Happy New Years

"I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.
I spread out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit lead me on level ground."

Psalm 143: 5, 6, 10

We give thanks to our Heavenly Father for His unfailing love during this past year. May we each begin this new year with a renewed desire to serve Him as He desires us to.

Moving Out Day

Aaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I think that describes it best.

Let's just say moving day ... or moving week should I say ... did not go all so smoothly and nicely. No worries, there weren't any major upsets or issues ... I just wasn't totally prepared by time the movers came to pack the truck. Not sure if you would call that a major or a minor upset :) I guess you can be thankful that our memories fade with time and that I didn't write this update right away or I'm sure you would have gotten a lot more details or complaining.

As is usual, when something doesn't go quite as planned one must have an excuse or reason for this. I think my excuse is basically lack of time. At the beginning of October Rob qualified for benefits through his work and so I began to do physiotherapy (for neck and shoulder pains as well as chronic headaches). This involved 1 to 1.5 hour appointments twice a week. I knew that it would take a bit of my time at first but I wanted to get that out of the way before we moved so that by time we moved I would be down to once a week or once every other week.

True Steph style (yup, that Wacko-Steph Syndrome kicked in again) things didn't quite go as planned. The few hours a week it took to go to physio and get a babysitter each time wasn't too bad especially considering my appointments were only two minutes from my house, but I didn't factor in the full effect of these appointments. I did realize that it would take some work at home, altho I didn't realize it would take quite so much (20 minutes three times a day, plus I would walk for 30 minutes each day ... altho I let that drop once I started running out of time). Even the 40-80 minutes a day spent on stretches/exercice isn't all that bad if you think of the benefits one should get from them ... but of course for me it didn't quite go that way. I found myself increasingly feeling worse. By noon hour each day my neck felt so weak, tired and sore that it couldn't hold up my head anymore. My head hurt and the only solution was to rest ... something I really didn't have time for. I trudged on convincing myself that my body just had to get used to the adjustments (we were working on correcting my posture). So in the end lets just say that several hours each week for appointments, several hours each week for stretches/excercises, several hours each week for naps/rests began to add up to a lot of hours that packing wasn't getting done.

By time I realize that I was falling seriously behind where I should be it was basically too late ... for the last week it was very late nights and no naps (I am slowly coming to accept that naps are part of my life ... for the sake of my family I need to rest each day or my head will be no good by the end of the day) ... feeling miserable and tired it seemed like nothing was getting done as there was always other things popping up that had to be tackled. I kept telling myself "don't worry, it will get done" and "as long as I stay healthy till Saturday all will be good" (there were some nasty flus and colds flying around at that time).


Well Friday morning dawned but Steph hardly did ... any other day I would have stayed in bed all day for I was sick. I don't even remember the symptoms, I just remember being exhausted and having a rotten and nasty cold ... the kind that wipes you out and makes you feel awful. But the boxes had to be packed and so off to work I went. It was 5pm by time we began to pack the kitchen up ... I seriously under estimated the amount of time this would take to pack up this room and it was not until 10pm that the kitchen was all in boxes (except the one cupboard we missed).

Pizza arrived somewhere in there, giving the guys a chance to sit sit and relax while we scurried along to try get ahead of them on some of the boxes.

Most of the guys left sometime around or after midnight. By that time all the large stuff was packed and it was becoming rather apparent that we weren't going to be getting everything done that night.

The girls had Thursday and Friday off of school that week and so they had spent those days enjoying some last-minute time with friends. On Thursday Rebecca spent the day at her best friends, Meaghan's house. She returned home after supper and then Grandpa and Grandma came and picked up her and Matthew and took them to their house for a sleep over. Marietta had a sleepover at a friends, Francine, from Wednesday night to Thursday and returned home Thursday evening. On Friday she went off to another friends, Jessica, for the day and returned home in the evening while we were packing up.

Marietta had fun hanging out and watching the activity for the evening. She also wandered around taking some pictures since her mother was far to busy to bother with that. By 11:30 she was getting quite tired and so we managed to find her a room that was completely empty. She curled up with a pillow and was fast asleep in no time.

Once our helpers left Rob, my mom (who had helped me all day) and I continued on for a bit.

But finally by 12:30 my mom and I we were done. We woke up Marietta, packed her and her bunny up in my mom's car and sent them off . Rob was determined that we would make it to the new place that night yet ... I was determined that I could not go on without sleep. So I took over Marietta's spot on the floor while Rob continued to get the outdoor things.

