A Summer in Review

Well hello there.  I figured since I basically took the summer off of blog writing I would catch you all up a little before I get started again.  So here it is, a summer in review.

•  Curt celebrated his 31st Birthday

• Nollie had her 5th Birthday.

 

• I painted our Master Bedroom 

• We enjoyed both a Martin and a Buchan camp-out.  I love the family get-togethers

• We enjoyed a free outdoor yoga & nature class for kids

• Luca won a new bike at the County Fair

•  We took part in a weekly library camp 
  

• We went to the farmers market

• We played in the mud 

• We took our first two week holiday as a family

•  We went to a friend's wedding

• We went camping

 

Babies who scootch on their butt get really dirty when camping

 

• Visited Grandma & Papa Hutch

• Spent a week at Buchan's condo

• Played on Grandpa's boat

•  Both girls learned to ride a two wheeler

•  Wavy practiced her tricks

•  I played in my garden and made a few new flower beds

• We planted trees

• Curt covered the beams and posts on the front deck

• We painted the railing on the decks....again, I think we're done for a year or two.

• We (mostly Curt) put in two brick patios, one outside the garage door and one outside the walkout door.

•  We started homeschooling

•   Nollie lost her first (and second) tooth..

•  We had a great summer!

Waverly at 4 1/2 Months

Some days you are into it...  
...and others you are not! 

End of Summer Randoms

Well summer flew by, I can't believe there is only a little over a week left of September. 

Since my last post....

We spent the first week of September at the Buchan Condo in Sicamous.  We enjoyed a relaxing time of reading and putting our feet up.  The girls enjoyed swimming every day in the pool.  We got out on the boat a couple times and enjoyed being the only boat on all of Mara Lake.  Nollie loved being out on the boat and riding on the tube.  This excites Curt because he can see 10 years into his future when his kids want to be out boating and riding as much as he does.

 

We said farewell to my sister Shelby as she took off to travel Australia with a friend of hers.  I'm sure she is having a fantastic time and we will see her when she returns next spring.

Curtis & I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, OK, so we didn't really celebrate, we poured the cement pad for our shop that day and if it wasn't for calls from family we may have forgotten on the actual day.  We knew it was coming, I guess we're just not so good at staying on top of what calender day it is.

Baby #3 is growing well and kicks me all the time.  I'm 28 weeks now, 3 months to go.

The girls are fun, fun, fun.  Nollie started asking why to everything and I'm sure it was on her 3rd birthday that it started.  Luca started the why's shortly after so I have two girls that just question everything.  They are just learning, learning, learning.  They have both been enjoying riding around on their bikes and they both want to get outside even more now that they have figured them out.  Nollie has also figured out the teeder-totter on the swing set and gets it just rockin'.  It's great because both Nollie & Luca can get on and they don't need me to come push them every two minutes like on the swings.  They play together really well most of the time.  They have their spats but they also have times where they nicely use manners or techniques they've been taught to sort things out on their own.

My garden has been good to me, we've enjoyed the lettuce, onions, potatos, zuccini, beats, beans, peas and tomatos.  My strawberries have been producing but the grasshoppers get to them quicker than I can.  I've mad a couple batches of tomato sauce already and it has been fantastic.  There are still alot of green tomatos on the plants so as long as they don't freeze I will have quite a few more batches to make.

The Saskatoons, both wild and tame were plentiful this year and so I picked and froze, picked & ate, picked & froze, picked & ate.  We have tonns of wild bushes on our land but they are still young, in a couple of years they will be good producers, that and the 10 tame ones I planted this year.  I love saskatoons!

House Update
We covered the decks and put up railings on them so they are now usable & I don't have to worry about kids falling off and breaking their neck anymore.  I still have to paint the railings, maybe next week I can tackle that.

We built proper stairs off each deck, also a bonus since I no longer have to assist the girls in getting down the front stairs.

