The Duke

In Canada we have the award called the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. It is a program that was founded by H.R.H Prince Philip - the Duke of Edinburgh in England, but it is now in Canada and 126 countries around the world.

The aim of the award is to promote good citizens and to encourage physical activity, adventure, skills and service. The award is designed for 14-25 year olds, with Bronze, Silver and Gold awards - the time requirements for each of the categories increasing with each award.

Mark started his Gold award the summer before Grade 12 with his Expedition (with his Scout troupe he made his own sea kayak and went on a 4 day journey around the Broken Island Chain near Vancouver BC). His Residential project was completed on his mission - a requirement of at least 3 nights away from home in another culture. While on his mission he also worked on his Skill and Service requirements.

After documenting all his requirements and handing in his Expedition report, Mark was awarded his Duke of Edinburgh Award with about 100 other receipients by Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex on June 7, 2009 at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary AB.

P.S. The main portion of the award is a gold pin with the Duke of Edinburgh symbol on it. Mark was upset that he did all that work only to receive a dinky pin!

Green Thumb

The prophet said to plant a garden, so that's what we'll do!

As the snow melted we were able to see our backyard come to life! We had no idea what to expect - the surprize of buying a home in the winter! We knew we wanted to plant a garden, but WHERE was the question. Behind the garage would be ideal, but a large fir tree blocked any of the sun's rays from hitting the perfect garden spot. Mark was totally rearing to cut it down - so the adventure began!

The tree BEFORE

We cut off most of the branches of the tree before we CHOPPED IT DOWN!

Mark and his tree...CUT CUT TIMBER!

The garden spot had a massive hole in the middle, where the previous tenant wanted to make a fish pond or something, but that never happened...and the hole remained. Mark and his dad weeded the area and Mark filled in the hole with sand from our "sand pit" (AKA ice rink spot, but just like the fish pond, it never happened..sand anyone?). We covered the garden with more sand and roto-tilled it then covered it with 72 wheelbarrows full (we counted) of topsoil.

The garden pre topsoil

Once we added the topsoil and had help from a garden expert, we finished planting our garden! We cannot wait for the "vegetables" of our labors!

EWWW! GROSS!!

I, like many others, detest doing dishes! It is my LEAST favorite chore. In our apartment Mark and I would wait until ALL our dishes were dirty to wash them all. The process would take several hours! Needless to say, we were so excited to find out that our new house had a DISHWASHER. Unfortunately the dishwasher failed to wash dishes, and man, were we dissapointed! I did a diagnostic investigation and found some jammed spray holes on the bottom arm. I searched my make and model of dishwasher on the Internet and found a "how to take your dishwasher apart" page. So Mark and I began our work, unaware of just how gross it would be.
So it looks like the previous tenants washed their vegetables/fruits in the dishwasher! We found hunks of food and several fruit stickers. They washed a huge onion peel, which caused most of the blockage. We were not prepared for the filter! Here is a before/after picture. Mark found mold and little sprouts growing from the mold! I didn't know that was possible! I totally felt like my mother who routinely takes things apart and cleans EVERY CREVICE attempting to make it work better or work again. If you are at all adventurous or would like to make your dishwasher work better, I suggest doing the same...but beware...you don't know what lurks inside!

Welcome to Our Pad

Sorry it took so long! I'm FINALLY posting pictures of the inside of our new home.

This is the front entrance and the light fixture there. We don't use the front entrance much.

The living room has oak hardwood and green textured walls. We like it, which is good because it would take forever to sand! The kitchen is huge and large enough to put an island in the middle with bar stools "for breakfast". I think it's an Ellingson thing to have an island with barstools because 4 of their homes have them! Yes the walls are YELLOW! Painting will probably be our first job! (You'll see why later!)

The bathroom is a good size but needs a lot of work. The jet tub and drywall weren't installed properly so we'll have to redo it. We want to make the linen closet bigger which leads us to this disaster of a paint job - the office. Need I say more?

This is the master bedroom. I was surprised to see curtains that matched our quilt!! There is no closet in the bedroom, but there are cupboards and drawers that DO NOT open very well! We're looking forward to taking it all out and putting in a closet and organizer, probably with mirrored doors.

The back entrance and dining room. It's got big windows and beautiful french doors.

The rumpus room, as Mark would call it. It looks a lot smaller than it actually is!

The circus bedroom (the other huge reason painting is our #1 priority) and the downstairs bathroom.

The backyard and garage. The garage is a single car garage but extra long. We can fit both our cars in it with lots more space!

Well that's it! Thanks a lot for visiting! Come visit us for REAL some time!

Our House in the Middle of Our Street

I have been waiting to start our blog until we had something momentous to post so here it is:

We recently bought our FIRST HOME! We've been looking for a couple of months, and finally found one in Innisfail! We moved in on February 25th. It requires a little TLC, but it's got lots of space and a nice lot.

We viewed the house, did the inspection, signed the papers and were given the keys and the weather was beautiful...once we started moving was another story and -30 C temperatures! (That's -22 F for my American friends)

P.S. Mark's parents live across the street and 2 doors down. Our food bill will be cut in half ! Yay!