Logging has started....

Yep, you heard me :-) We have started logging the property. Well, not by ourselves, but trees have fallen so we have a much better idea now of the area in which our house will stand in the next few months. Below are some photos we took last weekend.

Timberrrrrr:



Sean in the driveway:



The view from the driveway towards where the house will stand:



The house will be in the far corner:



Sean surveying the downed trees and imaging the house in their place:




That's all for now, folks - more details as they become available :-)

Happy New Year!!

Teresa

New house and site...

I know it's been a while again since I've updated here. That's because we didn't have much news. However, we've decided to go with a different (smaller) house on a different lot.

Note: click on the images below to get bigger versions.

Here's the house, and here are pics of the new site, starting with a view of it from across the lake:



we'll be up the hill somewhat, not right on the shore of the lake, but you get the general idea.

Here's the driveway:



and here are a few shots of where it will be sited, along with different views of the driveway as you go further along it:


















We're hoping to start in March - fingers crossed etc. We have a fantastic builder, which is so important, and we're happy to wait for him to be free. Looks like we'll be spending the winter here in our cozy little cabin.

More updates when we have more news :-)

Teresa

Update on the house...

Well, there's really not much to tell. All the builders up here are super busy, so we're looking at next spring before we start. Which, although it seems far away now, really isn't too long to wait.

We do have someone who will give us a quote in a few weeks and we're hoping it will come in at the right price. He does great work.

So for now, we're looking for somewhere temporary for the winter. There are several options - will keep you updated once we make a decision :-)

That's it for now. I'll try to post some pics of our temp digs when I get a chance.

Teresa

Blogged with Flock

Photo blog from our trip...

You can see it here:
Teresa's Windshield Chronicles

Teresa

Got dem empty house blues...

yep - it's kinda weird, rattling around in this place with no furniture etc. The cats have adjusted, though - this morning we could hear them running, jumping and skidding around on the hardwood with complete abandon *g*.

We set out on our trek on Sunday morning - bright and early!! I'll be taking photos along the way and will post the first lot from my sister's in Saskatoon - we'll be spending three days there. It's been since Christmas of '04 since we've seen them, so it will be lots of fun - our nephews are now 8 and 5, while our niece is now 3. We hope to go to the zoo with them - it's actually more like an animal sanctuary, with wide open spaces for the majority of the animals to roam. Only the most dangerous are kept in cages - not really very good advertising if the wolf goes after a wee visitor!

Here's hoping we get good weather along the way :-) And as little construction traffic as possible.

Teresa

A Surprise on the Sunshine Coast

So, Sean and his dad got home yesterday evening to find quite a surprise waiting for them. Similar to the surprise waiting for my mother-in-law earlier in the afternoon when she went to the llama shed to check on their feed (long time readers of this blog might remember the pics I posted of the llamas last August). She was thinking that Dusty, the older llama, was getting a little plump, so maybe she should cut back on her food a bit.

Into the shed she walks, only to notice something quite unexpected. This:




Pretty cool, huh? Turns out Dusty wasn't getting fat - she was pregnant! And was probably just pregnant when she moved into my mother-in-law's last summer. Isn't the baby adorable? I'd no idea she'd be so big! I'm sure our niece is going to be THRILLED. Have to admit, I'm looking forward to seeing the baby when we get there in a few weeks.

Sean and his dad missed all the excitement. But they did have fun skiing - here's a shot of Sean enjoying the slopes:




Happy Friday!

Teresa

Link of the Day: More info on how to find us.

Another of Sean's trip photos

He says he used the self-timer and balanced the camera on his backpack in the passenger seat *g*. Very resourceful, is my Sean :-) Click on the photo to get a slightly bigger version - he's sending them on dial-up, so he's reduced the size considerably.

Teresa

Horseshoe Bay by 4 pm!!!

That's right, Sean made it across Vancouver and to the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay by 4:00 yesterday. Traffic wasn't too bad, hence his good time. He called me from there, to let me know he was safe and since the lot was barely crowded, he'd make the 5:30 ferry with no problem.