We finished the parging on the exterior of the house (the area just below the siding)

We have the cement pad poured for our shop and plan to push up the shop next weekend, hopefully.  The pad has been a great riding arena for the girls on their bikes in the mean time, they have both greatly improved their bike riding skills since we put it in.

Other than that we've just been living life, making our messes & cleaning them up.

July Randoms

Sorry I've been so bad with the posts lately, I guess it's lazy summer mode.  I've got some ideas for posts floating around in my head but they just haven't made it onto the computer yet.  Here are a few tidbits to keep you up to date.

1. Our current house project has been the parging (the area outside your house between the siding and the ground).  I didn't realize how much it would finish off the exterior of our house, it looks great.  I can no longer see any sign of foam basement or Home Hardware paper just a finished exterior.  As with nearly every other project this one has involved some hurdles and taken much longer than we imagined but we should have it finished up by the weekend.
   
2. Our grass is coming in well, there are lots of weed throughout but with it all cut it looks like a lawn.  There are some patches of just thick grass and no weeds.  The girls & I have even started running around in our bare feet with no shoes on outside, its like Heaven.
3. We've finalized our mortgage & worked out all of that business.  We ended up saying goodbye to the bank that didn't think we were 97% complete and wanted to see all the trim done first and have switched over to our home bank and have a regular old mortgage instead of a builders mortgage.  It is so nice to finally start paying off the money we have spent rather than just paying interest and now we can leave our baseboards unfinished forever if we choose.
4. We've been enjoying lots of visiting lately with close friends and extended family.  It is so nice to get together.  Sometimes the hermit in me is just so happy to hang out at home that I don't make an effort to get out and visit and I should, I enjoy it. 
5. The girls just continue to grow and play.  I'm so happy that they are so close in age and have eachother to play with every day.  I love to hear them running around and giggling or to see them sitting and playing together and my heart almost skips a beat when I hear them in another room using nice manners with eachother without any reminders.
6. The garden is doing great, well except for the carrots, I think I have two growing carrots, boo.  We've been eating lettuce like crazy to keep up with it before it bolts and it tastes good, a lot of time with home grown lettuce it tastes really bitter or just like grass but this stuff tastes OK.  This weekend I dug around and we ate our first bit of baby potatoes, they were amazing, ...amazing.  We have grasshoppers like crazy but so far they haven't eaten too much of the garden, I hope they stay away.  Tomatoes, they're coming, still green but I have lots on the plants and many more plants flowering, looking forward to a tomato extravaganza this fall.
7. Curt has been swimming 1 mile atleast twice a week at lunch time  for the last 4 months and I'm so proud of him for keeping it up.  He started with whatever he could, maybe 10 laps stopping between each one to catch his breath before going on to the next and each time he went he kept adding one lap until he was up to a mile, now he's just working on getting that mile a little faster.  He's my hero.
8. Me, I'm just doing my regular thing, reading, laundry, keeping the girls entertained, baking, thinking about but not actually sewing, on ocasion knitting, watching movies, playing in my garden.....regular stuff.
   
9. Just watched a deer walk through our back yard,... I love this place.
   
10. I've added a link on the left side to subscribe by email.  If you wish to sign up you can receive Ranch on Relaxo posts right to your inbox each day that I post them.  That way you won't miss any of this exciting business going on at the Ranch.

Things I'm Loving

• Sunny days
  
• Being outside
  
• Planting seeds and plants and trees
  
• Reading gardening books
• Watching my hummingbirds

• Drinking suntea

• Waiting for more grass sprigs to grow
• Dirty girls
  
• Listening to Ida Maria
• 5 minutes of clean floor
  
• Sleeping
  

The Garage Sale

Danna & I had our garage sale this weekend.

• I haven't eaten lunch or dinner at home since Wednesday.
• My house is a dissaster (not too unusual but I'll blame it on the garage sale)
• It was so much work for the set-up and pricing everything
  
• I am still exhausted
• The weather was beautiful this weekend
• Danna & I enjoyed the quiet moments where we could sit outside in the old furnature that was for sale and drink our coffee or eat our lunch in the sunshine while the kids were elsewhere with their Dads or Grandparents, peacefull.
• The traffic came in spurts, it wasn't constant.
  
