Good News Club Visitor

 I have to say last week we had the most interesting visitor to Good News Club. Spencer was coming to teach and he asked if he could bring friend with him. "Uhh...well...he needs to have a police check and volunteer forms completed," David started to respond...

"Oh, not that kind of friend. He's a baby black squirrel," Spencer replied. A few days before, Spencer found the abandoned baby squirrel and  began caring for him. Since the little squirrel needs to be fed every few hours, he needed to be able to feed him right before club and after. The squirrel was kept in a secure box in the basement away from the kids during club. However, at the end of club while waiting for parents to come, Spencer brought out his friend for "show and tell". 

 I have to admit, he really is a cute little squirrel and it made for a unique feature to show the kids! I'm not sure we'll plan to make this a weekly event, however.

Spencer feeding the squirrel in our van on the way home

Basement Progress...

The last few months David has been working as fast as he can on the basement, as time allows.

 This was where things were at the beginning of January. Everything was framed in but we were waiting for the drywallers to come.

David worked hard to make wooden ceiling panels and tracking. Most of his Christmas break was spent painting and assembling the panels. Exciting times came when the ceiling panels went up!

 By March the walls were drywalled, mudded, taped, sanded and painted!

Thanks to David's dad and brother for their help with painting! Because of their help, David was able to get the whole basement and stairway painted in 2 1/2 days. 

 At the end of March, David began tiling the floor, one room at a time.

 This was followed by grouting. I only grouted 1 1/2 rooms while David did all the rest.

 The entry was the final beast to conquer as it meant that we couldn't use our front door for 24 hours. We still had 1-2 ft of snow outside the side door as we walked around the house. It makes you appreciate the "little things" in life...like using your front door!

 As of April 6, the whole basement (except for David's workshop) is now tiled and grouted!

 This is the back bedroom...getting close to being ready for guests to stay in. 

The focus now is on finishing the office so we can get to the baby room! The office now has a door to the storage/utility room and for entry. The last things needed before move-in are shelves and trim.We're getting SO CLOSE!!! There are only 8 more weeks until baby is due, so it's exciting to see the reality of a baby room getting closer. I so want to set it up and organize the things we've been given second hand and those we just received as gifts...but  it looks like I'll have to wait a few weeks until the baby's room is actually freed of our office stuff.

 Our wonderful Staff/Family of CEF Ontario held a baby shower for us in the midst of our staff meetings on Tuesday. They had communicated with David beforehand so it was a surprise to me.

 We felt so loved by this group that is so much more than co-workers. It was very strange for me as it was my last staff meeting before I start maternity leave in 5 1/2 weeks. In the meetings on Monday & Tuesday it was so exciting to hear of the things that are upcoming in the ministry but so strange to realize that I won't have an active part in them.

It was really fun to have David there to open the gits together, even though he says they are all for me (they're really for neither of us since they're for the baby) =]. He definitely brought a much funnier dynamic to opening the gifts than I do. 

This is one very loved and anticipated baby!

Battle of the Road

 Yesterday afternoon we packed up the van for the first week of Good News Club in Orillia and drove off to meet Dwane (a retired CEF worker who still does lots of work with CEF). We planned to drive down to Orillia together (~45 min drive from where we meet.)

We knew it had been raining a lot and the snow has been melting, creating lots of water. The night before, our road had some water all the way across it so we weren't overly surprised to find the road completely flooded about 200 ft from our driveway. It wasn't that deep but spread much wider than we've ever seen it, but we were able to drive through it. Phew! We made it through the flooded spot on our road we thought...





until we saw cars stopped ahead of us on the road and orange cones pylons cones and orange sticks. We were running a couple minutes behind, so David jumped out to find out what was going on. Only to be told that the road had washed out (the only road going in and out to our house). We quickly turned around, went home, called Dwane who should have been gone already but Praise the Lord was just leaving. We drove back down to wait for Dwane to pick us up (he lives 15-20 min away)

 

Since we had some time we were able to investigate and take some pictures.

 Notice how it's all eroded away underneath the road. This part of the road is dirt. While we were standing there for 15 min. we saw pieces of it suddenly drop into the rushing stream. One chunk was a foot wide.

This is the other side -where the water was flowing, bringing lots of water to who knows where.

