The wise man..

built his house upon a rock...

Did you ever sing that song when you were little? I was one my of favorite Sunday School songs, the wise man built his house upon (up on ?) a rock, and the foolish man built his on the sand. Silly man.

Well from what the backhoe opperator told us, we are definatly building on rock! Or at least some VERY hard dirt, which I guess is just as good in building terms.

It's getting so exciting to drive out to the new house and see the progess! We still haven't sold our house, but have had some very positive feedback from people interested, so here's hoping that happens soon!

A couple pictures to tide you over, and yes, there will be more coming this weekend, because there are a bunch on my camera that haven't quite made it to the computer yet!

(and again, still no spell check in blogger, someone, anyone??? other then typing it in word and pasting it over here, is there a spell check shortcut that I'm missing somewhere???)

I cannot tell you how much fun I am having picking out paint colours. Markibly MORE fun then Jamie is incendently.

And I leave you with some picutre I took last weekend of Jamie and Donovan checking out the pond that our property boarders. I LOVE these pictures. My problem now is trying to decide which one I like the best!!

New House - Day 1

Today was the day! We started building our new home! I am so excited!! Jamie and I keep looking at each other like, "really??? is this REALLY happening?" and the answer is always, YES IT IS!

First a few pictures of the "before". This is our land, those of you who have been reading for a while will remember about 3 years ago when we bought this. It's about 10mins outside of town, and about 5acres. And we love it, we think we are so lucky to have water on our land, since as the title of this blog states, we live in a desert!

Dig Day! Eight years ago when our brother and sister-in-law built their dream home, we all gathered on their lot to watch the shovels hit the ground, and we had hot chocolate to celebrate (well to celebrate and because it was early morning on PEI and COLD). Well since today we broke a record for HEAT (my truck read +36'C today, not sure what the offical temp was), Donovan and I stopped at the store to get a slush to celebrate breaking ground on the new house. This was a VERY big deal for Donovan, as this was not only breaking ground on the home he will grow up in, but the first time he was allowed a slush, all to himself!

Here you can see the footings being dug for part of the garage, as well as the basement being dug out.

Yes I know, you are all wondering, "How can I get hair like yours??" well here's what you do. You go out on a windy day, with your hair tied back, and then have a camera man (thanks dad) that doesn't let you know, YOUR HAIR IS STANDING UP LIKE A SPIKE!

Donovan, pondering everything. Looks to me like he's ready to say "hey guys, how about a little more this way???"

Daddy and Donovan checking everything out.

I just like this last picture. I think it's a great one of Donovan and Grandpa. (ok, maybe a touch over exposed, but hey, that's what photoshop is for right???)

Thanks for sticking with us on this journy, I'm sure there will A LOT more picture posts to come!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has begun!

... or WILL begin tomorrow!

We finally got the phone call to go out to our land and verify the position of the house, because tomorrow, TOMORROW!!!! They will start to dig the hole for the house!!!!

Seriously, I am SO excited. I can't believe this is actually happening. I know I've said that before, but again, it's still true, so excited!

It felt like years (probably because it has been years) that we were in the planning stage, and then this summer we finally decided to actually BUILD it. At that time it felt like "wow, I can't believe this" and then people asked when would we start, and we said, "In the next few weeks" and we said that for, well A LOT of weeks, and now, now we are starting TOMORROW!!!

So other then taking pictures of the progress along the way, we need to sell the house we are living in. So um, any mojo house selling vibes you want to send our way? Feel free to send them!!

I will update with pictures tomorrow, I can't wait to start this next stage of our lives....

(also, can someone tell me why the new blogger doesn't have spell check anymore?? Or HOW I go about spell checking in the blogger compose area??? Thanks!!)

This is going to be quick, my to-do list is waiting...

in this case of course, the to-do list mainly consists of Donovan waking up from his nap, and well the time between "hi I'm awake" to "COME AND GET ME RIGHT THIS INSISTENT MOTHER" is well, limited.

The rest of the to-do list? The get house ready to be sold, and get selves ready to travel across the country, is actually down to a manageable level. Which is good, because we leave on Friday.

So I don't really have a lot of exciting news to share with you all, unless you count things like:

- In washing the walls, I made an interesting correlation, Donovan is approximately two feet tall, and ALL dirt grim and finger prints, are approximately in the bottom two feet of wall space... humm.... makes you wonder!

- Putting the oven on "self clean" is only really useful if you actually WIPE OUT the over AFTER self clean is over. However, if the next day, you still have not wiped out said oven, and then say, cook a pizza and it over flows, well you will have to clean the oven all over again.

- Cleaning the house while the above mentioned two year old is awake, well it usually ends up dirtier then when you started cleaning in the first place.