• Everyone that came by commented on the ridiculous amount of stuff that was there "is this all your stuff" "um, not completely but, yes".  It almost got embarrassing, we wanted to say "oh no, this is an 8 family garage sale, this is just our shift working it"
• I enjoyed watching the seasoned garage sale shoppers come through, they noticed everything and found some interesting treasures.
• The things you expect to go don't and the things you think no one would ever buy, someone does.
• I sold 3 old textbooks for $2 each, you can't give those things away.  My advice to anyone in school, sell your textbooks as soon as you are done when they are worth something.  As much as you think you will, you will never look at them again, you will just move the rediculously heavy boxes 5 or 6 times and then when you realize you havn't looked at them once in 7 years, they will be worth nothing and you paid $100-$200 a piece.
• As time went on some prices got reduced and more items got moved to the Free bin.
• We tried really hard not to pick through and keep any of eachother's or even our own stuff.
• We basically decided that at the end there were a few of things that we may take if they don't sell. 
  
• Every time we said we were going to keep an item, it sold
• So we tried saying we were going to keep everything, but it didn't work
  
• We made over $400 combined.
• There is so much stuff left you probably wouldn't think we sold anything
• We're going to open the doors again in a couple of weeks and give it another go, it's all set up already anyways
  
• Believe it or not we've both got more to add
• Prices will be slashed

Another Weekly Update

• We finally called for our final electrical inspection and other than a couple small things to fix up that is complete.
• 94%.  That's what the bank says we are right now, they can't just give us the extra 3% so we can close our effin mortgage.  Friday was not a good day when we heard this and we were about ready to just quit everything.  Still a touchy subject in this house.
• Curt got his first golf game of the year in and the girls and I got to visit with friends.  This helped us not to think about the above on Saturday.
  
• We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday & Sunday working outside in the yard.
  
• We got our lawn all seeded Sunday just before it started to rain & snow.
• We took a giant, double load of garbage to the dump, including the crate of garbage that has been in our back yard since fall.
• What would May long be without snow.

• The snow allowed us to burn the growing pile of scrap wood in our back yard.
• Curtis told me to look the other way while he threw a number of items I would not normally allow him to burn on the fire.  Although I didn't like the pumes of black smoke I was relived to see the stuff go.
• We spent Sunday evening and Monday organizing and sorting through the garage and basement.  It is so nice to have all the tools in one place, why couldn't we have done this earlier.  Now maybe we will be able to find what we are looking for.
• I'm busy prepping for our garage sale this weekend, so much to do for tomorrow.
• The basement is looking really good, I'm finally getting somewhere, much better than this.  I'll try to post some photos next week when I finish getting it cleaned up and all the garage sale stuff is out of there.
• I had my first shower in our bathroom since we finally got the shower fixture installed.
  
• Of course the girls are doing great, they play together so well and they love to be outside.  The snow, wind, rain it doesn't bother them, just let them out the door.  By the end of the day they are grubby, grubby, grubby, but I know they had fun.
  

Without The Web

Our internet air card died last week and I have spent the last week without my favorite addiction. I was nervous but it was actually no problem at all. Knowing the internet was not there I did not feel the pull to just check one thing and then get stuck staring at the screen looking at all the cool things I could be doing but not actually doing them. I'm not sure exactly what I did in the last week. Work on the house? Nope. Spring cleaning? Nope. My sewing machine did make a few appearances on my kitchen table and I managed to finish this cute little apron for Nollie. Of course we had to make a batch of cookies as soon as it was done to test it out.
I'm glad to be back online and excited to keep crafting.

King of The World

Simon, our dog thinks he is king of the world. So much for the Dog Whisperer's idea of me being the lead dog. On our walks he is way up in front leading us instead of us leading him and even when we drive in the driveway he will get up in front and lead us home (Thanks Simon, I wasn't sure which way to go there). He is a good dog though so I'm not too worried about it, anyway who has time for all the training? I'm already training two girls inside the house and besides there is no way on a -30 day that I am going outside to walk him before I give him his food so the whole Dog Whisperer thing is not going to work for me right now.