The pictures he emailed me from Canmore finally got to me. Here's the one I like best:




Today will be spent cleaning the motorcycles *g*. He says they look like he actually rode them across the country!

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Comments from Haloscan - they seem to be back! Yay! They only disappeared when I altered the auto message Haloscan left when I reinstalled them. Now, the message I got said I COULD edit it or delete it, but as that didn't actually work last time, I'm just gonna leave that message there.

It's another cool morning here - frost on the grass and there's a bit of snow floating about. Must finish judging my entries today, once I shake the sinus headache I woke up with.

Teresa

Currently Reading: Someone like You by Cathy Kelly
Link of the Day: Gibsons, British Columbia

And on to Canmore!!!

Yep - Sean got past Calgary and stopped in beautiful Canmore instead, putting him that much closer to BC. Hopefully today his drive through Rogers Pass will go well and he'll be up on the Coast by nightfall. Of course, much depends on the drive and what time he hits Vancouver rush hour. That's never fun, though at least he won't have to cross the Lion's Gate (not that the Iron Workers Memorial bridge is much better, mind). We're still hoping he'll make that last ferry and be welcomed by his parents and Tiva the dog :-)

Back here, I had a good day. Went to lunch with a friend, came home and talked to Sean when he checked in, then trundled off for a brief walk to get some groceries. Once home, I tackled my filing cabinet and emptied three of the four drawers!! Read some after dinner, then watched my tape of Grey's Anatomy while putting away laundry. Chloe decided Sean's t-shirts didn't really need folding - they made a better bed. She curled up on them at about 10:30 last night and didn't move from them till about 6:30 this morning!

It's snowing here this morning *groan*. Nothing major, but still. And people ask me why I'm moving to the BC coast (see the current weather there in my sidebar).

Off for coffee with another friend soon, so had best eat some brekkie :-)

Teresa

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UPDATE!!

He's now on the Coquihalla (the super highway from Merritt in the interior to Hope in the Fraser Valley), so should get to Vancouver in about three hours or so! Hopes to make the 7:30 ferry up to the Coast :-) The weather there has been good (knock on wood).

Back to packing boxes.

He made it to Portage la Prairie!!

yep, that's right, Sean went past Winnipeg to Portage la Prairie. Talk about a long day, but at least he had a good drive. :)

I was very relieved to hear from him when I did. Today he's already well on his way towards Calgary. If all continues to go well, he'll (knock on wood) be on the Coast tomorrow evening.

As for me, I spent yesterday playing with my new Opera browser (it has some advantages of Firefox, though a mix of the two would actually be perfect) and even set up a blog over at the Opera community. Then I judged another entry, dictating most of my comments via Dragon Naturally Speaking. Now I'musing a stand-alone mic, instead of a headset, it's far better at understand what I'm saying *g*.

Around 3, my mum came over and we went out shopping - it was a beautiful day, so we walked down to the shops and spent some time browsing, before going for dinner at a Mexican place that had just opened. Yum!

By 8, I was curled up in front of the TV, glued to West Wing. Wow, this election campaign storyline has been fantastic (except for the live debate ep, just couldn't watch that). And last night they left us hanging at the end. Arggghhh.

L&O,CI and Crossing Jordan were both repeats last night, despite the info in our tv guide (grrrrrr), so I read more of my Cathy Kelly book instead, with Cleo on my legs for company :-)

Today I'm going to lunch with a friend, but other than that, more office packing is on the agenda.

Teresa

Currently Reading: Someone Like You by Cathy Kelly
Link of the Day: Historical fiction author Elizabeth Chadwick's Blog

Georgian Bay in the spring...

Sean took this yesterday afternoon and send it to me:






Isn't it lovely?

He made it as far as Wawa last night and went to bed early, so he could be back on the road by 6am this morning. At this point I'm guessing he's about half-way to Thunder Bay, but hopes to make it to Winnipeg by this evening.

Meanwhile, here on the homefront, Madeline and I had a lovely dinner and a good old-fashioned natter :-) I was in bed by 10:30, watching the boys on American Chopper and by midnight, both cats were on the bed with me. Unfortunately, Chloe decided to get up at 5:30, which, with the time change, means I didn't get much sleep. Oh well - it's a beautiful day here today, so I'm sure I won't suffer too much.