Thankfully, we were able to make it to Good News Club and 3 boys attended, with a potential for quite a few more kids in the upcoming 5 weeks. 2 of the boys were so excited to invite their friends they took all the invitations we had with us and were fighting over how many they each got to give out. =] We praise the Lord that the other volunteers made it and amazingly, somehow with all the delay we weren't technically late for the club.

When Dwane dropped us off it was pouring rain. The township had dumped a load of materials into the area but it had already flooded back over and washed out more of the section so that it was undriveable. 

It poured rain all night so David just went to check the road (because we have a bunch of appointments we're supposed to leave for in 2 hours in Bracebridge, Barrie and Orillia). However, the verdict from David was that we won't be going anywhere anytime soon. The water across the road by our house is now about 1 foot deep (possibly still passable)...but the other section is washed out and unpassable.Also, we're supposed to continue to get quite a bit more rain over the next few days.

Hmm...this could be a very interesting week!

P.S. Our phone isn't working either :)

Last Trip Before Baby

 A few months ago we realized that if we wanted to have a last vacation before kids that we'd have to do it before the baby comes...and time enough before to be able to travel safely. We couldn't go before March Break Camp because of preparation, and then there was camp, then Slingshot scheduled...so we were able to secure a week over the Easter weekend.

The next question was...where do we go? Flying wasn't an option because of the expense so we looked for a places within a 10 hour radius of us. We settled on Cape Cod, Massachusetts even though it turned out to be a little beyond that 10 hours. My family traveled a lot when I was growing up so I knew I'd been to Massachusetts but didn't remember a whole lot.

 The beaches and ocean were beautiful. Chilly...but beautiful and free!

 We discovered lots of interesting things on the shore when the tide was out.

 The most interesting was what appeared to be a dolphin carcass. Not something we have on our beaches in Ontario!

 Yes...the baby is showing more and more!

 Here's the shadow version.

 David's trying really hard to not freeze and to be excited about the American monument to the pilgrims of Plymouth Rock.

 I knew that we saw Plymouth Rock when I was about 6 years old but I didn't remember how unimpressive and small it really is. The ironic part of this famous rock is that there's no proof that the Pilgrims even had anything to do with it. It's all based on one guy's claim 120 years after the landing!

 The building around the rock is nice though. =]

This is where the Mayflower II normally is on display (which I remember seeing as a kid), however it's still in drydock being repaired. So much for the cool history to show my Canadian husband.

More beautiful beaches to walk on.

 We hunted down a few lighthouses that were in the area, including the Nauset Lighthouse which is the inspiration for the Cape Cod chips bag.

 One of the "Three Sisters Lighthouses" that have been moved away from their original position along the shore because the coast was corroding so much they would have fallen over the edge by now!

 Aren't I huge!!!

 Or then again, maybe not.

LOBSTER INTERLUDE

 David's always wanted to make a lobster dinner so we thought "What better place than somewhere on the coast that has good lobster?!" It's a little weird to pick out your supper. I'm glad he handled that part because I don't think I could have gone through with it.

The house we rented for the week had a lobster pot! We used the salt that was easily available and were then left with all the salt packets to try to get our 1/4 cup of salt.

 Salt packets make things take much longer. =]

 Meet "Nellie" our lobster.

 How crazy to see Nellie come out red after cooking.

 Our Lobster Dinner! Complete with salad, sparkling cider and butter to dip in.

 David's excited anticipation for dinner.

 Sarah's slight apprehension for dinner.

 After Easter Sunday Service at a local church we wondered around another little town, finding another lighthouse!

 The Elisha Howland Saltbox House that we rented for the week. It was built in 1820 and restored in 2007.

 People must have been much smaller 200 years ago!

 A lot of the doorways were too short for David, including the "ladder stairs". The stairs were so steep that you had to hold the rope on the side to get up.

 Going up and down the steep stairs with a baby bump made it even more interesting. I was glad I was 6 months pregnant and not 9! The family that built the house lived there 200 years ago had 6 kids. What a brave woman that must have been!

 When you come up the stairs you have to keep your head down or you'll get a good bonk...even Sarah!

 One nice feature of having a small house was that the low kitchen counters fit under my baby bump!

 The fireplace looked a whole lot bigger on the website than in person. =]

 The last day it warmed up to 12*C/50*F...warm enough to sit and read on the beach!

Time to go home to reality.