Random Bits

Happy November ya'll! As always, it takes me awhile to post anything, but I thought I'd try and give a quick run down of what we've been up to... It's been busy around here as usual and I never seem to be caught up with all the things I want/need to do. I'm really starting to enjoy our house and I think that's cause I'm starting to be able to put things away. Wooohoooo!!! In the past week, Christian has finished all of the shelving for our closets, except one, so I'm having a grand old time organizing. Also, we finished tiling both our tubs, so we've been able to shower for about a week. A bath just does not do it for me for waking up in the morning and we hadn't had a shower since the beginning of June! That is a LONG time.
Anyways, Christian is bustin his butt trying to be completely done by Christmas. So, he is tired and sometimes grumpy. (Don't tell him I told you!)
Our dear, dear, friends Brad and Elisa Boschman are coming tomorrow from Calgary, so they will be our first company in our new house. Actually, no, my Mom and Dad were, so I guess they're second.
Here's my cuties dressed up for Halloween. I always wanted to be the mother of a princess, jedi, and goalie!
I got to dress up too :) I had to teach my cardio kickbox class on Halloween morning, so I thought I'd play it up a bit. My wig is falling off in this pic, but other than that, I looked hot. And let me tell you, it is not easy doing a cardio class in a wig, heavy make-up, and a long dress! After class, I decided to stay dressed up and party hop to all the kid school parties. I think Brennan was a tad bit embarrassed by me. He whispered to me at one point, "Mom are you sure you don't want to go get changed and get back to yourself yet?"
This is Christian having the first shower ever in our new house! He was one happy man. It sure feels good to finally use it after over a month of tiling. Yech!
This is our ensuite bathroom. Not quite finished yet as we've got to put the baseboards and trim up.

So, that's a bit of what we've been doin. Things will be crazy around here til Christmas... Youth conferences, choir practices for the kids, soccer games (LOTS of soccer games), working on the house til the wee hours, Christmas concerts and all the business of decorating, shopping, and entertaining. I'm hoping to get more sleep in 2008!!

Almost there...

So, here's a few pics of where we're at with the house :) I love having a functioning camera again. Outside we still have some finishing to do and a deck to build on the back and a whole lot of property clean up and landscaping to do. I can hardly wait unil the burn ban is off so we can start burning scraps etc. It will make a huge difference.

I stand outside many days and just try to remember the whole process we've been through to build this. I will never look at a house in the same way again. I've really taken it for granted all these years how much work goes into putting a house up. There's so many details that you have to focus in on. I really look at other people's houses with a much more detailed eye now. Yes, I am saying that I will pick apart your house when I visit!

Inside, Christian is tiling around one of the bathtubs and man is that ever time consuming! We still need to install hardwood in the hallway and main entrance, do the finishing like kickboards in the kitchen, all the window and baseboard trim, tile another bathtub surround, put up a few more doors, and finish the closets shelves. I'm looking forward to the closets being done, so I can put more things away. I've filled many boxes that are destined for Value Village. Living without a lot of our stuff for over a year has really made me realize how much stuff we didn't miss and don't need.

I'm also working on refinishing our table set. I'm finished the table, but not the chairs, so it doesn't match right now. We are REALLY looking forward to being done and moving into a different season of life... Maybe a season that might include a vacation! I really wanted to post a picture of our kitchen, but it's not quite done and my island was full of items to return to our church library that I found while unpacking. I'm surprised they still let us take books and videos out! We keep taking stuff and then packing it in a box somewhere as we moved from one place to another. It does feel good to know that we don't have to move for awhile. We did build this house to flip though within a year or two so I won't get too comfy!

I'll try and post pics more often now so we can show you more of what we've done. I can hardly wait to have some visitors come and stay, especially ones with decorating and organizing talents that can tell me where to put everything!

We Finally Got a Camera!