Happy Sunday!

Teresa

So, he's off

he left early this morning. And I mean, early. Before 6 am.

That's right, Sean is now officially on his first-of-two, drive across Canada adventures :-)

And I'm actually pretty calm about it, calmer than I thought I'd be. Probably because it's not snowing here, only raining a bit. And because I figure that freaking out really isn't going to help me or him. Instead, I'm filling my day with lots of busy stuff.

Turns out one of the first things I had to do was ring Sympatico tech help, because I couldn't collect my sympatico email. And what do I find out? That somehow they manged to mix up "Cancel my account in 30 days" with "Cancel it NOW." Yep, that's right, even the tech guy was confused. "You're right, Mrs. Eckford, it says '30 day cancellation - I'm not sure what happened. You'll have to call our business office on Monday morning.'"

Thank goodness we already have our telus account, though it's dial-up *sigh*. Not that it stopped me from getting a tad angry - though I did apologize for taking it out on him.

Now I just have to hope no-one tries to send me anything important on my sympatico account until I get this cleared up. Sheesh. Fortunately I have a box of Timbits here to help with the stress.

Moving Stuff
Things are coming along on the moving front. I have a lot more of my office cleared out, though still have yet to tackle the tall filing cabinet. All the files and assorted office bits and bobs in there need to be removed and put in boxes.

Chloe and Cleo, needless to say, are thrilled with the presence of so many new things to explore - mostly things into which they can climb *g*.

I was going to post a photo of the chaos here in the basement, but without the high speed connection to upload the photos, it'll have to wait now until next week. I'm sure it won't change much between now and then, though - the boxes will just shift locations!

Writing Stuff
Nothing to report, except that I didn't final in the Golden Heart. Strangely enough, I wasn't nearly as disappointed or upset as I thought I'd be. Maybe it's cause I've so much on my mind with the move and all the excitement/anticipation involved in that, but I also think it's cause I recognize that not finalling isn't any lasting indictment of my writing skills. Of course, how I'll feel after receiving my scores in a few weeks is another matter, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Anyway, that's about it from here. It's a grey morning, but I've lots to do inside (including loads of laundry). Plus a friend is coming over later to do dinner with me. We haven't seen each other in months, so we'll have lots to catch up on. She hasn't yet met C&C - they'll love her as she's a real cat person.

Happy Saturday, everyone :-)

Teresa

Currently Reading: Someone like You by Cathy Kelly
Link of the Day: Beauverre
Extra links of the Day: Maggie Toussaint's Writing Articles, Part 3 of Janna's reflections on Story Evolution

Summer by the lake

So, this is where we'll be staying this summer




and here is the view from the deck:



and from the lake:




Teresa

Fun link: Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts

The house!

I realize I haven't spent much time here talking about the house we hope to build. That's partly cause I don't want to jinx things. Still, I figured I'd give you a peek at our dream home.

It's called Swede Hill - cool name, huh? There are a couple of minor changes we want to make - like enclosing half the front porch to make a mudroom. But overall, it's perfect!!

Teresa

Something fun.

Teresa

Some more photos

These were taken last November/early December. The first shows the curve in the driveway just before you get to our spot, the second is the building site with sun streaming through the trees (some of which will have to come down before we can build), the third is of the lake from our spot. Of course, since these were taken, they had about 30 days of rain, so there's not a  spot of snow left there *g*.

So, here's how we're getting there...

after Sean takes the car/motorbikes across the country in April, he'll come back here and we'll drive out together in this:

and stay in this:

It will be a big adventure for all of us, including the cats:



but I am looking forward to it :-) We're already training them to ride in a cage in the car - they'll be in the back seat of the truck (it has an extended cab), so they'll be close to us. Now we just have to figure out the litter thing.

More soon!

Teresa

It's almost official, now....

things are moving (excuse the pun) at quite a pace, so I decided to start a separate blog for the move. I'll post pics and updates on what's happening with the house etc.

Enjoy!