In addition to being king of our family he is also king of the animal world (in his mind). When meeting another dog he is quick to tell them that he is boss. He even bit our neighbour's dog once, not great for neighbourly relations but I think they've worked it out now and they both stay on their own side of the fence (mostly). He also keeps the wild animals away, there will be no deer eating my tulips. When our neighbour warned us about the problem with coyotes in the area we weren't worried we knew Simon would keep them away. Sure enough Simon is busy all night barking at the coyotes. Preventing them and any wild animals from coming near our property line. Thanks Simon, but I don't mind if you take a night off and maybe not bark outside my window tonight.

Our brave dog did have a couple fears though, car rides, going inside a building with the door closed and since moving to DV, going up onto the deck. Every car ride we have taken him on we had to literally pick him up and put him into the the car/truck and then close the door quick so he didn't jump out. He even barfed all over Curt's truck on the drive from Provost to DV. It was a fair trade I guess since I had to take Roofis to the SPCA. Poor Roofis, I wonder where he is, hopefully with a cat free family somewhere. For some reason since we moved to DV Simon would not come up the stairs to the deck, maybe it was the loss of his friend. He always did with no problem in Provost. Even our front deck that is only 3 steps off the ground was too much for him. If we did manage to get him up he would lay low and jump off as soon as he could. We had been meaning to work on this for a while because it was a bit ridiculous. The other day Curt drug him up onto the deck and held him petting him trying to calm him down. I saw this and ran out with a treat for him. The next day we did the same thing. Yesterday I looked out my window and there was Simon up on the deck on his own. He has apparently conquered his fear. Now I can sit out on my front porch in the summer and have my dog at my feet just like in my imagination.

There he is now up on the deck looking in the window at me. It reminds me of being in Provost, he and Roofis would come and look in the front window in the morning almost saying "if you guys are up why do I not have food in my bowl yet." At least I know I won't ever forget to feed him.

So now I guess he is king of the deck world too.

Visiting

I had a great weekend. I got a chance to visit with a lot of my friends and family. Nothing like packing it all into a couple days. I guess now I can be a hermit for a couple months. We spent Friday visiting two of our best couple friends in Edmonton. The fellas went to the Oilers game while the ladies stayed back to tend the children. After the chaos of putting 6 kids to bed we even got to enjoy a game of cards (I love games). Saturday I got to visit my two best girlfriends from Uni. One on bedrest in the hospital awaiting her first baby. We're just hoping that baby will be well enough when he/she comes next week to go home soon after and not have to stay too long in the hospital. Send your prayers her way. Friend number two then came out to check out the new rancho-notso-relaxo. Sat evening was fight night so we all went to G. Lydias & G. Jody's because after a day in the city with your kids why not throw in some extra torture by keeping them up 'till 11:00pm. The UFC fight nights have turned into a bit of a tradition at the Martin House and even the simplest of get togethers is starting to get crazy. I guess that's what happens when you start at a family of 7. We've now doubled to 14. I can't imagine what it will be like in another 10 years.

All of the visiting meant that the shower didn't get completely tiled this weekend. I guess we have one more week of baths only. No big deal, this was much more fun.

Things I was Reminded of in Jasper

How much you have to pack to go away for the weekend
How beautiful the mountains are
I ride goofy, that's right foot forward
Snowboarding is like riding a bike, you don't forget
The snow is much nicer in the trees
The hill was much steeper in those trees
Somersaulting down the hill is not so bad
If you're not falling you're not trying hard enough
The importance of making a meeting point when on the hill
How cell phones are a good thing when you lose your group
To plug in your phone at night even if it looks like its fully charged
How good it feels to be outside in the sunshine all day working your body
Its OK to slide down on your butt when you're too chicken to ride
Snowboard boots are not easy to get off when you're having a foot cramp
The burn you feel at the end of snowboarding all day
A drink (or two) in the chalet after a day on the hill is amazing
Drinking all night does not make you feel like snowboarding all day
That its OK to take a day to just putz around Jasper because you're in no condition to board
That I'm too cheap to go shopping in Jasper
How good a latte from a coffee shop can be
The best way to stiffen up is to sit for 4 hours
How your kids can look like they grew & changed after only a couple days
How needy the girls can be after time away from mom
How much there is to clean up and put away after being away for the weekend
That vacations are a good thing

