A lot has been happening in the last couple of weeks with the house! Here’s the skinny.
Some wacky weather delayed our floor pour a smidgeon, but just enough to allow us to make some last minute decisions on where drains were going on the main floor. We had an a-ha moment after the floors were poured that had us wanting to time travel to make a correction, but it wasn’t the end of the world, just one of those things that would have been nice. We have been all about maximizing the use of space in this build and this was a miss that I’m kicking myself for. A u-shaped kitchen is wonderful, but it poses some problems in the corners and I have found that the plan to have all drawers did not work out quite as well as the vision. With that, I have been keen to replace some lost drawer space elsewhere and one of those places was an add to the under sink in the island. There is a bunch of dead space behind the bar sink that would have been a great place to hide the plumbing, but given that the plumbers plan where to bring up the plumbing through the concrete, it came up in the middle of the cabinet – easy for them, wasted space for me. My future self will wish we had been ahead of that one when I am loathe to get on my knees and dig to the back of the kitchen sink cupboard.
In the end, the floor looks amazing. Adam, who is managing our build, is doing a great job at getting what we want out of this house. The floors are beautiful…Too bad we’re putting LVP all over them.
A day or two later the framing got started and we now have a properly laid out main floor. It is really cool to go from stage to stage and see the house take shape. What was looking like a smaller than expected space suddenly look large and we were able to make some adjustments for doorways and walls that on paper looked right, but in practicality were less so.
Jeff has been at site almost daily to see progress and despite the attention paid during the design, we are making more corrections to our plans than we anticipated. We are creeping up on 50% complete now though and with the floors poured, the last of the doors have finally been installed.
Just this week we had a planning meeting for the plumbing, heating and electrical work. I think we were a little unprepared for the extent of the rapid decision-making that needed to take place there AND how long it would take, but in the end the contractors were all very good at providing their guidance for what is best practice and also what works in our space. Jeff had to tap out early for work so I was left to run through the rest of the house with the crew and make executive decisions. Jeff will likely not agree on many, but I think I did ok. Adam, our builder, was also there to lend his expertise and to take notes! It was crazy cold and by the end of it I think I was turning a lovely shade of blue. I retired quickly to the trailer, where Jeff was working and tried to warm up a bit. I can’t wait until the insulation goes in and we are warmer!
We have picked the flooring, and I am moving on to/continuing the sourcing of tile and counter-tops. I had to surrender my cabinet sample back to the cabinet maker, but have asked for it to be returned so I can continue the color matching with everything else in the house. So many trips to Cranbrook have happened and there are so many more ahead. Today I am taking Lizzie with me so she can help with round ? of swapping tile boards with the vendors. A miscommunication on our master shower means I had to scrap my large format tile for something smaller so its back to square one while I try to match it all up…all while NOT having a cabinet sample.
Next week we’ll see the HVAC go in and the roof. We’re getting a load of soffit dropped at the house today and we’ll be heavy into staining so that we can be ready for that install. Fortunately, we have some lead time as the electrical work is a couple of weeks away and we can’t install the soffit until the porch pot lighting is in. Whew!
Since Easter is a chocolate holiday in our house, we chose to collect our children and at the crack of noon — because no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to get all our ducks in a row before lunchtime — we headed to the farm for a bit of fun. Spring is threatening to show up any day now. Today really wasn’t that day though, we rose to great chunky flakes of snow accumulating on everything. It was beautiful for sure, but hard to imagine tulips and fluffy bunnies when it still feels like we are in the the death throws of winter. Only a few days earlier we were solidly in the negatives and thought there was a bright spot coming…not so.
I try to keep the house build progress out of the family happenings side of things, but occasionally they intersect. We have been humming and hawing about the materials to use on the outside of the house. Jeff and I both prefer natural materials to anything else but cost and maintenance on hard to reach places makes decisions on what to choose a bit more calculated (especially when we are both looking at aging with this house). We decided to go with fir T&G on the cathedral roof just outside the kitchen, which means we will also be adding it to the matching roof inside the kitchen and living room, and the rest of the soffit including our rather deep covered porch. To keep costs down, we decided to add some sweat equity in the form of staining the wood ourselves before it gets installed. The cathedral roof needed to be installed before they poured the floors so this required some quick work on our part to get it done. A trip to the Home Hardware to pick the 65 10ft boards that we would get started with, some scrap materials from the build site, and a couple of seriously expensive gallons of stain and we were off to the races. The wood was less than spectacular and Jeff spent a good amount of time outside the garage in negative temps sanding it so we could have a good surface to stain. The girls and I took shifts staining the boards inside the garage, which we were able to keep at a balmy 6 degrees C with the help of three oil heaters.
Lizzie and I were on shift 2 and I think all told, Jeff spent 6 hours sanding and we spent the equivalent staining. I think we have some refinement to do on our assembly line. We also discovered we were 5 boards short so there is more to come. Jeff timidly informed me that we have upwards of 300 more boards to stain so we are going to have to get much more efficient and find more dry and warm space to get it done. Maybe Mother Nature will throw us a bone on this one and let the warmer Spring weather finally arrive. The stain turned out beautifully though and it is just the right colour (despite some variations between staining teams!)
