Brady’s expectation for the first day of the deck build was to hopefully get the posts and beam up and standing. And thanks to friends dropping by unexpectedly TWICE, we got WAY further!!!

At the end of day one, we had posts up, beam built and attached, everything levelled, AAAAAND joists went up!!! Doesn’t it look wonderful?

We slept HARD last night, for obvious reasons, which made our early morning wake up with Solly just a little more painful, haha! But we drank a lot of coffee and made it happen. I headed for the church around 8:30 and Carrie and I practiced music for the morning worship time. It went smoothly enough that we could run through it twice! Win! I went home in between practice and church and we got the kids dressed and ready. Its such a different vibe all of a sudden. Church used to be so much more difficult but the kids actually really anticipate it now! Apparently they’ve been missing it as much as we have been.

Singing went well, and the kids were really good during church. Dekker went to childrens church and for the first time EVER, we had to find him after the service because he didn’t come searching for us right away. We found him downstairs playing hockey with other kids 🙂 Its so good to see him so happy, being busy and playful with other kids, both bigger and smaller than him. Thats a big success for him.

After church, we drove to the city for lunch and to pick up a couple of small things we needed to keep the work rolling this afternoon. I had ice cream and fries. Together. Dipped. It was delicious. But we were eager to get home, get the little boys napping, and head back outside to work some more.

Laela joined us again today, but not Dekker. He just HATES the noise of the saw and the drill, so he prefers to stay in. It was fine by me, though. He played Lego happily, while Laela came out and played with the rocks, passed us screws as needed, etc.

It is now supper time, and the wind has really picked up. I’m thinking the rain is on its way, so we’re going to take a break for the evening. But we are doing well, progress-wise 🙂 We got the joist spacer blocks in, and we got the front of the joists all trimmed evenly and face put on it. We did a couple of little tweaks on yesterday’s work as well. I started the job of covering the entire top of the frame with joist tape, but that is a long tedious job thats going to take more time. At least I started it, right? I feel like we got less done today, but I was happy to be able to get behind the chop saw a time or two. Makes me feel like I’m actually participating. Win for me!

It’ll be a nice restful evening around here, which is probably more needed than I think. Brady and I are both scratching at the door to keep rolling, but the weather and our sore bodies are helping us make our decision to stay in. So a yummy supper after the kids go to bed is in order, followed by some cards and a soak. Yes!! This has been SUCH a good weekend!

Brady and I woke up early this morning. We had coffee in bed and watching some Netflix while the rest of the house slept. I got up about an hour before I had to be in the city, and got myself together. When I left around 8:45am, it was already 16C outside. Windy, yes, but so nice and warm!

Stop #1 was at the Hairstyle Inn at Lawson, where my girl Carlinna did yet another hair tattoo on the buzzed chunk of my head. I always want to say my shaved side, but then that sounds like I shave the sides of my body, which I do not. Sooooo to clarify, I mean my head hair. She hit it out of the park once again, and I left feeling fresh and done.

I didn’t have too much to do while I was out, so I grabbed a bit vanilla sweet cream cold brew at Starbucks and drove to my next place. Rona. For the record, we do almost nothing at Rona, but they had joist tape/seal, and for some reason, neither did Home Depot. So I grabbed a few rolls of that, as well as a tape measure for myself. It was a pretty quick trip in.

My last stop was Costco, where I grabbed a few groceries. I ran into a friend who I haven’t spent time with in a solid 10+ years, and we chatted for a few minutes. It was far too short, though. I’m glad she’s back in town for a little while. I’m very much hoping we get to spend some time together soon! So that was a definite highlight of the morning.

Upon coming home, everyone was playing together before having lunch.

Soon, the little boys were going down for naps, and Dekker was feeling pretty tired and wanted to play Lego in the living room. So, with it being a pretty ideal set up, Brady and I invited Laela to come outside with us, and we started getting the deck going!

 

Laela wanted to help as much as possible, which was super cute. She was out there in a nightie, rubber boots, and a hat, passing us screws, bringing water bottles, and just because she could, filling the little holes in the socket wrenches with dirt. She only bought the job of “putting the rocks in a pile” for a few minutes, haha! Really, she was just so so cute.

I’m kind of laughing at myself now for getting my hair done today, and even putting makeup on, only to be getting dusty and sweaty so soon after. But hey, I felt like a lady for a couple of hours there! Hahaha!