After an hour nap Rob woke me at 2am so I could get the last minute things prepared (the fishies) and we finally headed out a 2:30am. We arrived at the new place, unloaded our mattress and crashed at 3:45am.

Our New Home

So I'm already failing on my one-post-per-day-to-catchup idea. And tonight I'm going to be lazy and just post pictures of our new house as right about now I really much rather be in bed then sitting here.

So here you have our new place. These pictures were taken before we moved in ... hence the green grass and leaves on the trees. I think the thing to note the most on these pictures is how much of that green grass you can see around the house!! Our nice spacious yard ... surrounded by farmers fields.

Christmas Blessings

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

But the angel said to them ,"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has ben born to you; he is Christ the Lord. " Luke 2: 10,11

We wish you all a blessed Christmas Day with family and friends. May this day be a day of celebration where you reflect and remember that this holiday comes because God sent His Son to this world for us sinners.

Last Day at Old School

Wednesday, October 28th was the girls last day at their old school. The day went well and I must say the girls showed little concern about the fact that they were not returning. We knew that they were a bit sad and would miss their friends, but we were thankful that they were also excited enough about the move and their new school that they were able to remain positive and happy and see this last day as a fun day.

At morning snack time I arrived at school armed with cupcakes and bookmarks. I met up with Rebecca and she handed out cupcakes to her classmates. Rebecca's class is a large class and so during the mornings they are split into two classes to be taught the core subjects. It was nice that they were together that morning.

After handing out her cupcakes (and candies) Rebecca was surprised with a good-bye present. This was a lovely gesture and one I think Rebecca really cherishes. She received two necklaces (which she wears almost all the time) as well as a collectors spoon from Holland. The class had just been discussing collections and so they found out that Rebecca collects spoons.

Rebecca with some of her classmates: Olivia, Sarah, Eden and Anna

Rebecca also took these pictures of her classmates. The first picture shows the class that she was part of with her teacher, Mr. V. The second picture is the other part of her class which she would spend afternoons with.

During that same morning Marietta was off on a school trip to Gage Park and the Mum Show at Gage Park. Here Marietta got to enjoy taking pictures of flowers ...something she loves to do.

I returned to school after lunch hour (so nice to live so close to the school :)

I prepared Marietta's cupcakes and then went down to Rebecca's classroom to watch her do the play The Shoemaker and the Elves. She had been extremely excited that they would be doing a play before she left ... one of the things she looked forward to in Grade 2 was that they did a play for the parents. This play was actually not for a parents and they did not memorize the lines but just read them, but regardless she had fun and enjoyed it. (She was even more thrilled when she found out she'd be doing a play at her new school ... only 4 days after starting school :)

Here she is waiting on the side for her turn to enter. And the next picture is her as a princess coming to buy shoes from the shoemaker.

I then headed back upstairs to help Marietta with handing out her cupcakes. Marietta's class had organized a Surprise Party ... much to her surprise :) She was pretty tickled by this gesture and thought they did a good job on surprising her. We didn't need to bring cupcakes ... they had more then enough food already :)

I wasn't allowed to leave until I had seen (and taken a picture of) the class pet ... Patches the Rat. Funny that she thinks Patches is so cute but goes into a panic if she thinks she seen or heard a mouse or rat at our new house (don't worry we're not overrun by them, just a fact of living in the country, especially when you live in an old farmhouse).

Bookmarks and Cupcakes

The girls wanted to give their friends/classmates (the girls in their classes) something to remember them by when they left. So after a bit of thought we decided to make bookmarks for the kids. I printed a text on the book marks and the girls finished them up with stickers, a little message and a picture of themselves, then I had them laminated. It was a relatively easy projected and turned out good.

For the last day of school we (okay mostly I) made little cupcakes for the classes. With 31 students in Rebecca's class and 28 in Marietta ... that made for a few cupcakes.

Moving Fun

Wow, this is going back a ways in time ... Thanksgiving Weekend - October 10-12

With three weeks to go to our hopeful moving date (it was up in the air for some time since they were doing some work in the new place) I figured maybe I should stop putting off the inevitable and go get some boxes.

A great place to get free boxes is the LCBO (Liquor Store) ... heavy duty boxes that come with bottle dividers. They are especially a nice size when ones has lots of books and canning to pack. Larger boxes had to be collected at the grocery store (hit and miss) or off freecycle. I thought I had way too many boxes, but in the end we had to make a last minute trip to the grocery store 5 minutes before it closed to restock and get as many boxes as we could fit in the vehicle.

The kids loved getting boxes ... especially Matthew. Matthew was the designated box thrower. One of the girls would pass him the boxes from the van and he threw them down the stairs, the other girl would then take them to the living room and stack them up there.