A silver lining to all that cold frosty weather is the amazing vistas that come with clear evenings and mornings.
Back to Spring, or the hope of Spring anyway…with all of us in the same place all at once, we decided it was time to get that bonfire going and burn some of the wood debris at the end of the property. It has been aging well for over a year (might be closer to two!). It was time.
We arrived to about an inch of snow which is nothing really, and clearing skies. Jeff unhooked the trailer so he, Margaret and Lizzie could get started on the fire, while Mary and I went to get supplies for our first cook-out of the year. We encountered a slight problem when I tried to turn the truck around to get back onto our gravel road. We seriously underestimated the mud. In our defense, it didn’t look that bad and we thought it was still pretty frozen. It was bad, and it wasn’t frozen. 0 for 2.
The Ford did not win the battle to get out of the mud, only serving to deepen the ruts and sink further into the muck. We do not love a couple of the “features” of this truck. The first being the traction control that decides to immbolize the wheels when you are stuck, and the slow response time when you are shifting gears. This gave the mud a distinct advantage, but we have a secret weapon. Archie. I love that tractor.
One tractor and a set of chains and we were able to drag the Ford out of the mud lickety-split. It should be noted, that by the end of the day, the temperature had risen and there was no more snow, but what remained was a large muddy bog. Jeff proceeded to dig a trench to try to relieve the land of some of the standing water.
With the Ford free’d, Mary and I continued on with our task of gathering supplies, adding a stop to the wand wash to get all that gooey mud out of the wheels and wheel-wells. We arrived back to a good sized fire well on its way. We have two large piles to burn so this might just go on for a couple of days.
We had a bit of fun roasting hot dogs and making toast pie while we worked our way through the first pile. We almost got to the bottom by the time we packed up for the day. Day 2 might be a reduced crew since it is hard to get volunteers two days in a row…Mary on the other hand, is keen to use some of the scrap building materials to get her chicken coop started, so we’ll likely head up again today with her to get the fire going and work on V1. I expect we’ll have some renovations as we figure out how to keep the foxes out especially since Max is not wired to be a livestock dog. Max, as always, was the happiest he ever is, loving the freedom and space and no responsibility. We ignore his affection for the snacks that the elk leave behind.
Along with Day 2 of the burn and chicken coop building, we will need to do some Easter Egg hunt planning today. It would not do to miss out on this annual tradition.
They’re getting ready to pour the floor this week and there’s been a flurry of activity getting the plumbing on the main floor ready to go and the porch on. New pictures make the house look so different. I’m really going to love this porch!
Turn your back for a day or two and things really start taking off. The windows arrived a few days late and the first couple seemed to take an eternity to install while the builder worked out the hiccups. We were watching the feed when the windows and doors arrived, just by chance, and I was thanking Jeff (for about the millionth time) for having the forethought to set up the camera on the shed. He has since put a second camera on one of the garden posts so we can look at the house from two different perspectives. A very nice add, and once again, so grateful to be able to watch the progress from my desktop some days.
We now have all but one window installed. There was a mishap at the manufacturer and our biggest window, the view window that will go on the front of the house, broke before it left their warehouse. Lucky for us, they were able to get another one on the way relatively quickly, but it would be delayed a week (or has it been two?). The rest of the windows made it in, albeit slowly, and the crew has plenty else to do to keep them busy.
A make-shift shelter was set up to start working on the porch posts. The rough 8x8s were delivered a bit dirty and needed to be planed and sanded before they could be installed. They are truly beautiful though and I can’t wait to see how the porch turns out.
We have been working through our fix on the bathroom orientation upstairs, electing to make better use of the space next to the girls bathroom to put in a second stacking washer unit. We already get backed up quite regularly at the washing machine, AND the though of having all of our laundry chaos taking over the mudroom is pushing us to at least plumb the upstairs for a second set. We’ve reconfigured the bathroom and water closet to move the linen into the bathroom and create a space for the laundry in between. A much smarter design in the end, but its taking a bit of time to work it out.
At least we are making progress on the plumbing in general though, having finalized all but the shower pans and getting that order started with the suppliers. Super happy with most of our choices there, but like many things, I (we) are having to decide to accept a lower cost item instead of what we really want. A good example is the premium that you pay for different finishes on fixtures. We quickly discovered that we could afford the style and level of quality we wanted for the fixtures, but the finish was going to another level and we had to be ok with chrome.
We’ve also looked at our flooring again, and have an appointment to see the cabinet maker in Calgary in a couple of weeks to get a look the stain samples. We will hopefully have both the floor and cabinet colors chosen by the end of that visit. Fingers crossed. We have a starting point at least, with the shades picked…just need to match up the stains! (the darker color is our cabinet stain and the lighter color is the floor. Red for the door (a nod to Nana) and black is for the window frames and roof color which is a mix of metal on the covered porch roof and shingle for the main roof. The paint sample is for the exterior and window trim.