As life with kids would have it, Solly woke up, so I’m inside now. Its good though. While I was checking in on Dekker constantly, when I told him I was coming in to stay, he was so happy, and told me he really missed me. I wasn’t a huge help outside, but I did help some, and conveniently, one of our neighbours came by right as I was thinking I’d go inside and offered to help! So that timed out just about perfectly!! I’m so thankful for the help of willing friends 🙂

Our last deck build was in Radisson. We had one child at the time – Dekker – and he napped a TON. Its a much different dynamic with multiple children to keep track of, but its all going to get done in good time, still. AND more people will enjoy it in the end as well.

I’m feeling so optimistic today. I give credit to God, Carlinna, my friend at Costco, Brady, the kids, our neighbours, and vitamin D! I hope for many more good days like today 🙂

Don’t ask me why the titles. I do not know. It just keeps happening.

In case you couldn’t quite get it from the title, we got our deck piles poured this morning!! Brady stayed home so he could be part of it and make sure things went according to plan before heading off to work. Not only was it nice having him home in the morning so the little ones could sleep a little longer, but it was nice to have him oversee the pouring of the piles as well. I stuck my head out on and off as well, but Solly was up so I was somewhat preoccupied.

Regardless of my participation in the project, it got done!

I’m sorry to say my blog has been fighting me HARD on pictures recently 🙁 I’m going to have to reload my laptop and see if that helps, because for the life of me, I CANNOT load any pictures onto this post. Grrrrr…

As the pour went on, the concrete set up nice and fast! We are allowed to build on it much sooner than we originally thought, so thats super exciting!! I can’t wait to get out there and pull my weight a bit. I LOVE building and doing projects and being handy. I just don’t always have the opportunity, but I hope to have some chances this time 🙂 Yay! The deck!

As I’m typing this, our materials are being unloaded into my garage. The delivery guy is noticeably pissed that he has to actually do physical work rather than just driving the load in, since a chunk of our garage is storing our basement stuff and he doesn’t have the space to drive the long pieces in. I think he’ll survive. I usually really take it upon myself to try to make everyone happy, but in this case, I just want my deck materials. This is the same guy who delivered my frost wall package and asked if I could move the stuff in my garage. Its like, floor to ceiling in some places. Its not possible. So he, once again, suffered under our brutal working conditions.

I’m SO excited to have this in the works! You guys know this. Its really all I’ve talked about. So Brady and I will be out in the yard likely every evening for the next several days. Feel free to drop by and help, or chat, or both, anytime 🙂

Today is the day! The piles for our highly anticipated deck are being built!

To make matters even better, the sun is out, and  beautiful, and HOT, and its just making me that much more ready to stretch out on my deck and relax while my children play outside. So, so ready.

To make matters slightly worse, our pile drilling guy broke one of his bobcats extension bits 😬 So that kind of super sucks. To be fair, we knew the risk was there. We have only heard ridiculous things about how rocky our area of town is, and we did warn him. This is why we didn’t want to hire anyone we knew personally. It would feel SO bad having that happen to a friend on our behalf. Even not knowing our pile guy, we still feel bad, but again, he was forewarned, so we don’t feel quite AS bad.

As I’m writing this, Brady is outside observing the work of the very last hole being dug! Its taken much longer than we expected, and likely longer than they expected as well. But its getting there! The pouring of the concrete is happening tomorrow morning, which I’m SO excited about! Our deck package is also being delivered tomorrow, so after that, its all up to us!! Brady and I are both itching to get out there and build our deck. He randomly has a few days off next week, so we’re hoping to find childcare here and there so we can duck out and work on the deck in the days. But if not, evenings post-bedtime will be fine, too. We’re just SO excited!!

The missing link at the moment is the railing. We haven’t ordered it yet!! Eek! Not ideal, obviously, but I kind of missed the memo that we hadn’t ordered it, and now its behind :/ But we have to run a few things by someone else before ordering it, and that person has an INCREDIBLY busy week ahead, so we haven’t wanted to pester him too much. Hopefully we get over it and willingly pester him soon, haha! I want my deck accessible to everyone! Decksessible! Get it? You get it.

So we wait. But we also don’t wait too long, because the process has FINALLY begun!!! I’ll update more tomorrow, obviously, because POURING PILES!

I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I’d be quite so excited about concrete…

While today wasn’t technically a school day for Dekker, it was the day that the kindergarteners had their assembly. It was open to parents and whoever else opted to come watch, so Brady decided to go to work late in order to come. This way, we could also bring all the kids along a bit easier. My dad also joined us, but my mom is away visiting family. It was nice to be surrounded by other parents, and see other members of their family. I was happy to bring mine along too, and to show them off. Solly was quite enamoured with the woman sitting next to us, but not quite as enamoured as she was with him! It was a cute little bond they formed in the half hour ish that they knew each other.

