More Exterior Work

We are doing as much exterior work as we can before winter comes.  This is a typical day of me driving the forklift with Cory & Justin (our new employee) in the box while they work on the siding.

Dad & I are the touch-up crew.  Our task is to fill all the nail holes in the siding and trim with touch up paint and do the caulking around the windows and on all the edges...it's alot of work!

We're moving along, finishing each side completely as we move on: trim, siding, soffit, fascia and touch-up.

Decks

Dad & Rich have been hard at work installing the cedar deck boards.

6th Anniversary

For our 6th wedding anniversary, we went out to dinner with our friends Curt & Cindy.  It was a great night of reminiscing and laughter...thanks for the great evening guys.  And thanks to Nana & Papa for babysitting.

Cindy & Curt...I grew up with Curt, he is one of my oldest friends.  They have been married for 10 years!!!

We dined at the Olive Branch Bistro in Carnduff, SK

Oh, and I got to wear my new purple heels  :)

Picking Pumpkins

Gerry Swayze (our shingler on the new house) invited our family down to his farm/garden to pick pumpkins.  It was so nice of him to let the kids choose their own and take as many as they wanted.

Snake Catching

After the 'snake in the furnace' fiasco...the war was on.  Until that time, when Cory would find a snake in the yard, he would just re-locate it.  But not anymore...if they got caught, they were gonners.

If you look really close, you can see a big snake

Yikes!

Justin, who works for us, caught a long one!

Samba

We purchased the Wii game SAMBA for the whole family...we never thought we'd enjoy it as much as we did.

(love Auntie Amber's profile we created, top right, she looks like an undercover agent)

The kids needed a bit of help, and loved it

This is my type of game!

Yes, that is a SNAKE in our furnace!

In our few short weeks of being in our 'Little Winter Cottage', we have realized that it has it's problems.  Number one being an infestation of garder snakes!!!  Yes you read it right, we have found so many snakes on the property and in the dirt basement, that it brings us to the conclusion that there is probably a nest around here somewhere.  

And here's a little snake story for you...On a Wednesday night after supper, we all started to feel a bit light-headed and nauseated...it was because we were being carbon monoxided!  So we turned the furnace off for a few hours to let the gas dissipate and tried to turn it on again after few hours.  After about a half an hour of the furnace not firing, Cory headed down to the basement (which I will never go down into!) and came back up to say...'you won't believe what I found in the furnace...A SNAKE!'.  A big juicy one had climbed into the burner of the furnace, caught on fire and burned off the valve that controls the carbon monoxide.  We were able to get it fixed by the local plumber who said he can now retire, because he's now seen it all!  Pretty gross ehh!

Cory took photos, because we thought that you might not believe us.

Zucchini

Had to post these photos of the giant Zucchinis we got from Gerry Swayze...almost as big as the kids!

3-D Thanksgiving Pumpkin

Playdough

Kelby, Ace & Scarlett having FUN with Play-Doh

I'm a big fan of toys that inspire kids creativity & imagination...and since we are in a carpet-less house, I'm fine with the kids having fun even though it might leave a mess.

Beginning the House Siding

It's nice to see a bit of color on the house.  We choose to put James Hardie cement board siding on the exterior in Mountain Sage color, the trim is in Navajo Beige color.

Here are Justin (our new employee) & Cory putting up the siding

We like the look & are glad we decided to go with it

Here I am cutting soffit, we complete each wall, top to bottom, before we move onto the next.

Fall Cleanup with Nana

Nana took the kids to her garden to help do some fall cleanup

Ace in gloves helped clean up the weeds Scarlett helped pick up potatoes
Nana & the kiddos

After their time outside, Nana brought the kids in to make leaf pictures...they sure had fun!

Snakes, snakes & more snakes

When we first moved into the the Little Winter Cottage, we found many snakes outside around the house.  Ace was very interested in checking them out and even kept this baby one as a pet.