Back to the porch! The crew has busied themselves with preparations for installation of the porch posts while we waited for the last one to arrive. The hardware for under the posts came and was installed, and once the sanding was done, the posts could go up. To keep them from being damaged or muddied (we are definitely nearing “mud” season) they have been wrapped so we won’t see how it really looks until the posts can be revealed. Jeff has a chunk of wood to play with though and we’ll be testing out stains to see what looks the best on the fir.
Our last and very large and heavy window did finally arrive and is currently under a tarp at the front of the house waiting for install. Our builder has sourced some equipment to make sure it can be lifted and placed with as little risk to his crew and the window as possible, the working theory being that it is oversized enough that even the manufacturer had difficulty handling it. I learned something this week…many manufacturers choose to do on-site glazing for large windows to reduce the weight (and risk!) of installation errors. Hmmm….I can see why. A tense moment with the equipment continuing to alarm (signaling that the battery for the suction cups on the lift might be low) meant we are further delayed on the install of that window. They have decided to leave it out while they prep the main floor for the concrete pour expected to happen next week. From what I hear though, our weather is due to get a bit cold. Here’s hoping we don’t see more delays there. The plan is to be able to start with the sub-trades at the beginning of April.
We’ve had some discussion with the engineer about the cathedral roof on the kitchen side because some of the iron work is proving to be difficult to install. There are tension bars that affix to the beams that are supposed to go through the beams and we were hoping to have them go on either side of the beams. Not so…more work to be done there as we (Jeff and Adam) try to solve the problem of how to install the iron work without making it look like a hatchet job.
As spring nears we are looking to get on with installing some of the water lines. Jeff is busy looking and relooking at all of the things that need to be in the floor before the pour next week and I am doing my best to support at this point. My work will come once they get to the finishing parts and at the moment I feel mostly useless. I’m sure Jeff wishes I was a bit better on the construction side of things.
Shortly after my last post we celebrated Mary’s 13th Birthday. It’s a bit of a mind-bender for me to see her hitting the official teenager mark. In my mind she is still strapped to my back in an ergo carrier…snoring. She still snores but is a tad big to strap to my back. She is properly sized, is just about as tall as any of us and has some sass.
Fortunately for all of us, there was a break in both the volleyball and basketball schedules that allowed us a birthday fun trip to Calgary to celebrate. We (and I mean “I”) had been casually hunting for a replacement for our trampoline and a quick search of Kijiji lead me to a family in North Calgary. They were moving to Portugal and were selling everything. When we moved from Langley, we brought our trampoline with us but quickly realized that there was absolutely nowhere to put it at the Alpine Trail house. Not outside and definitely not in storage. It made its way to Kijiji and was sold. The girls regularly grumble about the loss and now with a patch of flat land around the rental, an even larger patch of flat land at the new house, AND signs of spring lurking in the wide-open spaces where the sun is off and on warming the ground – it was time. A friend of mine recently said that Kijiji is just a convenient place to store your stuff until you need it again. Absolutely right. I essentially stored my trampoline for 4 years at a cost of $250, and got an upgraded and newer version of it when I got it back. Win-win-win.
It should be noted that I am not factoring in the significant amount of labor involved in the tearing down and rebuilding of the trampoline, all of which will be repeated when we move it to the new house, and I am discounting the gas and time we spent going to and from Calgary to get it because we were going there anyway to celebrate a birthday so it doesn’t really count! Back to birthday celebrations and parallels…
So Mary decided she wanted to go to a trampoline park for her birthday. Go figure. We decided that Saturday was the day and as luck would have it, her friend Bode was available and would come along on our mission. Bode is a year younger than Mary and is in his last year at IDES while Mary moved on to Fernie Secondary. They still get to see each other but distance and different schools can make that difficult, so this was a great way to get them together. Bode is full of energy and is a really good kid. It was great to have him along for the ride.
Mary picked the Flying Squirrel for her destination. We had planned to leave early so we could have enough time to pick up Bode as we drove through Fernie, make our way to Calgary and drop them at the trampoline park just ahead of our appointment to go dismantle the trampoline we were buying, and still have time for a lunch-dinner-something and a trip to the mall. It was a tight schedule that went awry almost immediately.
We were bringing the utility trailer with us because we needed the Armada to fit all the people which meant there was no room for a trampoline. All fine. We hooked it up and got on the road. About 10 or so minutes into the trip, Jeff noticed the trailer lights were off. Hmmm. We stopped at the next pull-out only to discover that the plug had disconnected and had been dragging on the highway. It was done, but at least we still had the plug. We drove the rest of the way to Fernie (carefully!) to fetch Bode and as usual, we were running late, but right on time for the Lordco to open so we could get the parts we needed to re-wire the lights. Oh, did I mention it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of -17C outside at the time? The fellow at Lordco luckily had all the right parts, and Jeff set about fixing the trailer lights…
Back on the road and on our way to Calgary! Woo-hoo! Made a quick stop for gas and food since there were some hungry people in the car by this time and it felt like we had been away long enough to have gone there AND back. A quick call to the seller meant we would miss our window in the morning to get the trampoline. They were having a house showing and we were trying to get ahead of it. No such luck. We would have to wait…we dropped the kids at the trampoline park and went to visit Marci and Christina in Airdrie instead since they were just a few minutes away.