The kids did a great job. Dekker didn’t do much for actions at all, but he said the poems and sang the song. He was the most amped about a video they put together. He only spilled the beans on that one yesterday. In the video, each kid in the kindergarten grade said what they thought it meant to be a good friend. Dekker was the last one in the video, and closed it off with something along the lines of “Being a good friend means sharing your toys,” which is true 🙂 They all looked super cute and did a great job. I’d post pictures but we were asked not to, which makes sense. Not everyone wants their kids faces on the internet, no judgement from me!

Leaving the school was a bit confusing, in part because there were just so many people, but also because all of the kindergarten students filed back into their classroom and just started playing and settling in. Dekker seemed pretty convinced that he was staying, but was super happy when I told him he could come home and play with us for the day. It’s a shame that Brady couldn’t stay home today, but its not something we were expecting, so it wasn’t too shocking when he hustled into the house and got his work clothes on. Off he went!

Since I had the pleasure of waking everyone up from a dead sleep this morning, the two little boys have been napping since around 11:30am. They were both trashed and bawling and ready. The big ones are playing in the basement and we’ll soon have lunch and watch some Netflix. They will, anyway. I’m anxiously waiting for the pile digging guy to come!! Digging today, and pouring tomorrow. I’m SO excited for that to go down! Literally.

I am tired, once again, from an earlier than necessary wake up (thanks for that, Solly) that I couldn’t fall back to sleep after. But I feel good about today. And the rest of the week. Positivity, folks! Keep trying!

Good job at your assembly, Dekker!! I’m SO proud of you being so brave up in front of so many people!

I’m sure you’ve noticed how a good nights sleep can greatly improve a persons mental health. Its definitely not a secret. Well this morning, I was awake from 4:30 on. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the day (not well, anyway) so I changed my alarm and managed to get a quick nap from 7:15-7:40. After that, I quickly got Dekker up and fed and dressed before school. This week, my mom is away. She often comes to my house and sits in it while I take Dekker to and from school, but it obviously isn’t an always type of thing, so I’m not too worried. But after my weirdly early morning, I’ll be honest and say I was feeling pretty low. The day felt bleak. The rest of the week did, too. Not only was I tired this morning, but I had to get all of the kids up early, so they were also tired.

I’ve had a heavy heart the last few days already. So many people I know are losing babies 😞 It is so so sad, and while I don’t want to take away from their pain at all, it is breaking my heart all over for them. So for several days, I’ve found myself feeling quite sorrowful for those around me – people I know currently, or knew a long time ago, or don’t even know at all but have heard about through others. So many people are grieving losses of babies they were carrying, or who have been dreaming of but haven’t been able to carry, or who have already carried their baby and held it and loved on it into its life. So. Much. Sadness.

My heart goes back to the people who shared with me months ago that they too had suffered a miscarriage recently. I haven’t forgotten you ladies, or your families. I wonder about you, still, and I can honestly say I pray for you when you come to mind. I wonder if you’re trying to get pregnant again, or can’t even fathom the thought, or are privately pregnant and aren’t ready (or even planning) to share it with the world. I still ache for you guys. You helped me feel normal in the weird, surreal world of losing a baby. I am thankful I wasn’t alone, but I wish I were the only person who EVER had to feel that pain. I HATE that so many of you feel it.

I feel fairly helpless in the whole mess of things, because I’m just me. I am a single person. And while I do believe that ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, I am my own hot mess. I’m in my own struggle. But we can help people when we’re down, right? Right?? I don’t know. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

So I’ve been carrying these feelings around, and this morning just felt like too much. I was pretty nervous for the day. But we all survived drop off this morning, and Solly lasted until his noon nap time without falling asleep, so that was a win! I hauled my kids over to my friends house for the afternoon, so Laela was occupied and played with other kids while the little boys slept. We had a nice girl talk and were eventually joined by another friend and a couple more kids. It was EXACTLY what my heavy heart needed. Some good solid distraction, friends, play, and a change of scenery.

Even just resting my body and mind for a couple of hours has made a drastic difference in the way my heart feels. I’m still sad, and in mourning for myself, my family, and the many many people around me who are sad. But I feel like my day is more doable. I feel like tomorrow will be ok, where as I felt this morning like we’d never make it to Friday. But we will. We have lots to anticipate and be happy about.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us REJOICE and be glad in it!