The time has finally come for me to post some pictures! We finally bought a new camera and I'm so excited to better blog our life again... I thought I'd start by posting a few of my favs from my trip to Chilliwack to visit my sister Heather and her family. We had so much fun just hangin out (something I wish we could do more often). Here's the kids on the ferry on our way over to the mainland.










































































It's surprising my sister Heather and I look so well! Especially considering all the stress we've been through building houses. I have a full understanding now why Heather, after just finishing their new house, screamed, "DON'T DO IT!!!" over the phone to me when she found out we would be building one of our own!
That picture of the kids on the train is my favourite. Who knew a cheesy fake train at "Fun Land", could bring my nephew Sam so much joy!
And how could summer be complete without a round of ice cream with your cousins?
We are in our house now as many of you know. It's so good to be in here, although we still have a ton of finishing work to do which can seem overwhelming. The overwhelming part really depends on whether or not I'm P.M.S.ing ;) My next post will be some pics of where things are at. I can hardly wait to share them!
Thanks for the awesome visit Heather. I left Chilliwack and went straight to Naniamo to go out to coffee with my sister Dinah. I'm feeling very blessed to have sisters that I love being with and love laughing with and can always count on for support and encouragement.

Air Conditioning Would Be Nice

I'm really hot right now and I can't sleep, so I thought, what a better time than this to update our blog... It's been awhile as usual.
Just over a week ago, we moved out of the guest house at Randy B's and started housesitting for one of our friends. Originally when they asked us to do this, we thought our house would be done and it would be a great place to relax and spend time as a family. Ha, ha. Well the house is not quite done so it hasn't exactly been relaxing here. Christian continues to work all day and all evening between the studio and the house and he's been doing that for about two months straight! I was so tired last week from moving and feeling stressed, that I had a rough start to the week. I think I've just had enough of building stress and moving... But even though we're super busy, we are getting some time to enjoy this ocean front home and the hot tub that looks over Tent and Kuper Island and the breath taking sunsets. The house comes with a boat, so on Sunday we skipped church and instead spent time as a family boating around the gulf islands, picnicing on Valdes island, and ocean swimming off Tent island. The kids had so much fun (well, we all did!) and the boys were so excited to get a chance to drive the boat.
We are working on installing the hard wood on our main level and will continue putting up kitchen cabinets once IKEA couriers us a new corner cabinet to replace the one that was a dud. The house is painted and the bathroom floors are in and all the lights are installed. I'm getting really excited to move in! I wish I had a way to post pics right now, but the camera is broken and I think we're going to have to buy a new one. The house looks nice, you'll just have to trust me.
Our plan is to move onto the property and "camp out" in a tent and the garage for a couple of weeks until we have a temporary occupancy permit. We'll have a toilet and a sink and a washer, dryer and fridge.
Whew! What a year! I don't EVER want to do this again!!!!
The kids are all doing great. They're enjoying summer so far with trips to the beach outside our door, lots of lake swimming, water fights, hot tubbing, boating, and going to the Vacation Bible Camp that is running at church this week. They love having a dog and cat to take care of at this house and I think we might have to seriously consider getting a pet soon :)
You can pray for Christian as he's exhausted but has a drive and work ethic that amazes me daily. I have an awesome husband!
I can hardly wait to connect better with so many of our friends. I feel like this journey we embarked on to build has been all encompassing and has left me with little energy to keep up with many of you.
I'd better try and get to sleep now. I have to teach a class at the gym in the morning!
Later,
Jenn

May already!

I don't know where time has gone and I can't believe we're into May already! I haven't posted for ages for two reasons... One, I signed in with my wrong email address when I changed over to the new Blogger and it took me this long to fix it, and secondly I can't post pics right now! We're all doing good but we're extremely busy. Christian has had a ton of extra studio work, and he is also working at the house any evenings and days he's not at the studio. So, I'm a bit of a single mother right now it seems. I know this season of our life will come to an end soon enough though so that makes it easier for me to handle. The dry wallers start on Wednesday or Thursday, so that will be really exciting! I feel that I've been looking at the framing of our house WAY to long!! Christian has been busy insulating which is a nasty job and takes longer than you would think (or maybe just longer than I would think)! The phrase Christian and I are saying too much is "when we get in the house, then we'll..." Christian jokingly says that everything will be perfect in the new house. We'll be totally organized, and get our budget together, and have more quality time as a family, and have perfectly behaved children. Teehee!
Abby turns four on Wednesday and I can't believe that either. It's been really hitting me that we are out of the baby days for good. We can actually all go out to eat at a restaurant and leave with our sanity in tact! The kids just sit in their seats and colour and converse with us! Maybe we should have just one more baby ;) I held a newborn all the way through our church service this morning and it felt so good to give her back to the mother at the end and not have to change her poopy diaper.
I'm going to try and post some pictures soon, but I really need my hubby's help because our own computer isn't hooked up to internet right now. That's really going to be hard as he's not home much! Oh well you'll all be surprised when one day you visit my blog and see how much our kids have grown, and how much the house has come along!