We eventually got the call that the coast was clear at the seller’s house and made our way there to get busy. It was a slog, but once we got the hang of it, the dismantling went relatively quickly. Of course, by the time figured it all out, the kids were done at the trampoline park. They were told to stand-by…Fortunately they are all old enough to amuse themselves unsupervised. We finished up as quickly as we could and made our way back to the crew for a pick-up. Hungry again, we found ourselves being drawn to the Cheesecake Cafe for a lunch-supper…it was nearly 3PM and it had been a looong time since breakfast. We also don’t usually miss an opportunity to get a cheesecake when we are in Calgary. We are making our way through their flavors. So far it has been pumpkin, earl grey tea, and very berry. We also highly recommend getting one of their wagon wheels. You’ll never look at the ones out of the box the same way again!
With lunch behind us we headed to the Mall. Again, shopping is not Mary’s thing, so we tried to make it quick. Straight to the Lego Store where she chose a very challenging NASA Space Shuttle set (space is never far from Mary’s brain), and then off to the Nike store to look at gear. I don’t think anyone was enjoying the crowds in the mall at that point, so suggesting that it was time to go was not a chore. We exited as it was starting to get dim outside, signaling that it really was time to go. We had 3+ hours of road ahead to get us home. A quick snack in the parking lot (wagon wheels of course) and we were on our way.
As with most birthdays these days, we are woefully un-prepared and shopping on Amazon lacks inspiration. Cakes are also challenging since we have 3 gluten sensitive bellies in the house so I try to find alternatives. We have a pavlova go-to, or the more recently added jello-cake. I had tried to get gluten free cake mix, but the store substituted the vanilla for chocolate (Mary doesn’t like chocolate cake). She wanted a space-themed red velvet cake. We decided to make red-velvet from scratch and the consumers would just have to be mindful of the wheat.
The baking was on me, but the decorating became an all hands event. We had a great time turning Mary’s cake into the Millennium Falcon. It was rough and we weren’t winning any contests for this one, but it still tasted good.
Birthday dinner was had and sang horribly in her honor. The year 13 milestone was well celebrated I think thanks to a good window of opportunity where everyone was home and a bit of a lull in the schedule. Whew!
Lizzie went to her first Alberta volleyball tournament the next weekend and all told it went pretty well. Her team is a bit green and had some trouble finding their feet but by the end of the tournament it looked like they had started figuring things out. Sadly, it put them in a bad spot, bumping them down the ranks when they didn’t win their cross-over game. The trip home was a bit subdued, but there were lots of positives to come away with and some work to do. They are headed to their next tournament March 16/17 and they are keen to raise their standing – they are also playing in a much nicer facility this round which will make the experience a lot more fun for everyone.
Work has been busy for Jeff while Teck organizes itself to separate the Metals part of the organization from the Coal division. They seem to go back and forth about how best to extract themselves and the target seems to move a lot, adding a load of work on top of what is already on his plate. Not much he can do about it but soldier on.
For me, work is interesting and busy as always. There is some change on the horizon there I think, so I will be putting my feelers out to see if there is more work to be added (both a good and bad thing as I am struggling with bandwidth to add more) I have parked myself on the Fernie Volleyball Club Board of Directors, hoping that I can make some improvements there and have signed on to help with strategic planning.
Margaret has signed up for the school soccer season again. They have enough girls this year which is great to hear since last year they were having to pull from the younger teams to make up the shortfall. She really enjoyed playing last year and I was glad to see her join again.
And back to Mary for a moment…she got her braces on this week and suffered for a few days while her teeth adjusted to a bit of torture. She’s good now and she definitely got through it easier than Lizzie. There was applesauce, smoothies and pudding to ease the way.
The before picture:
The after:
Mom is ticking along as well. She is in the thick of watching curling and has us all in it with her. She’s also rejoined a bridge club that plays on-line every week. I am hopeful that when we get back into Fernie that the senior’s center there will have some games she can join that are in company instead of on-line, but we shall see!
The sun is shining, we have nowhere to be and the temperature is just zero which means we are taking an opportunity to walk with the dogs this morning. Its going to be a lovely day.
Just a quick update because it’s pretty exciting to see a roof going on. Our house suddenly looks like a house and we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of windows on Tuesday. The material picking continues with decisions on siding, roofing and trim, along with more interior bits getting ironed out. We may have a bit of rework to do on the orientation of the kids bathroom upstairs and I think we’re a couple of weeks from the work on the rough-ins getting started. We decided to scrap the original fireplace design in favour of a very cool tube-like free-standing stove that rotates. We were having trouble with how much space the fireplace was taking up in the living room and how to make the layout work. Much happier with the outcome with the free-standing version.