Snowboarding! Can I Still Do That?

Curt & I are off to Jasper this weekend for his annual company ski trip. I'm really excited, however I'm already anticipating the pain I will be in on Monday. I have not been snowboarding in over 4 years. I couldn't even tell you the last time I did snowboard. All I know is I've been pregnant or loving an new baby for the last 3 winters so it definitely wasn't then. I'm sure it's like riding a bike and I'll remember how. Plus, you get to rest the whole time on the chairlift and I'm sure the hotel has a hot tub to soak my broken body at the end of the day. The weather is supposed to be great and there's been lots of snow lately, so long as it doesn't all melt off the hil. Did I mention that I'm excited.

I am not sure what I will do without the internet though. I've become quite addicted to reading and finding new blogs. I've started keeping track of them all in Google Reader where it will tell you if one you are tracking has been updated and suggest new blogs based on the ones you're already following. I'll keep adding to my list of favorites on the left as I find them. They're mostly crafty ones right now. I'm so addicted. Oh well, I've got my knitting project started, that should keep me busy when I'm not tearing up the hill.

Have a great weekend. Get outside and enjoy the sunshine.

How many...

With a sick family over the weekend I find myself wondering...

• How many times have I said "Don't worry honey, let Mommy get a cloth and we'll clean you up?
• How many times can we watch the monsters movie (Monsters, Inc.)?
• How many times can I microwave my coffee before I get to finish drinking it?
• How many more loads of "sick" laundry?
• How much time can I spend on the internet? (with everyone else moving slow I found myself glued to my computer chair)
• How many more days will this last?
• How many times can we watch 4 Square
  
• How many beads are all over my floor? (not related to the sickness)
• How many times can I wash my hands in a day?
• How much lotion have I gone through? (Dry hands from the washing)
• How have I been so lucky to not get sick yet?

Hope it all passes soon.

A Much Enjoyed Break

We really enjoyed Christmas this year (I always do). I'm not sure if its because it was our 1st Christmas morning as a family together, or that we actually made it into our house by Christmas or that we have been so busy this year that the break from working on the house felt extra good. We started staying at the house on Dec 8th when we got our hot water system working. We then worked non-stop on the house to get it ready for Christmas, counter tops, sinks, doors, washing machine & dryer, dishwasher... December 22nd I wrapped my presents & the next day we started our Christmases. The 23rd at Curt's parents, the 24th I had all the Martins here at the new house, Christmas Day we went to Mom & Dad and later to Curt's aunts in Devon, then the 26th at Grandma Graves. We spent the next day sledding in the back yard and then got together in the evening with some family friends. We've had a hard time getting back to work these last couple days, we'd much rather watch movies, play games and clean up a bit (only me). At least we have the essentials now and our work on the house can be a little more relaxed.

The Day Has Come!!!

We're living at our new house, I guess, kind of. We've stayed at the house the last couple nights, however Nollie says we're not living there yet 'cause we don't have couches there. We have the two things we were waiting for, hot water & heat and so we've unofficially moved in. I still have to get our clothes out there and the rest of our stuff, which I will work on today and for the rest of the week. It seemed like we were never going to get to this day and then all of the sudden it's here. It feels strange, but good.

