First up- Jennie and Raymond had their first Dec 19th I believe- a baby GIRL named Allison.

Next, Robin and Jen had TWIN girls- Emma and Avery on Dec 29th- to go along with big sisters Caitlyn and Adria. Excellent job filling up all the seats in the mini-van.

And on Jan 1st, after 3 days of labour and a false start or two, weighing in at a solid 9lbs, 4oz- Jen and Alex Jago welcomed their BIG boy Patrick Jago into the family.

Congrats everyone! Time to update GENI

For this shot of Sammo, I messed up on the AWB, but I kinda like the off tint… and this was the start of his bath so the rest of the shots would have been water spraying on the lens.

Our friend Tony and his daugher Isabelle have been going to the local rink near our house so we decided to give it a try… for real.

Well the day we chose was the “Skate with Santa”- translation- the place is a zoo.  We managed to get E a rental (boy’s hockey skates) and got them on without too much drama.  The skates seem to fit, and standing the first time was like watching a newborn deer find its legs for the first time…

The ice opens, and we waddle on up to the rink.  When we got to the ice, E wouldn’t step on, and had to be encouraged.  I’m wondering, ok, how am I going to do this… and trying to think back to when I first learned to skate.

I bent over, took a wide stance, and held her under her armpits.  With her big helmet on, I couldn’t really see what her feet were doing, but we took it slow and tried to make our way over to the kid end of the ice.  As we make our way over,  I’m thinking ’she’s kinda heavy’ and I looked down at her feet… which were lifted off the ice and tucked under like a bird in flight. 

“Stand UP!” 

She makes a feeble attempt at standing… and at that point I knew I had to basically carry her, bent over double, to the other end of the ice… at a snails pace.

Once we got to the other end, my back was ready for shiatsu, and as we couldn’t get a metal stand to help her learn, it basically meant holding her up and trying to help her get her balance.  At that point, we’re told to get off as they needed to clean the ice. 

After a wait, we do the whole thing again, but this time someone saw that she was a total beginner and offered up their metal stand (yes there were kids who could skate just fine, but were using the stands for whatever reason). 

From that point on, it wasn’t bad.  She could stand and with Isabelle’s encouragement, get some forward progress.  It was funny to watch her try to “run” with skates on rather than angle the toe out and push off… and she fell down every 20 seconds… and for me it was like picking up a 30lb sack of potatoes every 20 seconds. 

Still, I think she had fun, and even got a helium balloon and candy cane from Santa out of the experience.

The yard was in ok shape, but it did have a few annoyances- first was a volkswagen sized rock in the middle of the yard, second were 5 trees in the 40-50 ft height range.

The trees definitely gave the yard privacy and a park-like feel, but at the same time they took up a lot of room, blocked a lot of sunlight, and continuously rained needles and pinecones onto the deck and grass.  Here’s a few pics showing what it looked like last fall.

Backyard Oct 08

Backyard Oct 08

Backyard Oct 08

backyard Oct 2008

We decided to bring in a landscaper to see what they would recommend.  Maybe take down a tree and see if we can level out the yard and bring the grass back to the point where I could practice putting on it.

The landscaper takes a look and recommends we take down the 2 trees to the east, and the one big tree on the NW corner.  When they took down 1 tree, it showed signs of inner rot…  and if 1 tree shows signs of rot, then there is a chance that the other trees could also be sick, yet show no outward signs of being so.  Down came the trees and 2 out of 3 show signs of rot.  They then recommed we take down the 2 trees by the deck. 

At this point, the cost of taking down all these trees were a lot more than we had anticipated when we bought the place.  The inspector said they looked ok, but it’s hard to tell without bringing in an expert.  The danger is if the trees are not balanced (leaning to one side) and if they are sick, then it just takes a wind or snowstorm to knock them down… into the house.

So we decide to take them all down.

tree stump

goodbye trees

Then came winter, and the worst snowstorm in 10 years.  Our yard looked like this.

snow!

In hindsight, it was a good call to take down the trees given the heavy snowfall. 

When spring finally came, we had to decide what to do with the yard.  Basically it was cleared out, but it was also a mess and not safe to play in. 

A winter with a hyper toddler also gave us incentive to create a safe yard to boot the kids outside and burn off some energy, and save our sanity.  Therefore we decided to dig up all the stumps and try to do something about that rock.  We hired a backhoe to come in and do the work, and our yard ended up looking like this-

Mighty machines!

504 paving stones removed

Mass destruction

The backhoe trampled over everything, and ripped out all the stumps, but could not turn over the big rock.  In the process, what little grass we had was pretty much destroyed.  We then had to bring in dirt to level out the yard and lay sod.

laying sod

Laying sod

After the sod went in, they said to water it like crazy for about 3 weeks straight.  When they said water it like crazy, they weren’t kidding!  If you see seams opening up between the rolls, it means that the sod is shrinking from lack of water.  Luckily we had a few good days of rain, and that plus some fertilizer really helped.  We probably should have added another inch or two of dirt to help level things out, but that can be done later.

Tomorrow the grass needs to be cut, and I’ll post pictures of how the yard looks after whacking down all the trees, digging up all the rocks/stumps/concrete/paving stones, and laying down new sod, which has been in for about 3 weeks now.

A lot of work, but we figure that everyone can get enjoyment from the yard.  Next up- a “slip and slide”, hammock, and wading pool!