FOUR YEARS AGO, it was at this time that Radisson flooded. I wanted to link up old posts but for some reason, lots of the photo links are broken, and they’re not exactly up to snuff. But I don’t need pictures to remember it well. We were gone for a weekend trip to visit family in Edmonton, and we arrived home late into the evening. It was dark, but we could see that we’d had a LOT of snow. The next morning, Brady left for work bright and early, as the snow was beginning to melt. I woke up a couple of hours later to the sound of people talking in my yard. You guys might remember all of this. I threw on a hoodie and sweats and made my way out there. A group of thirty or so people were in my yard, making a game plan of how to save my house from flooding, literally filling the basement with water.

By the end of that first day, we were surrounded by water. Our whole yard was filled with water, with sandbags surrounding the house tightly. Water was still waking its way through, but not as much as it would have without the sandbag barrier. Water splashed up against our basement windows. Volunteers hauled most of our basement into our living room, happily and willingly. We were on the news, more than a couple of times. So was Dekker, in his jammies. I was 4-5 months pregnant with Laela at the time. It was a long time ago, but its still so fresh in my memory.

God protected us. We didn’t get a drop of water in our home through that whole experience. I want to write about this today, because as my Facebook memories tell me, today was the day that I finally lost it. It all felt pretty surreal for the first few days, and we were powering through. But it was this day, four years ago, that I had my breakdown about the flood. I panicked and cried and went over every possible awful scenario in my head. It was a low low time. Probably one of the hardest things we had gone through at that time. I felt so isolated and afraid. But God was in control.

Like I said, that was so long ago, and we’ve wader through far deeper waters since then. FAR deeper. But God hasn’t bailed on us yet, keeping our heads above water, or at least bringing them back up when we dip down a little too deep at times. My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do.

It actually felt like spring today! And yesterday, I suppose. Yesterday was bike day, and today we actually made it to church!

I picked cute clothes out for the kids last night already so everything would go quicker this morning. Brady got showered and ready, and then he hung out with the kids through breakfast while I got myself ready. Its our usual Sunday morning routine. As per that usual routine, as I came downstairs, everyone seemed to be in a bit of a crazy rush, playfully running around half dressed while Brady was packing up the diaper bag. I fell into my usual role of wrangling the kids into the boys room and getting them all dressed. This is how it always goes. We’re always scattered and scrambling as we leave, barely making it to church on time. Today felt exactly the same!

Until we were loaded in the van 25 minutes early.

Sigh.

It was such a strange problem to have, haha! We were totally caught off guard, and then a bit stumped about what to do! It was definitely too early to go to church, but there wasn’t enough time to actually bring everyone back in after all the hubbub of buckling them into their seats and such. So instead, we aged about fifty years, and just drove to church reeeaaallyyyyy slowwwwwlyyyyy.

Obviously, we were nicely settled when everyone started making their way into church. It wasn’t bad 🙂 We lived. The kids were all super cute and well behaved. Except Solly. He was SO loud and SO wriggly and was just NOT wanting to be held. He wanted to jump and yodel. He wanted to play with his shoes but did NOT want to sit down to do it. He was just too busy for church today, haha! I ended up standing with him in the back for most of the service, which isn’t super conducive to being at church and listening, but I ended up chatting a little bit with a couple of other young moms from our church who I don’t often get a chance to visit with. I really enjoyed it 🙂

After church, we had my parents over for the day. We had waffles and fruit and breakfast sausage for lunch, and spent the afternoon playing cards and listening to the rain. It was really really nice. It felt like exactly what Sunday should feel like.

Of course, now, because its Sunday, and Sunday always wipes our kids out, I can hear everyone dissolving down in the living room. Its been a good, relaxed day, but Sunday routines (or lack there of) tend to tire everyone out really well. I know I’m tired as well.

Not bed time yet though! First the kids. Then squats. (gross) Then a soak. Then bed time.

Have a great night, everyone! I hope you have good long sleeps to bring in your weeks 🙂

In my mornings of research, I’ve been keeping an eye on a number of websites in hopes of finding bikes for Brady and I. Dekker has been begging to go for bike rides already, and we figured it was time we all got bikes so we could go as a group. Just about everything is more fun as a group 🙂

A couple of days ago, I finally found a bike that met Brady’s request. He had an idea in his head, and it appeared to not be the popular thing, because it was nowhere to be found, at least not without spending waaay too much money! He and I both wanted a cruiser bike, but that was particularly hard to find in mens bikes. But I found it! Finally! It was within our price range as well, so we decided to go out this morning and see if we could get Brady a bike, and myself as well.

