Alive and well, sort of...

Hello all. Sorry for the absence from the blogging world. Life has been filled with work, getting back into the swing of things and the fall illnesses that seem to plague our house every fall. Since we both work in germ factories and now we have Lily bringing home god knows what, our immune systems get a workout. But, we all seem to be doing better now. 

I thought I would just give a bit of an idea what we did this summer. Sorry no pictures yet because iphoto won't let me load any new ones for some unknown reason. We spent a week in Downtown Ottawa getting our city fix and it was amazing. We stayed at the Lord Elgin that is right downtown and was fine with pets which was important because we were travelling with Kala and Smoot. Right across the street from us was Confederation Park which was hosting the Ottawa Jazz festival. So after I helped get Lily and Margot sorted out in the evenings I would wander across the street and see a show. I got to see an all time favorite of mine: Elvis Costello, who was followed up by Canadian rapper Shad. The next night I saw KD Lang who also put on an amazing show. What a welcome back to the south: ice cold beer, a fancy hotel and an amazing music festival! During the days we shopped, ate out, played at the surrounding parks and just had fun. Lily loved the pool. I think she may be part fish. One afternoon I stopped in to have a pedicure (you need to treat yourself sometimes right?) and thought I would surprise Lily with getting my toenails painted with sparkles. The day before Margot and her Mom had their nails done and she was so excited about shiny nails that I thought it would be a fun surprise if we all matched. Well, the ladies in the shop all thought it was hilarious that I asked for nail polish. Lily and Margot joined me as I was about to pick which colour to have applied. I told Lily she could choose which shade and luckily for me she chose blue sparkles, instead of pink or purple. She was quite delighted once they were done and I felt great with my happy feet. As well as Margot's Mom visiting her Dad and Step-mom, Rosamond, came up.  This worked out very well for us because West Jet screwed up our cargo booking for the dogs and said that we would have to wait two days to ship them. So after a few very intense and long conversation we found an alternative to shipping the dogs as cargo we had to go buy two new smaller dog kennels ($550!!!) and they flew as extra baggage. David and Rosamond drove us the hour round trip to go and buy the new ones. What a pain it is flying with extra baggage, kid and two large dogs. 

We then headed out to Rossland which is in southern BC. We rented a house there for the summer. This is the same town we moved from prior to moving up here. It was great to be home and near my family. We had lots of our friends come and stay. We spent the summer eating at great restaurants, swimming (Lily had lessons) in pools and lakes, hiking, playing and having a great time. 

I fulfilled a bucket list item. I went on a motorcycle trip with my dad! After getting new leathers and a fancy helmet, we hopped on our bikes and headed off from BC and went through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Southern Alberta and headed back to BC. We put on about 2500 km in 5 days. It was spectacular!

Then at the end of our summer trip we headed back to Ontario to visit with Margot's family and took a train (Lily and my first time) to hook up with everyone. We had a wonderful visit in southern Ontario and then began our stressful trip home. It's always expensive, stressful and exhausting to return to the north with our circus. 

We had a great summer and it was sad to see it end but it is nice to be back and get into the swing of things.

Once we got back I got right to work fixing our "new" 2009 Yamaha 125 grizzly atv. It has been a very frustrating experience trying to get the local Yamaha shop to get it done right, but I think after basically setting my wallet on fire it's running great. I also bought a 2004 Honda fourtrax rancher. It also needed some parts shipped up and a couple of full days work done to it, but now it runs like a top. However with this one, me and another fella spent two days fixing it up. Then we had to build something to house the new machines which was quite a debacle as there is not much space in front of our building it. But we got it all worked out and I spent this last weekend building it so now we're all set. Luckily it seems as though it was just in time as the ground was covered in snow this morning. 

Anyhow, that's what we're up to these days. We will be blogging much more frequently now I hope. 

Thanks for stopping by and drop us a line!

-Richard