Getting Some Yard Work Done

In the last few weeks we've gotten closets and railings - both very important!  But now, since it's summer and the weather is fine, outdoor stuff seems like a good idea.

We got some "fill" dropped off to raise our property level so it would be level with the road.  There's also a big pile of gravel on the driveway.  These piles had been sitting here for a few days when a guy with a bobcat who lives near us came and started spreading it all around for us.  How awesome is that?  He was really fast moving around in that little bobcat.  We'll still need a lot more "fill" but it's good to have this stuff spread out so it can settle.

Rich is double 30 minute papering our front entry and then he'll stucco wire it.

Working on the flooring of our front entry - green treated floating wood deck over ice and water shield (that's the black paper on the bottom).  Such helpful girls - Jas is cutting all the wood and Mackenzie is handing Daddy the screws (ya gotta train them while they're young!).

Then she covered her ears (Katia too) every time he screwed in a screw.

It was so loud, even Daddy had to cover his ear!

Rich also did all this smart board on the front lower part of the front entry.  We'll paint it someday.

Notice the perfectly stucco wired wall - nothing crooked there!

Floor is done!  Jas and Jordyn cut the last piece on the table saw and it fit absolutely perfectly.  Rich couldn't have done it better himself!!!  (that's what he said!)

Around the corner, the girls have another project going - spreading more gravel out on the workshop driveway.

Jordyn and Carlee working on the big pile and filling the wheelbarrow.

Jenna and Katia working on the smaller pile.  They had the radio going and were dancing and singing while they worked.

Jordyn dumping a load.

Just look at how buffed and tanned they're getting!  It was hot hard work though, and one sweet neighbour came by later in the day with a box of ice-cream treats!

Meanwhile, Rich and Jas started working on a sidewalk that will connect the workshop sidewalk with the basement stairs and the stairs to the deck.

Look how buffed and tanned he's getting!!!

Rich and Jas get to shovel gravel too.

This picture also shows the extent of my garden this year - two pots of flowers guarding the edge of the deck from little people, and down below you can see four other pots - that's my vegetable garden.  Tomatoes, peppers and oregano.  They were on the deck too but the wind kept blowing them off.  So I tried to hide them by the weeds on the hill (big pile of topsoil) so the deer wouldn't notice them.  So far so good!

Jas - look how buffed and tanned she's getting!

  (And don't my Mother's Day roses just add a special something to this photo?)

Spreading out the gravel over the whole sidewalk.  And yes, I know this looks like a really weird shaped sidewalk, but just wait until it's all finished.

I like this photo because it shows me hard at work too, taking the picture!

Tamping down the gravel.

Laying the rebar.

After they finished our sidewalk, they went and helped someone else and were cutting more rebar.  Jas sliced her leg nicely while cutting a small piece of rebar.  We were contemplating stitches but decided the butterfly closures worked just as well.  Besides, guys dig scars!

Since we needed to use a bit more cement to make it a full load, we decided to do the sidewalk around the  garage.  This will hold our other set of stairs off the deck.

Cement time!  Because it was such a hot day, we watered down the gravel first so the ground wouldn't suck all the water out of the cement.  Here we have Rich and Jas leveling out the cement.

Bring on more cement!

Thanks neighbours for coming to help spread the cement around.

They spread out this sidewalk and roughly brushed/edged it and then went to do the other sidewalk.  By the time they came back to fix up this sidewalk, the top had already set, so they weren't able to get it smoothed out as well as we wanted.  Rich said the cement was dry to start with and then the heat of the day just dried it too fast.  Oh well, at least it's the back sidewalk and once the stairs are in place it won't be too noticeable.  The other sidewalk looks just fine though! 

 All set up with little people on it.  We no longer have to walk the plank here in the back! We can get from the house to a vehicle without having to walk through mud - Yay!!!

 Check out these dazzling shoes! 
Rich carved our name and the year in the edge.

And now back to the continuous job of spreading out the gravel.  Hopefully the girls will have it all done before they go back to school!  The girls and I have shovels of dirt.  Just after this picture was taken, Jordyn threw her load and it landed all over Jas.  Bahaha!

Just look how buffed and tanned we're getting!


Our Canada Day Weekend

Canada Day fell on a Sunday this year, so Monday was the holiday - that made for a nice long weekend.  We started off the long weekend going camping in a National Park.  My sister Denyse and her family were camping there too, and my parents were nearby as well - but we all camped in different places (we wanted to really rough it with only electricity, water and sewer for the camper).

Rich, Carlee, Jenna and Katia went out Thursday night and got us a good campsite just outside the park.  They had lots of fun exploring around on their bikes.  Katia made about seven friends!

Jas, Jordyn, Mackenzie and I met up with them on Friday.  We started our fun by going into the park and driving, shall we say, rather quickly, on the RedRock Canyon road!  But just over the rollercoaster parts!!!  We came around the corner and there was . . . a bear!

This is the only bear we let the girls get close to.  (Warning:  Be sure to find out if a bear is tame before you attempt a picture with it!)

Friday afternoon we played in the RedRock Canyon area.  Jas was the only crazy who got completely wet, mostly because she fell in.  So then she had to slide the natural rock slides a few times.  Brrrr!

Later we met up with Chelle and her boyfriend Logan and played around in the townsite.

I told them to pose, but this isn't what I was expecting!

Skipping stones and stuff with cousins.  The pebbles and driftwood were so smooth.

