Still a single child...

Well this second baby is due to come into the world as of tomorow (August 30th) but seems to be just as stubborn as his/her big sister was. Atalie remains a single child at this moment in time so I thought I'd fill up a post soley with pictures of her beautiful smiling face:)

We got the power:)

So we've had an answer to prayer! As I mentioned awhile back, the town of Canal Flats recently passed a new bylaw requiring all new lots to have underground wiring installed - however they failed to mention it to any of the new residents (even in the permits they handed out) and we went ahead and paid over $2,000 to have a pole put up, knowing it would be much faster and much less expensive than trying to run underground up to our lot. They kindly informed us that we'd have to remove the pole once BC Hydro had dug the new underground and then we'd have to split that cost between the other new lot owners within our subdivision(!?!). As you can imagine there were quite a few unhappy residents, one of whom is our nextdoor neighbor to-be. We were a little irritated at the thought of our future neighbor as he happens to be one of the typical city-slickers who's moved a vacation home into the Kootenays, demanding he have exactly what he wants and precisely when he wants it, at any cost. However it turns out that his "drive" to have things his way has gotten us out of this mess:) He made such a stink at the town office that they agreed to let the lot owners come to a unanimous decision as to whether we want overhead or underground power. And of course, being practical people with new mortgages in our pockets and not wanting to pay thousands of dollars to have something done that should be covered by the town, we all chose to stay with overhead. What a relief!!!

Grandma & Grandpa come to visit!!

Kendra's parents came from Coaldale, AB. to see us (but mostly Atalie and hopes of seeing a new baby I'm sure!) this weekend. They arrived Thursday night and left Monday morning... a nice long visit... but of course never long enough... anyway as mentioned in an earlier post, Dad helped Kevin work on the house Friday and Saturday. Sunday they took the day off and we headed to Fort Steele to partake in some local tourist activity:) Here's some shots of the weekend: After standing all the exterior walls they got a few interiors up as well. Grandpa looks innocent here but loves to tease his vulnerable little Granddaughter! Ladies looking pretty for a night out to eat:) Fort Steele Townsite - we took a little wagon ride to tour the town before venturing off to explore it for ourselves. The clouds look daunting but didn't cause too much harm thankfully. Atalie squeeled with girlish delight when she saw the horses. There was one colt in particular that was almost her size and she was actually brave enough to pet it, when encouraged of course;) Here's her and Daddy with the horses. Kevin and Atalie are thrown behind bars but still look happy...?? Kendra and her Mom strolling down the street. Lastly we took a ride on the steam train, again much to Atalie's delight. Ever since we moved to Invermere she's had a little fascination with "Choo Choo" trains, as there always seems to be one around, even if just in ear shot. The little monkey wouldn't sit still unless the train was moving and she could look around and listen to the whistle blowing. We all had a hand at trying to keep her still... good luck Grandma! A view of Kootenay River. Apparently it was a long day... :) This little guy has been using our backyard as a means to get to some tasty flowers and bushes along the front street the last couple days.

Lookin' like a house!!

As you can see here we now have the shape of a real house. A friendly small-town excavator came around to give us a (free) hand with getting the huge North end wall up. It was actually pretty neat to see, especially watching Kevin and my Dad scramble around, nailing supports up and holding things in place with all their might:) Yes, my parents made a weekend trip up to visit us from good ol' Coaldale, Alberta. It's been nice to have family here again. Here's a few shots of the worker-bees... and Atalie;)

And there were walls!

As mentioned earlier, Kevin has been working on the house all week ("vacation" time from his "real" job). Today was a long 14hour day framing, insulating the pony wall and sheeting... and continues tomorow. So for now I'll leave you with these pics:

Bugaboo Park & Backfilled House

Kevin had 12 hours of pure hard work (and a little slacking off:)) from a friend this weekend. We actually are just getting to know this guy (Garret is our friends' brother, who was actually here for 2 weeks to help them build their house) and on his potential day off he offered to help Kev all day Saturday - what a guy. Who could say no?? They got alot accomplished and now we should be able to call in for an appraisor this week. Yeah!! As you'll see in the pics below, we also had our excavator come out and backfill for us. Locals are always the way to go in a small town - they're there when you need them, they somehow always have more "colour" about them than the city companies, they bring you beer in the hot sun and they even charge a little less! :) Since Kevin had worked 3 weeks straight up until now he took Sunday off and we made our way out to Bugaboo Provincial Park. Mostly we drove an hour NW of Invermere, partially along a bumpy forest road, and when we got there just walked down a short path to a waterfall. That just seemed too short to turn around and go all the way home... so we drove a little further to discover the glaciers. It always feels a little funny being almost 9 months pregnant and around outdoor enthusiasts... quite out of place;) We drove up to the base of the trails leading to the glaciers and I have to say, although I was in no shape and had no desire to climb a glacier at that moment, I was a little disapointed that I couldn't join all the others wearing their mec gear and packing their bags to head up. It's been too long! Below are a couple pictures of the parking lot we drove into. The vehicles all had chicken wire wrapped around the base, held up with 2x4's and rocks. The only reason we could come up with was to prevent marmots from crawling up into the vehicle. ? Either way I thought it was a little curious and perhaps some of you could shed some knowledge on the subject:) Comments welcome.

Quick Update

I know we've been pretty busy and haven't been very good with keeping in touch with most of you lately... phone calling and such... but we want to keep any who are interested up to speed. We must say Praise God(!) for selling our Trooper in only 2 days of having it up for sale over the weekend! Yeah:) We got close to our asking price as well, so it will help pay off some undesirable creditcard figures. Woohoo!! Kev and I were also able to head down to the lot last night and get the foundation sealed off in only a couple hours - lemme tell you, tar is one messy job! Apparently I forgot "MY" pair of gloves (I suppose gloves would be very practical, but considering I don't own a pair of work gloves and don't exactly tar every day, I think I may have a "get out free" card here) so Kevin let me use his. I didn't get very dirty but he managed to get it all up his arms and a bit on his hands and clothes. Poor chap;) So the house is coming along smoothly, even though it can feel more like smooth, slow sailing sometimes. But I'll take smooth and slow over rough any day! I think that's about it for new news around here. I'm off to have a morning cup o' jo with my good neighbour friend Devon:)

Floor Joists

...are almost done! Poor Kev and a buddy worked their butts off all day Friday and it ended up being a bit of a dud. They described it as one of those days where you should have just packed up after the first 3 mistakes b/c it just wasn't going to get any better. Ultimately they reached their goal of getting the bearing wall up but it took much longer than they wanted it to. Sunday was more productive however, as Kevin and a couple other friends were able to get most of the floor joists done. Yeah! Here's a few photos of that: Kev and I are hoping to go down there again Tuesday evening to damp proof the basement, then hopefully spend another evening putting up drain tile... thus being ready for the excavator to put the plumbing in and backfill around the foundation, which will also likely be done one evening this week. Next weekend we hope to complete the floor and call out the appraisor to FINALLY get some cash to pay all these bills. Then Kev takes a week of his vacation time to frame like mad, hopefully getting as much as he can done to put the roof on. Feels like a rat race sometimes! And I'm not even the one working on it! Anyway you can pray for us (mostly Kev) if you think of us in the next while. Getting the house to lock-up is an important goal we hope to reach very soon so we can receive our first draw from the bank and get these stacked bills paid off. Set backs are common but not welcome - something we pray daily;) Also, I've updated the blog entry from last weekend with some pics of pouring the foundation.