Our first hiccup this week with some trouble with the iron work on the back side of the house. I think its been sorted out with a different approach, and they are playing catch up with some of the other ironwork pieces needed for the porch posts. Still humming along though and our builder is making the most of our milder than usual winter weather.
More pictures to come when the windows are in next week!
January and February of this year has been interesting. With both Basketball and Volleyball running in parallel, we require a level of coordination that means nearly every morning we have a meeting to confirm who is doing what, picking up who, covering the to’s and from’s for anything that is not sports related and then double-checking all of that to make sure there have been no last minute changes to the schedule or location of events. Fortunately, Margaret is really only interested in soccer and riding horses. Soccer won’t start until the snow melts and we’ve been unsuccessful at finding a place to get her into English riding so we’re only managing two of three at the moment. This year has been both easier and harder with our proximity to Cranbrook. Trips into Cranbrook for volleyball means better access to groceries and a means of killing the 2 hours while I wait for practice to end. One might say I’m even saving time. Two birds, one stone. The sane part of my brain recognizes that right now, boxes get added faster than they can be checked. Stuff just doesn’t happen.
Despite having missed a few school permission forms and forgotten a pick-up here and there, we are doing pretty well. The girls wrapped up their first term of school with great report cards and Margaret’s final art project made it to the ceiling of the art hallway.
Lizzie’s woodworking project turned out beautifully too.
Mary continues to work on growing and is dangerously close to passing both of her sisters. She and Lizzie are now the same height and she is only a couple of inches away from me. I think Margaret has stopped growing at 5’6″ so at least I won’t be the shortest…at least until me shrink rate puts me in danger of passing her in the other direction!
In volleyball…Lizzie and I B-lined it for Nelson last weekend so we could join her volleyball team in a funsies tournament for the day. “Funsies” because they didn’t even have their jerseys yet, there were only 4 teams, 2 were U16, 2 were U15, and one of the teams was only 5 players. They barely kept score (but the parents did!) We rose very early and braved a rather nasty Kootenay Pass to get there, but the day was great and it gave them a chance to shake the rust off and find out where maybe they needed to fill a gap or two. Worth the trip and perfectly low pressure for a newly formed team. Consensus among the families (and drivers!) was that the pass was not the way to go home, so we made our way up to the Balfour ferry to avoid the sketchy weather and the likely even sketchier roads. We didn’t quite avoid the sketchy weather, encountering dense fog and black ice for much of the trip, but definitely better than what we expected in the pass. The girls got some extra time together, and so did the parents. Win-win, despite our very late arrival home.
We followed her Nelson tournament with a HIIT Camp as preparation for the competitive season that is starting in a couple of weeks. She got three days of intense training with her team and a few players that had signed on from other teams. A long weekend of hard work but they learned a lot.
Basketball is essentially done for Lizzie and she’s heading for a practice/wrap up party on Monday. Phew!
Mary is still a couple of weeks away from her last games, having gone through another tournament this weekend, placing 2nd with her Grade 7 team. She’s really enjoying it and I’m looking forward to seeing her keep playing. She’s gained some confidence and her ball handling and since she’s one of the bigger players on the court, she gets paired up with some pretty strong checks. Showing a lot less fear there now though, so I think she’s found her feet. She gets lots of court time and is pretty effective on defense. I can’t wait to see the snow melt so we can get the basketball hoop back in operation at home!
Jeff and I took a couple of days off to join Mike, Chrissy, Donny and Tanya in Whitefish to celebrate Mike’s 50th birthday. They took a train from Seattle with Don and Tanya and we drove the short trip from Jaffray after work on Tuesday. I’ll admit now that I brought my skis in spirit only and with little or no intention of putting them on. I’m sure that’s breaking some law of living where we do, but my goal was to enjoy the company of other humans above all else. I felt guilt about that on our last day for a few seconds…but only a bit. We ate, drank, laughed A LOT and observed little in the way of schedule for a few days. A much needed respite from the pace of our usual life and in the company of some of my favorite people. Jeff got a day’s worth of cat-skiing with Mike and Don, while Tanya, Chrissy and I walked the town, mostly window-shopping and winding up in a pub for drinks and snacks in the afternoon when we had exhausted the streets. I added seeing wild turkeys (like the properly stereo-typical thanksgiving turkeys) to my list of odd things in town. The day before, we took the short drive to see Glacier National Park, passing through a town called Hungry Horse (who’s mascot is an emaciated horse ?!) only to find it closed. The Sun Road was open however, so we drove to the resort and explored. We found some vintage buildings and two properly working pay phones. The lodge there was a step back in time and after we explored the closed the resort, we decided to check out one of the trails. It turned out to be a bit more trail than we had bargained for and we tapped out early – Mike would have happily kept going, but this crew was not game for adding a rescue to the experience.
Such a great time, cut shorter than we wanted, but we would take what we could get. Grandma and the girls did well while we were away. Everybody made it to the bus in each morning and home again, they were all alive and the house didn’t burn down. I’ll take it as a win.