Canadian Tire was the place, and I’m just going to say it right now. It had SO many bikes, but was SO poorly let up that I didn’t really know how to even start to look at them! Inside, there were tons of bikes, stacked at least three bikes high on the walls. You couldn’t really get a good look at anything up there, and it was all too full and messy and narrow to push a cart through. There was a line of bikes directly beyond he entrance door, so you couldn’t actually stand there and look without getting in the way of other customers trying to enter the store. There was a single line of bikes outside that we could actually look at, so we had to have an employee paged before we could finally pull out the bike we had come for so Brady could try it. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the option to switch gears, and the gear it was permanently set in was too high to bike slowly with little kids in tow. When we asked the employee if there were more mens cruiser bikes, he told us to go look on the wall inside. He was very uninterested in us and entirely unhelpful, so we left.

It was disappointing, but we decided to check Walmart next. They had some options online as well. Nothing as cool looking as the one at Canadian Tire, but still, options. And that was where we found Brady’s awesome new bike!!! He found a really great looking red mens cruiser. I just about opted for the ladies version of the same bike, but my mind was back at Canadian Tire on an entirely different bike. Rather than going back to where we had started, we went to a different location in hopes of finding a but more assistance. And we did!!! We managed to get me a beautiful new off-white and purple cruiser, as well as an adorable Solly-sized helmet.

But that was about where the success stopped. For the next 3+ hours, we tried to make sense of how we’d take everyone out for a bike ride. Firstly, Dekker has a bike that he can ride pretty well. But there are three others. We could get a bike trailer, and one extra seat on one of our bikes. Or two seats and a trailer. Three seats would be a hoot but probably not the smartest move. We don’t know! Everywhere we look is pretty expensive. The bike seats we’ve managed to find are on nice sales, which is great, but the trailers are just so pricey :/ We can do it, but we’d so much rather not. Guys, we looked everywhere. Today, we went into Walmart, three different Canadian Tire locations, Costco, and PBR Auctions. We called Peavy Mart and Once Upon a Child. I looked online at more sport stores but everything was even more expensive there. Kijiji had a few options but the ads I responded to didn’t write me back. We really tried, and in the end, we came home with two new beautiful bikes, a helmet, and no way to actually take the kids biking.

I’m somewhat disappointed, I won’t lie, but now my research will just shift, and I’ll keep my eyes open for trailers or seats or whatever else. As you guys all know, I’m not AT ALL opposed to second hand items, so feel free to give me a shout out if you see an amazing deal that you yourself aren’t snatching up! It’ll happen soon, I’m sure 🙂 Garage sale day is coming soon! I want to have our own garage sale, but at the same time, I’d rather be shopping. Priorities…

Brady was off work today, so we ducked into the city to get some groceries and to get Brady into chiro again. While he was in seeing Dr. Mike, I wrote on Facebook that I was getting antsy to get our deck permit, and that we’ve been waiting for three weeks. Within five minutes of writing that, Brady texted and said that the town office had just called and said they got our permit fast tracked, and it was available for pick up! I was SO thrilled.

To be fair, I still am, to a degree. I really really want a deck. Plus the permit covers our basement as well, so the work down there can continue.

However, the estimated cost of our permit was $100. And we paid over $300. I’m less than impressed.

Our permit estimated the cost of the deck and basement WAY too high. WAY too high. Like THOUSANDS of dollars more than it will actually cost. And apparently because of the amount they came up with, our permit cost WAY more than it would have otherwise.

Once we got home, Brady read through the permit and looked into appealing the cost. It says on it that we cannot appeal the cost of what we paid for the permit itself, and that if we want to appeal the actual permit in any way, its a $50 charge up front. We’re just a tad bit annoyed.

Brady called just to inquire with Municode, and they were insistent on their formula and how they got their figure. However, they encouraged Brady to keep all of our receipts and if we come in well under their expected cost, they’ll reevaluate and hopefully we’ll get a bit of money back from the town.

So. I’m miffed, but less miffed than I could be, I suppose. At least there is some hope we could get a tiny bit of money back. Also, I was worried about appealing and needed to put the whole shebang on hold, but thats not the case. So we’ll keep moving forward and getting excited! We’ll just be diligently hoarding our receipts all along the way 😉

Better call the pile digging guy! Hopefully he’s on board for setting us up next week!