Bloggy Break

Hey! We're still around. I've been taking a blog break as I've had limited access to the net and to a computer. Christian's going to get me all set up though so I can post some pictures again. We've been in Randy B's guest house now for just over two weeks and I can tell you life is good in a house! The best word to describe how I feel with more space is HAPPY!! We've been in 500 sq. ft. or less since May of '06 and I've decided that I really like space. My kids seem happier and more settled and I have the urge to strangle them less often. HAH!
I've got pics to post in the next day or so, but you can take my word for it that our house has siding and it's a sage green colour. I think it's going to look really nice. Things still feel like they're going slow to me and maybe it will just feel like that until we move in. I planted bulbs on our property in the fall and they're starting to look like real flowers, so that is exciting... It's weird for me making choices for the house, because of course I want it to look like I have some creative decorating abilities and that I've learned something from watching all those hours of shows on "Home and Garden TV", but I honestly have little idea what I'm doing. And then I get to thinking about all the things that I really want in our house and I start to care less and less about paint colours, and flooring, and faucets. I want it to be a place of rest for my family and a place of fun. I want friends and family to feel refreshed after leaving it and long to come back to it. I want laughter, songs, prayers, lessons, hugs, dances, stories and so many more things that I could never buy at Home Depot.
My sister Heather was here for part of spring break which was really fun.
If you follow the link to my Mom and Dad's site from mine, you can see a picture of my parents with all the grandchildren together! We've been busy sisters!!
Well that's all for now.... Jenn

Our 2nd Load

Yesterday was a great day! We received our second load from Nelson Homes, which had all our doors, windows, siding, drywall, insulation, closets, shelves, baseboards and trim kits. This time the truck driver made the attempt to bring his truck down our driveway and did it. This was good as it made for easier unloading. We also had tons of help. At one point there was nine guys working and they all had a warm chili lunch on my homemade table :) It went quick and nothing broke, and nobody got hurt... It's really exciting to see some of the stuff that will finish off our house. Thanks for all the help guys!!
This was part of our work crew, enjoying lunch.
No rain, which was awesome as our property has become a huge mud bog. Also, as you can see the roof is on, which means the house is staying dry, which makes us VERY happy!
Isaiah is doing super good with his back. The bandages are all off now and all that is left is his new pink skin. The pinkness will fade with more time and there shouldn't be much of a scar. He has been such a trooper throughout the past two weeks and hasn't even complained about all the uncomfortableness. He was thrilled to get the bandages off and be free and to have a real bath again :) Thanks for all you prayers and well wishes for him.

Crazy Ride

This building a house thing has been a crazy ride! I honestly would not have done it if I could have seen the future... Who would have known that it would take us this long, that we'd spent six months in a trailer, go through record breaking weather for rain, wind, and snow, and move around several times into other people's homes! I have been very tired lately. All that being said, we sure are having fun as a family! This will definitely be an adventure that we'll sit around remembering and telling stories about for many years :)
On a sad note, Isaiah got burned very badly on Saturday. We were at Chris and Bill's (Christian's Mom and Step-Dad) cabin taking care of Josh and their foster baby Cassondra for a few days. They had just arrived home and Christian decided to make us all tea. Isaiah and Josh were playing a hockey like game on the floor and somehow Isaiah ended up playing underneath the stove. Christian was pouring the boiling water from the kettle into a tea pot he'd set on the stove (which had a wonky element), and then turned to listen to Isaiah saying something and accidentally knocked the tea pot off the stove. The water landed on Isaiah's back. I didn't see it happen but I did then see Isaiah jumping up and down in the air, screaming, and holding his back. We got his shirt off and him in the shower with cold water on and quickly saw that the burn looked bad. I rushed him to emergency and they told us he has second degree burns. He is all bandaged up and has to have a home support nurse change his dressing every day for the next two weeks. He is doing fine but I'm still giving him medication for the pain. The doctor told him today that he should not play sports for the next six weeks. That was devastating to Isaiah as he plays soccer and hockey everyday at school, loves P.E., and is playing soccer on a team every weekend. My poor sweetie!
The house is getting along. Bill is finishing the last gable today that sits over the front door and on Wednesday the roofers start. YEAH!! We should be seeing some nice progress soon :)