Back home on Friday evening to run the gauntlet of practices and games, and Jeff on a queasy stomach from perhaps something amiss on his plate at dinner the night before. We made it safely home though and are back on all things build-related. Mopping up from a few days away will take a few days more!
Much progress has been made on the building front. Great news with the cold weather and then dump of snow threatening to slow things down significantly. In the end our builders, who seem to be relatively immune to the constraints of weather, soldiered on. There were only a few days lost to extreme cold, and the power shed come warming hut is coming in handy for keeping tools and batteries from freezing along with people!
After the first floor framing we had to make a few adjustments. It’s a good thing that Jeff is on top of everything and saw some height issues with some of the windows before they started work on the second floor. Some of the windows were set a bit too high, particularly the view windows in the front of the house. After a quick meeting with our builder though we were back on the path and the corrections were made the next day.
Jeff is lending his labour to snow clearing and generally trying to avoid having our builders do site clean up. He’s giving up much of his personal time to run the snow blower and tractor over the high traffic corridors, filling in the gaps of time while he waits for kids to be done at basketball practices in Fernie and making the most of the trips in and out of town. Seems like we are wearing a path between here and there, sometimes twice a day to make it all happen. The girls have been voluntold a few times to lend a hand, and I even had a pitch in day on Sunday to relieve one of the piles of materials of its snowy tomb. All good if it saves time and money, and it gets the house built faster.
Decision making asks are coming faster now and we’re meeting with cabinet makers and have a laundry list of tasks to work through. We’ve gone through the plumbing and have a list now that is out for quote. The reality check of what you can afford versus what you really want is a hard one. Dream house or not, the cost of materials really tests the needs versus wants! We’ve designed/redesigned our fireplace and master bath this week to accommodate some challenges we have with fixtures and layout and the first round of cabinet quotes came in higher than expected so we’ve thrown the net a bit wider to see what other suppliers have to offer. Our interior designer is being tested for patience as we work through it all and we’re having to do a lot of homework to get ahead of what’s needed. So far so good, just another layer. Good news is we have the windows and appliances ordered, so there’s two big ones off the list. Next up is cabinets and rough-ins for plumbing before they pour the floors. We think we’ll have a roof next week…more pictures to come!
The first weeks of January have brought us some truly spectacularly cold weather combined with whistling winds, next level snow drifts and some lessons in survival (and how we would likely perish if we had to live for any period of time outdoors in this kind of weather). In general, I think we have all gone soft, but this past week and a bit, I will forgive us this shortcoming. It was just darn cold.
Since about the end of October I have been driving the kids to the bus stop in the morning. First it was because the bears hadn’t gone to bed yet and there was a grizzly rumored to be roaming nearby. Then it just got too dark and I didn’t want them walking to the bus stop that early (in case said Grizzly was not yet abed). And then it got cold…see the note above about us all having gone soft. With the -40-ish temperatures, it’s just not wise to be out for very long, so I have been trying to also pick up at the bus stop to save them the 20 mins or so it takes to walk home. They are packing good gloves, buffs, goggles, snow pants and toques with their gear everyday in case things go sideways. Which it always does, and did one day when I attempted to fetch them in the worst of the weather. A rotten combination of -35 and wind made for poor visibility and dangerous cold. Jeff had also taken the very capable Armada that day since he is now heading into Sparwood 2-3 times a week for work and anticipated the worsening weather. I had the Ford, which is a reasonable swap when you’re not planning to go very far, but is not that good in the snow. So, I chipped the ice off, warmed it up, and started down the road to meet the girls when the truck came to an very abrupt halt. Like I’d hit something. Visibility being what it was, I couldn’t really see the road but knew I was at least on it. The wind had blown snow into the middle to the tune of about 18 inches creating an impasse. 4-wheel drive and all manner of start and stop would not make it budge. I was stuck in a white truck in the middle of the road a snowstorm. I called Jeff if only to inform him of the potential that he may need to dig the Ford out of the snow when he came home from work. There was not much else to be done though. There was no shovel in the truck, and my boots were not cutting it as a means to dig me out. We had hounded the girls to be prepared for the worst, and neglected to prepare ourselves. (first lesson) At least I was wearing a toque, my warmest coat, and boots. I had forgotten my good gloves. (second lesson).
The girls had been dropped by the bus and I could see them starting to walk home, realizing I was far away and not moving. I called Mary and told her they were going to have to hustle to where I was stuck and we would either get un-stuck together or have to abandon the truck and walk back.
Luck was on our side that day though. A couple of minutes, maybe not even, passed and a pickup turned down our dirt road. It stopped, picked up the girls and came to a stop in front of the Ford. There is no stranger danger here (I did have a moment’s pause, my lower mainland caution still kicks in, but quickly gave way to relief). Neighbors pick up other peoples kids and give them rides home. One of our neighbors, we have maybe three on our road, had a chain and proceeded to un-stick me/drag me out of the drift. He then ran his truck up and down the road a couple of times to create a path through the other drifts to make sure I could get turned around and back to the house. It was bitterly cold and it took some significant effort to get us going. It was a kindness beyond measure. I will be eternally grateful for our good fortune and for the kindness of strangers. We also now have gear and shovels in the back of the vehicles. Lessons learned.
