched the swans, climbed the trees and then checked out a few of the great bookstores.




Then that first night, Kea and I had a special date to go see "As You Like It" - one of Kea's favourite stories, and I really enjoyed how they put it together.

The next morning we all took a tour of the costume and props warehouse, which was really fascinating - rows and rows of amazing costumes. The kids were all given a big spiel about how important it was that they not touch any of the clothes, but then in the end the guides admitted that it was never children who didn't listen to this rule, but rather all of the older women who sew who can't resist feeling all of the amazing creations!!! At the end of the tour, there was a section set up for all of us to try on a bunch of costumes - needless to say the girls (and Jamie!) were in heaven.

















Finally, the whole family went to go see a matinee of Peter Pan on our second afternoon. It was so well done that even Ryland sat spell bound during the entire show, although the first 20 minutes he kept loudly asking over and over again - 'where is this Peter Pan guy?' Obviously we weren't allowed to take photos in any of the plays, but here's a shot of Tiegan and Ryland enjoying a snack during intermission. It was nice and sunny before the play, poured rain during it, and then cleared up again once the play was over!



And that, folks, was our quick trip to Stratford - as the tourist maps claim, it was absolutely Bieberific!!!!!!