When we read the signs that the street down the road was having a Street Sale on Thanksgiving Day we figured we'd give a shot at trying to get rid of some of our stuff that day. I made quick work of going through the house and especially the storage room and finding the things we needed to get rid of. The girls were the designated garage sale "sellers" as they were the ones begging to have a garage sale.

Of course the reason they wanted a garage sales was because they wanted to sell lemonaide since the last time I attemped a garage sale they almost made more then me. At which time I said I was not having a garage sale again and have since been a freecyler and kijiji fan. So I explained they were going to have a hard time selling lemonaide when it was freezing outside and people were wearing winter coats (we had a cold October). Instead they sold hot chocolate for $0.25 a cup ... and once agan between that and the flowers they sold they pretty mcuh did better then the rest of the garage sale items. Thanksgiving is not the time to have a Garage Sale, but they had fun and it kept them out of my hair while I sorted through the storage room.

You would think I would have been on track and had no trouble being done on time for moving since the girls were big enough to help out. They did indeed help out but I did find it hard to let them do a lot of things as it was just easier to sort and do it myself. They were able to do the simplier things like the canning and books and straight forwards stuff, plus they liked to fight about who got to label each box, so I would load while they labelled.

During packing time Marietta came down with the Influenza A (or something of that assort) and so she was home for several days. She had a milder case but would get fevers and feel ill at times. A good doze of painkiller and she was okay for a while. She could do small things for short periods and then needed to rest, so she would help me out at time ... selective depending on how well she felt ... or was it how much she wanted to do what I suggested :) Here she is busy packing up the last of the food in the storage room. The storage room became our storage place where we put all boxes ready to go with the hope that we wouldn't be tripping over too many boxes throughout the next weeks ... unfortunately we still were.

This move was the worse move we've done. It was difficult to get any organization as we felt like we had not space or were always tripping over boxes ... empty or full. We tried to keep all empty boxes in the living room so that the only boxes around the house were ones we were working on or full ones placed in corners ... but it just didn't seem to work. It reminded us again of one of the reasons we wanted to go ...the house was just not nicely designed. Every now and then I would go through the living room and restack the empty boxes so we could at least walk in the room and see the different size boxes as it quickly became a disaster area ... with much help from Mr. Matthew, who was a big part of the reason it was always so messy. He had great fun stacking and moving boxes, crawling under them and playing with them. I couldn't blame him for wanting to have some fun and at the same time I was happy it was keeping him busy ... but it did get frustrating at times.

When one is busy packing the children get somewhat neglected ... and this is what I would find when I would go looking to see what he was up to

Yup ... he thought it was great fun to make disasters where ever he went or over turn half-full boxes ... much to my frustration.

And this is where I would usually find him ... looking quite innocent ... as if he would make such a mess!!

Unfortunately he recognized that I was busy and he begged more and more for the TV ... a problem we had already been dealing with before the moving thing came up. He was obsessed with TV and you could say no all day long but he would just keep whining and begging and crying and complaining ... it drove me insane and sad to say I gave in during moving time because I needed him out of my hair and didn't know what else to do with him ... and also because I knew that there would be no TV being unpacked at the new house. We would finally try to put an end to his obsession ... I was not looking forward to it, but I knew if any time was a good time to make a change this was the time.

Stay tune for further updates of the moving saga :)

Wireless

Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have wireless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Thanks Steve!!!)

Cept that means I now have a lot of catching up to do on my blog ... and with the kids just starting Christmas holidays I'm not sure so sure a whole lot of that will get done. I'll have to aim for a post a day and see how far I get.

Todays not going to be such a good start tho. Rob's been in bed for a few hours already blah and my throats starting to get scratchy ... a sign that I'm the next one to feel blah ... so I think I'm off to the shower and early to bed, see if I can beat it before it beats me.

Hungry Fish

Matthew must have overheard us telling Rebecca that her fish get hungry if she forgets to feed them.

I am trying to post this by sending via e-mail to the blog ... I have never sent pictures before, so I'm not sure if this will work

(We're still trying to survive in the semi-internet world ... we are "borrowing" dial-up but it's dial-up from the stone-age and so slow it's only good for e-mailing)

Edit: Wow ... that only took 42 minutes to be sent via e-mail ... and the pictures didn't even show up on the blog ... grrrr!!! But amazingly Blogger has actually uploaded my images without timing out before the process was done. Only took another 37 minutes. Guess I'll have to be a bit more patient for a bit longer and wait for the Wireless to get hooked up.