Happy New Year (and belated Christmas)

Hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas... I had full intentions of getting these pics on the blog by Christmas day, but such is my life.
We had a great Christmas. We're currently house sitting for our neighbour and enjoying her huge house immensely!! We had Christmas morning/afternoon on our own as a family which was awesome and then headed over to Chris and Bill's cabin they're renting for Christmas dinner. It was really nice to be in a house for Christmas even if it's not our own. We've even had overnight guests! My Mom and Dad and Nana spent the night on the 22nd and
Christian's Dad and Step-Mom spent the night last night. The kids have all been sick with horrible coughs. You can probably tell that Brennan is sick in the Christmas pictures. Abby is the sickest today and kept me up for almost an hour last night with a high fever and talking strange talk about her hair and characters from "Dora". I'm pretty sure she was halucinating.
All being said, I've really been dreading tomorrow as it means cleaning the whole house before we leave on
Friday to go to Campbell River for a few days. All this moving around has been exhausting for me and it is stressful staying in other people houses. I worry about wrecking things. As of Tuesday, we will be in a 550 sq. ft. house until the end of February. Small, but still bigger than the trailer and it has a real toilet, bathtub, washer, and dryer!! We sure are thankful to not be going back into the trailer. When I bring the kids in there now so I can check phone messages and check email etc., I want to strangle them after about fifteen minutes. God definitely gave me a special frame of mind to live in there for six months! I keep hoping Ty from extreme home makeover will appear at my door and say, "Stonehouse Family we're here to finish your house. Come back in three days and it will be done!" I can dream, can't I??
We wish you all a healthful, peaceful, and adventurous year for 2007. If you get a chance, drop us a line.
Love Us

Moving to Angel Cottage :)

We just got a phone call today from our realtor that runs a bed and breakfast. She told Christian that she wants us to move into her 600 sq. ft. cabin for the next two weeks and that she won't take no for an answer! This is soooooo great as our water pipes have been frozen for the last two days, so we have no running water, which means no showers or doing dishes. God always provides at the right time. Also, last night when we were at our friend's house for dinner, they told us that their neighbours who live in a one bedroom house are looking for a family to stay there for January and February and just want enough money to cover utilities. That means if we go there that our trailer days may be over until the house is done!! I am so happy!!!! Being in this trailer was starting to get to our mental sanity.
Yippee!! I'm going to start packing...

Some Of Us Like Snow

Here's some pics of how we're enjoying the snow, well some of us are... The boys are having a blast as you can see and Abby won't go near it! She just wants to stay wrapped up and cozy in the trailer. She says she's scared of it and the bumps that the boys are going over in their sleds. What a girl!
The trailer is a bit chilly in this weather but we're going to tough it out. The cold is supposed to break by Friday. Thanks to all of you that are phoning to check in with us. We're doing fine and don't worry if it gets too cold, or if we loose power we'll book into a cabin or something. If anyone would have told me that we'd be living in this trailer in the snow and winter six months ago I never would have believed it!
Christian stayed home from work today to work on the house as we can't really get our vehicles out of here anyway.
Hope you're all enjoying the early snow and drinking lots of hot cocoa :)

We Have a View!