The weather was so good to us this year durring the building but if the snow could have just held off for one more week. Because of the snow & ice we are unable to get up onto the roof to get the solar tubes in right now. No free heat for us, we will have to pay for gas just like everyone else. Oh well the house is warm & there's lots of hot water for baths in the new jet tub. By the end of the week I might even have countertops, a kitchen sink, a dishwasher and a washer & dryer. I'm not sure if I can take it all at once.

I also started checking out some of the "junk" boxes and its not really all junk (Thank goodness) there's lots of good stuff in there, I think we must have just been getting too tired of packing to label it properly.

November

Can you believe that it's almost December, wow! We've been so lucky this far to not have any cold weather or snow. We are still waiting for a few parts for our solar hot water/heating system and currently using a space heater to keep the house warm. I'm not sure how well this would all work if it dipped down to -30'. When the rest of our system gets here & we get it hooked up we have to get up onto the roof to put the solar tubes in place and I really don't want to do that with ice & snow on the roof so hopefully the weather can continue. Every nice sunny day we just think about how much free hot water/heat we could be creating if we had the solar system complete. Hopefully it all works well.



Our week of working on the house went well. We spent 5 days installing hard wood flooring, and we now have all of the vanities installed, tiling complete & two toilets installed. The toilet is such a treat, don't take yours forgranted. Grandpa Sandy has nearly got all the finishing electrical done and we have lights in the house. It is looking so complete. My appliances are there and I have the girl's new bunk bed set up in their room. We will install kitchen cabinets this week & weekend and if we get the parts we are waiting for do the heating system next week. I'm hoping for a move in date of December 6th but I guess I shouldn't hold my breath until I see the items we are waiting for arive & I know the heating system all works.





The girls are enjoying the new house & run and giggle from one end of the house to the other. Nollie is relived to have flooring because now she can run around without socks or shoes on. This girl is forever kicking her socks off.



I can't wait to move in. I am going to stay at home for a month. I guess I better stock up on lots of groceries.


This is how I get Luca to sleep at the house. Throw her in the back pack & keep working.

1st Birthday, Haloween, New Van, Paint on the Walls

All of these things deserve their own post but I wasn't able to sit down and get them done. I'm so envious of people who manage to post on their Blogs every day. I enjoy checking my regular Blogs and seeing something new each time. Then the posts can be short & sweet and not extensive novels. Anyway, I though I better give my update before too much more happens.

October 20th was Luca's 1st Birthday. I can't believe that my little red head is a year old. She is walking up a storm. She can sit and play now, though she's much more active and will not sit for loong, she's always on to check out something new. She is starting to enjoy books and though we have probably a hundred books she will bring her one favorite to us to read several times a day (1, 2, 3 Count With Me). She loves to roar on the page with the lions, who am I kidding she loves to roar on every page. Her cutest "trick" is when she blinks. You ask her to blink and she will do some long exaggerated blinking. She's got one word mastered for sure and that is "up" (sounds more like "uphphphphphphph") When she first started saying it she wouldn't say the "p" so we would make a repetitive p sound after saying up, now she does the same thing. It gets her what she wants.

Last week we got a new van (new to us). I am now a minivan mama, I love it. So easy to get the girls in and out, lots of room for storage & transport. The signal lights work, the heater works, I get radio reception (not always the case with the car). And there's room to grow.

Halloween. We dressed up for play group, went to a haunted house, and on Halloween night went trick-or-treating to all of the local family members house. It's alot of work to get everyone unbuckled, and out of their carseats, get Nollie's wings on grab the treat bucket, get up to the house and say trick-or-treat, visit a bit and then get back to the van and get everyone buckled into their carseats around the Halloween costume. Nollie would practice saying trick-or-treat in the van but as soon as we got up to the door she would clam up (She's her mothers daughter) I think she was only able to say trick-or-treat once, but she did say a quiet thank you to everyone. No one believes us that she talks so much and so well at home.

The house - Drywall is done and we have paint on the walls. We hope to finish up painting the ceiling tonight & tomorrow and then start on flooring this weekend. Curt is taking next week off and we hope to get flooring done & cabinets installed & if we're lucky maybe a working toilet, but we'll see how we do.