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test

Recently, she learned the word “Dan-cing” and does this hillbilly stomp/flying seagull move whenever music is played. At home, pretty amusing. At the wedding reception, hours past her bedtime, this is what she was doing for most of the night… with

everyone.

We tried taking her home at 10pm, but as soon as the music came back on, she pointed at the dance floor and said “Dan-cing!”

Anyways, congrats to Alex and Jen. I’ll post whatever pics I have, but it was a very genuine, funny, moving, and all-round memorable day.

I’ll have to say that getting to this point has been one of the more trying exercises I can remember.  It started off with us stumbling upon the house at the end of a string of open houses and drive-bys.  We stopped in and just felt that it was “it.”  That evening we did some more research, discussed the pros/cons, and made the call to put an offer in a couple of days later.  Our mantra was “if it’s meant to be, we’ll get it…”

Our first offer was accepted subject to inspection, financing, and sale of our place.  We knew the first two wouldn’t be a problem, and with the track record of sales in our building, we felt our chances of a quick sale would be good.  The paperwork was signed, and then the real work started.

I won’t post any pics of our place before  we started decluttering, only because it would have been pic after pic of baby stuff.  It was clear we had to move stuff into storage, and so instead of renting a truck, filling it up, and driving stuff over to a storage facility, we went with a company called “Ah so easy…”  They drop a container off on the street, you fill it up over a day or two, then they come take it away and store it until you need them to drop it off at the new location. Thanks to GB for that tip! 

We packed that weekend like mad, and also did some repairs to finish off the stairs, and other maintenance work.  I’m so glad we had the extra help to declutter and move things out.  When the decluttering finished, my sister came out to help stage the place (pics in another post) and get things ready for the open house.  It was at that time that I came down with a nasty flu.  Sigh…

Mom and Vennie did a great job staging the place and so all we had to do was maintain things, get some sunny weather, and get a sale to complete the deal.

First open house we had 10 people cruise through (a few of them neighbours).  A couple of bites, but nothing.  Next open house (Father’s day), we had 1 person show up. 

Here’s the interesting thing I did not know before.  Our offer on the house isn’t binding until we remove subjects.  Even though we have an accepted offer, another party with a stronger offer can come in and trump us.  If that were to happen, we have 48 hours to make a big decision.  Lock in or lose the house.  If we lock in without selling our place, we can be carrying 2 mortgages, and with #2 coming in September, not a great position to be in.

2 1/2 weeks in, finally an offer!  It is a reasonable offer, but subject to the sale of her condo.  This means that nothing is binding until she officially sells her place, and if the offer on her place is subject to sale of another place, then the chain continues until someone down the line comes up with a strong deal.  This chaining effect can go on for quite a few deals, just like a domino effect.  The day she comes in for a second viewing, we had our open parking area vandalized for copper pipes…  Obviously this has an effect on her, and on the day of her subject removal (July 4) she kills the deal without even reviewing the strata meeting minutes.  Back to square 1.

Another open house the following weekend and we get 6 visitors, and a couple more private viewings.  On July 8th, we get some news… someone else has a strong offer on the house, and we have 48 hours to decide what to do!  That same day, we also get another offer, no subject to sale.  That deal however, would not conclude until July 15th, and means that if we decide to lock in the house on July 10th, there is a risk that the buyer for our place could back out and leave us in a tight spot!  We talked about it at length, and decided that this is the house we want to raise our family in, and we’ll take the calculated risk.

 So we take the plunge and sign the paperwork.  All we need to do is wait for the buyer to complete inspection of the building and meeting minutes.  That Friday night, the buyer calls off the inspection.  :-0  Apparently there was some concern over the type of businesses that could go into our retail space.  That evening was spent talking to our strata council and pouring over the bylaws and amendments to find out what controls we had over the type of business could go in. 

When we bought, we never thought about this.  Most of the retail has been there for years, and they are pretty harmless- print shop, massage parlour (not the kind found on Kingsway), nail and hair place, cafe, etc.  In the end it took a call from the prospective buyer to one of the council members to calm things down, and the inspection was on again.  I can say there was a fair amount of drama over that incident!

Next up was the physical inspection, and we knew that would go well.  Just a few cracked tiles and a lock that needed adjustment was all that was reported back.  The last bit of drama that went on was the buyer’s realtor threatening the deal over the replacement of the tiles whereas we saw it as regular wear/tear.  Once we got over that bit of annoyance, the deal went through and everything was locked in.  Whew!  That was probably the most challenging 6 weeks to go through the ups and downs, plus the work to get our place ready to show.

I will say that in the future, it’s better to sell first, then go shopping for a place since coming into a deal with no subject to sell really enhances your position and makes thing a lot quicker.  Notch one on the belt of experience.

Our move date is August 30, which is less than 2 weeks before our official due date.  E had her ultrasound yesterday, and our baby is about 5lbs now and is quite a mover/shaker!

We’ll be really sad to leave our complex, and our friends.  When we were scrambling to get information we had to call upon our neighbors for help.  Even though they do not want to see us move, they did everything they could to help us sell, including digging up old documents and taking calls late in the evening.  That’s what kind of a community exists here, and one that we’re going to miss very much.  When we did finally sell, they were all congratulating us and ut was all bittersweet.  We’ve been there for 7 years.

 As our neighbour Patsy put it as she was explaining the situation to her 4 year old daugther, Ming- “we’re no longer neighbours, but we’re still friends!”