stubsadventures

For a second day of adventuring, Josh and I headed to Niagara Falls to do some shopping and take a quick drive by of the falls. After making a few clutch purchases, we headed for a good meal before heading into Oakville to visit my two other cousins and my Aunt (Josh’s brothers and mom). Josh just got this new badass ramp, so he can get into a lot more places that aren’t accessable. It isn’t nearly as big as you might think and was pretty easy to carry. Spending time with family seems to not happen as often as I would like these days. There is nothing better than sitting around and trading stories for an evening with people who have known you since your birth.  Which I got to do a couple of evenings on this trip.

Leaving Toronto is always hard. I am liking the city more and more all the time and I love being around my cousins there. This time, I made it a little easier on myself by flying back to Alberta with Poncho. I picked her up in a stretch limo to ride to the airport in to celebrate her engagement with. She was so surprised when it pulled up, I could actually hear her shrieking before the limo came to a complete stop. I was crying I was laughing so hard. The trip has been filled with relaxation, hosting some of Poncho’s old friends for dinner one night, going on a big group hike, eating good good, moving furniture, drinking wine with amazing Cochrane chocolate, dips in the hot tub, stories of adventures, picture sharing and lots and lots of laughs.

Coming home was also sweet because I got to check out my den which had been redone. I found a guy named Chris Hamilton in Cochrane who is amazing and did all the work that is in the pictures. Next, he is going to refinish my bedroom!

Stubs.

After arriving safely in Toronto after an awesome airplane nap, I spent the evening watching football with two guys who had some skin in the game. It was actually the first time all season that I got to watch an NFL game. So far, there is no TV at the resort.

This morning, I got up and roamed around Younge St and people watched while Josh got ready. There are A LOT of crazies in Toronto. One guy stopped me, grabbed my arm and told me that I looked exactly like his sister and it was blowing his mind how that was even possible. I would guess that he was about 65 years old, *shot to ego* until, I walked away from him and a couple stopped me and asked me if he had told me he was a brain surgeon because that was what he had told them. Awesome start to the day. Then I sat in Rachel’s Coffee House and had an really good vanilla latte.

Josh just got a new van and it was time to give it a run for its money, we left the city and headed straight north. We first stopped in Beaverton and got out and walked along the lake. It was a gorgeous sunny day, without any wind. A nice change from the snow I left in Alberta.

From there, we headed to one of the coolest neighbourhoods I have ever seen, a place called Lagoon City. It is a little place filled with man-made channels that all the houses back onto. There was every kind of house there, from budget townhouses to multimillion dollar houses and each one of them backed onto the lagoon.

The entire day, we ended up driving the entire way around Lake Simcoe. I got to see lots of old buildings and a tree filled with shoes. I’d say that’s a pretty good success.

Stubs.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with madness. So much has happened around the house, it’s hard to comprehend. I am thrilled with the progress but exhausted at the long hours and physical work that has been required to get to this point. My eye is on the prize though and I know that the end is getting near, although I am perfectly aware there never really is an end to the work.

Luckily to break up this marathon of work, I am heading to Toronto for a few days of quality family time. I have been to Toronto quite a few times in the last 18 months. Last May, my cousin Josh became a quadriplegic after diving off a boat in Ontario. In a family where the cousin list seems to be growing daily, Josh and I have always been close, our birthdays are one day apart.

I have gone to Toronto to celebrate his milestones with him. The first time I went was after his release from the ICU. The first time I saw him, he was in physio for the first time and I’ll never forget how reassured I was when I saw his crazy bearded face smile. He was a bit of a mountain man, but he was determined. Our visit was filled with days of sitting in the hospital with him and trying to figure out what he was saying through his tube. One word he has always been able to communicate clearly has been a four letter word starting with the word “f”. No coincidence, trust me.

Over the last year and a bit I have been amazed at his strength and determination and constant need for presents. You can’t cry but you can bring him presents. He is the first to put smiles on the faces of those around them and through all of his challenges he has been the one to reassure everyone that he was going to be ok. We’re closer today than we have ever been. Plus, Josh’s brothers are two of possibly the cutest kids I have ever met and just as much as I love spending Josh, I like hanging out with them and listening to what is new with them.

This trip to Toronto is all about adventures. I am getting that kid out of the city and into the fresh air. We’re not quite sure how this is going to work yet but we can sure that at the very least it will be a gong show. And, I will blog about it.

I’ve attached a couple of pictures from the house.. the completed pictures are to come soon.

Stubs

Poncho is coming to visit soon and I thought I would celebrate by posting some of my favorite pics of us from 2005 on… enjoy.

Stubs.

There are so many aspects to this house that I’m still discovering things all the time. One of the things that I discovered the first time I came to look at the house but have chosen to ignore until this weekend, was the outhouse. A real, legit outhouse. Until this weekend, I have never even opened the door, pretty much just afraid of what I would find. I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite clean actually and very much in working order. Unfortunately, it is right now where I will eventually put my new garage, so at some point in the future, it will have to come down. Which begs the questions, how on earth do you go about getting rid of an outhouse?

I’ve been doing a lot of hiking in the trails around my house. On any given day, I’m hiking between 5-15km. I very seldom pass another person and based on the amount of spider webs I’ve walked through in the last little while, the trails are not always well worn. It’s hard to walk around and make a lot of noise to keep the cougars away, so your supposed to sing or talk loudly as your walking and apparently that’s usually enough to help you avoid an encounter. The problem is, you feel like a crazy person walking through the middle of the woods with no one around singing to yourself. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I could sing but I don’t even like the sound of my voice and with my luck, I’d get attacked just because the cougar would want that terrible sound coming out of my mouth to stop. Instead, I yell really loud commands to Caper because that doesn’t seem quite so bad in my head, just Caper thinks I’m crazy is all. That I can handle.

Stubs.