Got  few cute pictures of Chelle and Logan . . .

. . . on the dock . . .

. . . and in the grass.  They liked posing!

My mom, my sister Denyse with her five kids, and my Katia.

 

Chelle and Logan in the paddle boat, Jas in the kayak, and Jordyn, Carlee and Jenna in the rubber dingy.

After playing around for awhile, we went back to our campsite for dinner.  The girls and I played volleyball while Logan chopped the wood and lit the fire and cooked the tinfoil dinners that he helped prepare the night before.  Yup - we like him.  He's a handy fellow to have around!  He had to leave and go to work, but the rest of us enjoyed the campfire til late in the evening.  Played some very creative versions of "I'm going camping and I'm taking . . . "  It was a lovely evening.  There's nothing like sitting around a campfire on a summer evening, roasting marshmallows, choking on smoke, singing songs . . .

. . . and we're still around the campfire the next morning!  Actually, this was after Rich cooked us a lovely bacon breakfast.  It was so nice lounging around in bed, smelling the bacon and listening to my family chat and laugh together.

So it's Saturday morning now and we decided to hike up to Crandall Lake.

We all carried backpacks except Chelle because she was planning to pack Mackenzie up the mountain. 

Kenzie does not like being up high - see how she's clinging to Daddy's neck.

 

So cute walking along together.  It's a nice easy hike - only took about a half hour or so.

"One, two, three - jump!"  Big sisters are the best!

Crandell Lake was freezing cold but had a nice log that was perfect for cooling off feet.

Katia preferred a rocky ledge.

Dad, Jas and Carlee were the brave souls who got wet in the frigid waters.  They didn't stay in for long though - got wet and came back out.  Lacie also had a dunking, but that was not her choice!

Kenzie, Lacie and I trying to stay warm in the sun.  It was really windy up there.  Kenzie was snuggly as it was getting to be naptime.

In fact, she fell asleep as Chelle was carrying her down.

"She ain't heavy - she's my sister."

She was still asleep at the bottom of the hike.  There is a cougar warning sign there below the hiker symbol on the post.  We didn't see any cougars or bears - the only thing we saw was a deer back in the bush.  But we had Lacie to protect us from anything vicious.

We met up with Gramma and Grampa at the marina and had a picnic lunch.  Kenzie is still sleeping -  in the stroller now.  She slept through the hike, getting put in her carseat, the drive, out of the carseat, into the stroller, and a long ways through the picnic. 

But now we have a few others having their afternoon siestas too. 

 

We had to keep Lacie hidden behind people so she wouldn't see all the dogs walking past - and there were tons of them!  She has no tolerance for other dogs.  I like to think of her as being very protective of her "people".  Can you even see her in these pictures?

 

Kenzie is awake!!!  So we took her to the playground and spray park, but it got too windy so no one bothered to get wet.  She was so happy to get to play - slides are so much more fun than hikes!

Rich decided to play tourist and approach Buck near the playground.  He figured he should leave when Buck started pawing the ground and charging him.  Okay, maybe not charging, but by the look in Buck's eyes, that was what he was thinking!  Silly tourists.  Even Lacie didn't scare Buck away!

Next stop was the Ice Cream Store!  As we were walking there, someone we knew rode past us on their bike.  Kenzie (who didn't know this man) walked right up to him and told him we were going for ice cream.  So he reached in his pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill and gave it to her and then rode off on his bike!  We all laughed and then looked around for other people that Kenzie could tell she was going for ice cream!  Thanks Mark - that covered almost half of our ice cream bill!

Ice cream - it's Tradition!

After a long and lovely day in the mountains, we went back to our campsite.  Took down the tent and packed up lots of the the camp.  Some of us went home that night - actually everyone except Rich and Jenna.

So the next day was Sunday.  One of the things I love about church on Canada Day is the singing of all four verses of our National Anthem.  There are just some beautiful words in this anthem.  Like in the second verse:

"Oh Canada!  Where pines and maples grow.

Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow."

And these words are especially meaningful when you've just seen everything mentioned here while camping the day before.  Such a beautiful country we live in!

And if the first three verses haven't made me cry yet, the fourth one always gets me:

"Ruler supreme Who hearest humble pray'r,

Hold our Dominion in thy loving care.

Help us to find, O God, in thee

A lasting rich reward,

As waiting for the better day,

We ever stand on guard . . .

God keep our land Glorious and free!

O Canada we stand on guard for thee,

O Canada!  We stand on guard for thee."

On Monday we went to a potluck lunch a met a bunch of Logan's family.  Then it was off to the lake.

Kenzie likes to stay as far away from the beach as she can and would spend all her time in the playground if she could!

Rich and my dad eating.  The girls are just launching the rubber dingy in the background.  Denyse was here too with some of her kids - the non-sick ones.

 

Chelle was splashing her sisters in the boat.  They tried to retaliate.

Chelle ended up chasing Jas around the boat.  Jas trips and goes down.  Then, in my peripheral vision, I see this flash of person go past me and enter the foray.  It was Logan and he was headed to take out the troublemaker. 

It was only a matter of seconds before he had her dunked - he was fast!  Now the little sisters could play in peace without the splash-monster.

What would a trip to the beach be without Jas creating a masterpiece?  This time it was a sprawling metropolis complete with waterways and bridges.

That about wraps up our Canada Day weekend.  It was a lovely time with beautiful scenery, weather, company, food and now a blog entry to help us remember it forever!