At the house, the snow has drifted high enough to make exit by the back door almost impossible. There is frost and ice on the screen doors that has sealed them shut periodically, until one of us forces them open. Winter on an open plain is different than winter on the hill. Max is particularly afraid of the storms, and the whistling wind sends him to hide. This week, his panic room of choice was our bathroom. On this day, the wind was fierce and was blowing everything around. The patio furniture relocated itself from one end of the deck to the other, being saved from destruction by the railing, and our StarLink router kept getting blown off its perch making it nearly impossible to keep an internet connection for work going. That’s him staring at me from the doorway while I tried to work and not laugh at him. One interesting side-bar is that Max’s instinct when the fire alarm goes off is to get out of the house. Something about the beeping sends him to the first exit.
Mom is doing well, and despite being a bit house-bound by the cold and snow, is in good spirits. There’s nothing to inspire trips out when getting from the house to the car means 8-layers and a spotter. The house is a bit chilly too, with ice on the inside of the windows, so she’s keeping to the well-heated four walls of her bedroom. We had to commandeer her space heater for the basement bedrooms (which don’t have baseboard heaters ?!) but we test drove the baseboard in her room and discovered it works just fine. Her room is at least 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house, so she ventures out for tea/coffee/food/company, but soon retreats to the warmth again and the comfort of her easy chair. I don’t blame her…we all “visit” her room occasionally to enjoy the tropics. I am trying to keep her car from being buried and a clear path should the weather turn and an opportunity to escape the house appears. So far that hasn’t happened. I think we’ll have to give her a new name and declare her a groundhog. We won’t see her outside the house until Spring!
In not weather related news…Lizzie kicked off her volleyball season with her new team in Cranbrook, attending a sports psychology lecture, a team meeting with her new coaches, and a session with a kinesiologist to talk about strength and endurance training, and a bit about general health and nutrition. A far cry from the kickoffs in Fernie and it gave us high hopes for a season of learning while we are away from our home base. Her team also has a more rigorous training schedule with 6 hours a week scheduled and a 3-day start up camp that is coming in the next week. It all comes with a price tag in both time and cashola though and I see some fundraising in our future! Lizzie, initially quite nervous about the switch in teams, has found her feet. With a week of training behind us now, her team is coming together and there are friendships forming.
Basketball has been a little less exciting with two tournaments being cancelled for the weather and challenges with the temperatures and snow making travel a bit sketchy between here and Fernie (and everywhere!). Lizzie has yet to play a tournament, but Mary’s Grade 7 team is doing well. They are playing this weekend, participating in at the Bantam level (Gr 8s). Coming home from volleyball practice with Liz, we were able to catch the last half of her second game of the day to see a tired Mary who had played most of the first game, and would play all 4 quarters of the second. Her team lost, but her effort earned her an MVP for the game. Another game today and maybe playoffs. She’s going to be TIRED tonight.
Jeff and Mary also got a trip in to Fernie to do some skiing before the really cold weather set in. The mountain was as expected, with a bit of fresh snow to make it worth their while. Lizzie and I are probably out for most the season with volleyball dominating her (and my) time. We didn’t get passes this year since we are farther away and busy with so many other things (uh…like building a house), but Jeff, Mary and Margaret might get a few days in still. There’s a pass they can get that is for 10 days of skiing on any of the RCR mountains. That might be the choice for this year so they can visit Kimberley as well. Being that we are nearing the end of January though, I would be shocked if they made 10 days before the end of the season.
When the weather is foul and you’re trying not to leave the house, you find other things to do. I have been missing time in the kitchen with all the extra-curricular activities, and decided that since we were running the oven in an attempt to supplement the lack of warmth coming from the baseboards, I would make good use of that oven temp and do some baking. First round of cinnamon buns and cheater Babka came out beautifully. I added some whole wheat bread and sourdough to the list keeping the house smelling like a bakery and kids/adults smiling.
I took advantage of the downtime and started a new puzzle, setting up a table next to one of the heaters. There are advantages to cold weather that is too cold to be outside.
We’re all staying warm despite the cold and with the temperature rising just today to -10 it feels like its warm enough to do something! Lizzie and I are headed to watch the College of the Rockies Avalanche Volleyball Club play a couple of games and to a team-building event for her team today. Mary is off to day 2 of her Basketball Tournament, and we’ll reconvene sometime this evening. A trip to see the progress on the house is tomorrow’s agenda. I’ll be snapping some pics to update everyone on that side of things. Stay tuned!
Time certainly flies around here. Boxing Day was filled, as expected, with no work and all play. After lazing about for a good long while, indulging in the books, magazines and taking a stab at a new puzzle for me, Jeff and girls geared up to head down to the pond for a bit of a skate. I was still babysitting some of the turkey dinner bits, but found my way down after a while to assume the role of photographer. The bull was nowhere to be seen this time, so there was a bit less anxiety about being in his space. The ice was much better, although the cracking was a bit unsettling and there was still some unfrozen bits on either end where the water still flowed in and out of the pond. Max, terrified of the ice, stuck to the sides, being coaxed only once or twice onto the ice and then heading quickly back to the shore, much preferring to indulge in rolling in the snow. Gus was a bit braver, but being lighter on his toes, he seemed to fair a bit better and didn’t slide quite as much as Max. Gus still tapped out early, resorting to shivering until Lizzie gave up her coat and toque to try to keep him warm.