Pleased to say that our second floor is up and ready to have a roof. I don't have pics of the day the walls went up for that floor but I wish I did! We used an excavator to lift the walls up to the guys and the exterior and interior walls were up in one day. It was not the best weather, but we did get some sunny breaks :) Thanks to my brother-in-law Russ, and Christian's brother-in-law Peter for the help. We are feeling so blessed by all the people who have devoted time to helping us. Peter used his holiday time to be here for four days! The house is getting high and Abby's bedroom is going to have a nice view of Mt. Erskine. The rest of the house has views of trees :)
Also, I'm including a pic of our temporary home under the maple tree. We stayed in Randy Bachman's guest house last week for five nights which was a welcome break from the trailer. The only things that sucked was that Brennan had a one day flu, I had a major three day gallbladder attack and the hot water tank stopped making hot water on our second day there. I had to boil water to do dishes and clean the house for leaving! Our life never seems to be boring!
Now we're back in the trailer and I must admit the first couple of days back in here were hard to take. It's shocking how little room we have and how much stuff we try to shuffle around and fit in here. I hardly slept last night as we had a major wind storm and the trailer kept shaking. I lay there hoping a big branch from the maple tree was not going to come and crash onto us.
One of our neighbours has asked us to house sit for her from December 15th-30th, so were excited to have a house and kitchen (and hot tub!) for Christmas. God is good!
Sorry if you've been trying to get ahold of us. Our phone has been down since Monday and Christian is trying to get it up and running again. Oddly enough, our internet is still working. Good thing, or I'd feel completely cut off! I've also been horrible at returning phone calls. I get so exhausted be evening and don't feel like being chatty on the phone. I'll get to you eventually!
We'll really feel better around here once the roof is on the house. Hate to see all that water getting in there right now...

First floor work party!

A few weeks ago, we had a crew of family and friends help us put up the walls for the first floor of our part of the house. This was a great day! I couldn't wipe the smile off my face, seeing the house start to take shape. By the end of the day, I could take people on a tour of our first floor. Very fun... Thanks so much to John (Christian's Dad), his friend Jim and our neighbour Barry for the extra hands. Those walls were heavy!! Especially the vaulted walls of the entrance. They were a bit of a challenge to put up. The next week was spent leveling everything and fixing some problems with the walls (a couple were too short)! It was great to all share a meal together too. Thanks to you too Mom Cairns for taking care of all my kiddies. I couldn't have helped and cooked with them running around.

The Basement

O.K. I'm spending tonight trying to get updated on our blog. These first pics are of the building of the walkout basement and of the two men who we can credit most of the work with. Most mornings, I greet them by saying "Good morning Dad and Dad!" Thanks Dads for all your hard work on making our dream come true :)

Pouring Concrete

Hello! No, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Life just seems really busy for us right now and I haven't got off my bloggity butt to post anything. So, here are some pics of pouring the foundation which I think happened about three weeks ago. I will get going here and take some pics this weekend of where we're actually at with the house which is laying the floors for the second floor. The walkout basement is framed up. It feels like things are moving slowly right now but I'm sure they'll speed up soon! Sure hope we're in there by Christmas :) We're all doing well... Isaiah just had a girl at school tell him that she has a crush on him and now has invited him to the movies with her family. Please someone tell me this doesn't begin already in grade three!! Isaiah is not interested in girls yet, thank God! How this stuff brings back memories of my own childhood. How sweet puppy love is!

Progress!

Just thought I'd post some pictures of the past week or so... We've moved the trailer to the other side of the property to be out of the way and basically now, we're living in a dirt hole! I CAN NOT keep my kids clean anymore! If I want Abby to look nice, I get her ready and carry her to her car seat and strap her in til it's time to go :) Every night I spray them all down before bed so they don't get dirt in their sheets... I'm really just trying to keep a good sense of humour through all of this. We're still having lots of fun though as a family so we're doing good. Unless I've lost all sense of sanity now and I'm not completely aware of reality! The day we moved the trailer, Bill backed it up too far at one point and the trailer hit a bump of dirt and ripped the septic tank off the bottom.
Let's just say it was a horrid sight and smell (I won't go into details). That morning I said to Christian, "is this our real life or some kind of nightmare we're living in?" Go ahead you can laugh... I figure that one day we'll have a lot of good laughs over this stage of our life, so we may as well start now! HAH!

The footings for our foundation are all ready to go and have been inspected and the load of supplies to get our house to lock-up arrived on Friday. Christian rented a bob cat with a fork lift (thank God, cause I don't know how they would have done it without), and we had seven guys here for over six hours working hard to get everything off the truck. We ended the day with a big barbeque which was nice but exhausting. Christian said he can't remember the last time in his life when he was sore in every muscle of his body.

My parents have moved to Salt Spring as of today (no not onto our property!), and will be here for at least a month to help out. That will be a huge blessing to us. The kids are all starting school. Isaiah in grade 3, Brennan in kindergarden, and Abby in preschool two mornings a week. I think it will help a lot to have them busy and out of the way of the goings on here.

I've noticed none of you are phoning us wanting to come for a visit lately. What gives?? ;)