Ok, that's it for now. I probably won't get to post while we are away, but rest assured, there will be pictures when I return.

There should be pictures with this post, but then I would have to go to the other computer...

So you may or may not be aware of this, but I have a two year old! How the heck did THAT happen?

We had Donovan's birthday party yesterday (Monday) and it was a great time. The weather was actually perfect, I was hoping for it to be warmer outside, but it turned out it was the perfect temperature, that we were able to keep the backdoor open, and the outside and inside temperatures were about the same!

We kept his party small this year, with only a few friends and family invited. It was great, it was a long day, and a busy day but great.

Last year I was "super mom" and made his cake from scratch (it was an elephant) and we bbq'ed burgers and hot dogs, and made salads, and well, did everything. This year, as we were flying home from Arizona, I was talking to Jamie about all that we had to get done in the next three weeks (the deadline being when we leave for PEI). We are putting the house up for sale, so we have all the work to do in order to get it ready for that, we are finalizing plans with the bank and the builder, and getting all that ready, so there are no delays to the start of construction, we are packing and getting ready for our trip, oh ya, and I'm still working both jobs and taking care of Donovan. So ya, we were going to be busy. Add in his party and Jamie said, "why don't you just order a cake for him this year?" and I thought, well that wasn't such a bad idea. Next I thought, "well if we are ordering cake, why not pizza too?"

So that's what we did. Bought a couple bags of chips for the table, ordered the cake (a super cute, and CHEAP race car cake, which Donovan LOVED) and ordered Pizza. It was easy, no stress, and most importantly, Donovan had a mom and dad "present" at his party and not stressed out about everything they had to "do".

There is so much competition among mothers out there to plan the perfect party, to make everything from scratch, and you better not ask for help. And you know what? None of it matters! Did anyone care that I wasn't the one to make the cake? Nope, not one of them! In fact everyone asked me where I ordered it from, so they could get their next cake there too! (Sobey's by the way, in case you were wondering) and the pizza, well I didn't hear any complaints, and there was only a couple pieces left over, so I guess that went over well too!

What matters most, is that we got to celebrate another year with Donovan. Another year together as a family, and look forward to the next year together. What mattered is the time we spent together.

Happy Birthday Little Man, I feel so blessed to be your mom, and can't wait to watch you grow over the next year!!

And by the way, the only thing terrible about two, is how terribly GREAT it is!

It's official

We are moving!!

Ok, not this second, but we went to the bank, and got approval to start building the new house!! So excited about this! We have been planning, and saving for this house for 3 years, I can't believe it is actually happening! Still doesn't seem real even though we signed the contract this morning!

Of course, we can't have TWO houses, so we will be selling the house we are in now. We are going to list it on the 14th, which gives me two weeks to get it in tip top shape! Luckily this has been in the works for a while now, so I've already got a lot of work done around here.

I will post with more details soon. But if I go a few days without posting, it's cause, well I'm busy!

:)

Re-Design

It's not a drastic change, but I did mix it up a bit around here. Hope you like the "new" digs. Let me know if there are any suggestions you have for the blog design.

It's been a long day, and after a few nights of staying up too late, and getting up too early (I'm looking at you Donovan!) I'm tired. However, it was also an exciting day!

Jamie and I moved to Medicine Hat 4 years ago this week. Three years ago we bought a piece of land about 10mins out of the city. It's not a lot, about 5 acres, but it's ours, and we love it. The plan was always to build our dream house out there. About two years ago we started searching for house plans and designing our house. One year ago the final plans were drawn up, but we decided to put the project on hold while we got everything in place. This year, it looks like everything is in place and we are ready to move forward! (almost).

A realestate agent came over this morning to look at our house, and we will be meeting with him again on Friday to decide on a listing price and a sales plan.

We've met with the contractor, gone over all the little bits and pieces and finalized the price and plan.

It looks like this is going to happen! And going to happen soon! There is still the pesky problem of the bank, and it's not really a problem, just need them to say yes. In all honesty we haven't even approached them about a new mortgage yet, as we were waiting to get a final price on what the new house will cost and what we can sell this house for. So that's the next step. Once we get the "yes" from the bank (keeping fingers crossed, although it looks like it shouldn't be too much of a problem, as Canadian Banks are wanting to lend right now, we have steady income, lots of equity but little debt, and a good down payment) we will list the house and start this crazy process once again!

I keep thinking that this isn't really happening. We've been planning for the "future" for so long, it doesn't seem real that the future is here.

Of course, I'm trying not to get my hopes up, as we do still need to get the final ok from the bank, and then there is the whole, selling this house thing, and there are no guarantees as how long that will take, but tonight, tonight I'm hopeful, and tonight, I'm a wee bit excited.