Mom’s 76th birthday dinner was a great success with a better than ever Turkey (thanks mom for “choosing” turkey for your birthday dinner!) and a simple cake. We cheered the day and enjoyed a hybrid of Christmas and Boxing Day and Birthday all in one. Mom, always being a bit on the cold side in our less than hospitable climate, was given a new coat to keep her warm. Just in time for a visit to Airdrie!
Auntie Dari and Uncle Donn made the drive to fetch Mom the day after her Birthday, stealing her away for four days of visiting with family in Alberta, but not without a quick visit on this end first. We had a couple of hours of chatting and tea (and rest for weary travelers) before they turned again for home, this time with Mom riding shotgun. A nice, but too short, visit. There are plans for more, and with Lizzie traveling to Calgary and Edmonton to attend volleyball premiers through the spring we’ll get more chances to visit, even if its on a bench in a busy arena!
The four days away for Mom were great. It was definitely a nice break and change of scenery for her with winter temperatures and icy roads making trips out of the house few and far between. She got in some time with Marci, Bryan, Christina, Steph and Aaron as well, rounding out the time with another long car ride back to deliver her home to us on New Year’s Eve. Despite threats of a winter storm, the weather was cooperating and the trip was uneventful. Bonus for us, we got a quick visit in with Marci and Christina before they too turned around for home.
While Mom was away, I made good on one of our advent “misses” this year. We had skipped the spa day that had landed during Papa’s visit, and having promised to find another day to make it happen I declared that the day before New Year’s was the day. Facials, manicures, pedicures and some soothing music turned our kitchen, living room, and dining room into a spa for a few hours. Always a good time – and I was having a bit of fun picking Penguin face masks for the facials – I enjoyed some much needed time with the girls. Jeff, of course, booked it with Max and headed to the farm to do some work there. Spa days are not his jam. We had planned to reconvene for a fancy dinner out for a change and I had booked us a table at a Mediterranean restaurant in Cranbrook that evening. For the first time since leaving Vancouver, we felt like we had eaten food worthy of the bill at the end of the meal. If you’re in Cranbrook, book a table at Allegra. You’ll need a reservation though, there are only about 6 tables in the whole restaurant.
With visiting and advent make up days behind us, we settled in to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We, being fairly isolated, tend to throw ourselves a party rather than venture into the wild. This year was no different, setting out appetizers and planning our evening was as exciting as it got. It was games and a movie this year, getting all six of us at the table for some cards and then settling in for a screening of one of the Harry Potter movies (Mary’s been on a mission to get us to see all of the movies) and Grandma is on board, so this became our New Year’s Eve celebration. I don’t know if anyone made it to midnight…I certainly didn’t, but it was fun just the same.
New Year’s Day dawned a bit overcast and blah, but we force-marched the family and dogs on a walk with the dogs. There was not enough snow, love/hating the slow start to the winter, but the walk was lovely and we snapped what I’m sure will be our Christmas card photo next year.
Jeff army crawled under a fence that blocked our path as we got close to the end and took Max on an extended hike around the ranch meeting us back at the house. The rest of the day was pretty lazy, not usual for this crew, but it gave me some time to look at calendars and tidy up some organization that needed to happen around the house. We also spent a considerable amount of time going over appliance and plumbing orders for the new house but it was time well spent. We took advantage of some Boxing Day sales that were still happening and saved a few pennies by putting in some orders well ahead of time. Good thing about buying appliance packages is that they store it all for you until you’re ready to take delivery. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to find storage for a kitchen’s worth of appliances!
The sports schedule for January is packed as usual with the overlap between the start of volleyball season and the wind up of basketball making for a lot of taxi service. Adding a bit more complexity is the split between Fernie and Cranbrook…and now Kimberley. We got the practice schedule up to March break for volleyball and since the East Kootenay team that Lizzie is playing on this year reaches a bit farther afield, we have a few practices that are happening in the Selkirk High School gym. We also have a few tight turnarounds trying to get her from Fernie to Cranbrook when basketball and volleyball fall on the same night…I’ll be happy when the overlap is done and we can settled into just one sport again. I just keep reminding myself that it is only about 4 weeks of crazy and then we’ll be on the other side of things. When I showed Margaret, she said “and now aren’t you glad I’m not in a sport?”. I am truly grateful.
Today is the kickoff for the season and there is a 4 hour orientation and activity session scheduled at the College of the Rockies. All a bit nerve wracking for Lizzie as she tries to get to know her new teammates and a new club, but good for her to stretch a bit. This year will be a different experience and can only make her a better player.
Wishing everyone good health and much happiness in 2024!
