Father’s Day 2018

We enjoyed a wonderful day celebrating Dad on Father’s Day. 

We love you so much Dad/Grandpa!!  Happy Father’s Day!

Ribfest 2018

The town that Mom and Dad live in hosts an annual Ribfest early in June and we have been going to this event with Mom and Dad since Hannah was a toddler.  This year Uncle Dave, Auntie Trish and their kiddos were able to go as well.  A great time was had by all!

I love this fun picture of Hannah!

LOL – when dusty little hands need to be wiped, why not use Mommy’s jeans?  Kallen you are a monkey.

Learning a Little More

For a while I’ve wanted to do a DNA test with Hannah to see if I could find out any new information for her.  I ordered a kit for her and she was excited! 

I had been concerned about what I would say to her but I need not have been concerned.  She saw the box and exclaimed, ‘I’ve wanted to do this!’  LOL – and we were off!

Part 1 was filling the tube with spit.  LOL – my girl did great!  She was on a mission.

Afterwards we mixed it up; sealed it up;

And mailed it off.

Her results were ready in about 2 weeks and I remember my heart beating quickly as I prepared to open them.  I said a quick prayer as I knew what I read there could change things as we knew them.

In the end the results were wonderful and I learned so much!  Not a huge surprise but I found out that she is 100% Chinese.  What was interesting was to see what parts of Chinese ancestors make up my sweet girl.

The health portion was great as it was a way to find out more about Hannah.  I laughed when it said things like she likely had a Photic Sneeze Reflex.   This means she is likely to sneeze in the sun and she does – just like me – and her Grandma!  LOL!  God gave us all similar traits!

Something new that was recently added (they are constantly updating their website and things tested) and it say she is more likely to be bitten by mosquitoes.  Sadly that’s true. 

Some results were also off by a bit like the one that says she probably has light skin pigmentation.  Umm, nope.  I wouldn’t consider her to be light.

All in all I am so very thankful that we did this!!  As of right now there are 514 other DNA relatives related to Hannah that have also completed the testing.  To date the closest DNA relative to her is a third or fourth cousin but this can change as more people participate. 

For those considering doing this I would highly recommend it!  If you are interested in ordering a kit, please let me know and I’m happy to send a link to you.

Happy 50th Anniversary Uncle Tim and Aunt Chris!

It was wonderful to get together with family to celebrate Uncle Tim and Aunt Chris’ 50th Wedding Anniversary.  What an amazing time of celebration!

It has been a long-time standing joke that Aunt Chris can find loose change anywhere!  When they arrived at the party we welcomed them with a ‘red carpet’ of loose change.  Too funny!

Uncle Tim is Dad’s youngest brother.  It was great that all 3 brothers and his sister were together.

Aunt Chris’ sisters were there too.  Neat to have a picture of all of their brothers and sisters together.

Happy 50th Anniversary Uncle Tim and Aunt Chris!  We love you!!

Hannah’s 9th Birthday!

Hannah celebrated her 9th birthday late in February!  (No, we are not mentioning or discussing the rumour that she will be in double digits next year!  La la la la la….I can’t hear you!)

The weekend before her birthday was a weekend of celebrations starting with her birthday party with friends at a local pottery painting store.    Hannah truly does have a wonderful group of friends!  So thankful for these girls!

Hannah and her cousin Makenna.  They are the best of friends!

The girls’ creations turned out so well! 

The party hosts at the pottery place helped Hannah create this beautiful keepsake plate. 

It has her handprint in the centre and the fingerprints of each of her friends around the outside.  A treasure for sure!

After we left her birthday party with friends we headed to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a family birthday party.  Mommy totally forgot to take family pictures.  D’oh!!

The following afternoon we celebrated her 9th birthday with Nana and Papa!

My sweet 8 yo who would wake up (lol….earlier than I’d anticipated!!) as a 9yo!

Hannah woke up at 4am and then was too excited to go back to sleep!  What’s one to do when you’re open at 4am on your birthday?  Why, open presents of course!!  Her eyes about popped when I asked her if she wanted to open her presents in the middle of the night! 

Hannah’s final birthday celebration was supper at her favourite restaurant with Grandma and Grandpa on. her birthday

Happy 9th Birthday Hannah!  You are loved by so many and are such a blessing to us all!  WE LOVE YOU!!! xoxoxoxo

Finally Complete! Flood Reconstruction Done

This post has taken me a while to write as the rebuild was completed in late May, 11 weeks after the flood, and I’m finally finding the time to write it.  I can’t express the relief that we felt once all of the rebuild was complete and our lives could get back to normal.

Our challenges all started March 8th when I walked into our home to find water streaming from the second floor down into the first then down from there into the basement.

I will say that once the rebuild started it moved at a great pace.  The delay to start was mainly caused by waiting for budget approval and then from there for flooring to arrive and once it was ready.  I hired the the company who did the cleanup to do the rebuild as they’d been so amazing with the first part!  They moved everything along at a great pace!

The first big fix was to repair the huge hole in the first floor ceiling.  About 6 weeks after the flood it went from this

to this one day 1

to this on day 2 as it was still drying.

When the ceiling was being sprayed little bits of it bled down onto the walls

which meant an unexpected surprise that the entire main floor would be repainted!  Woot!!  I chose to keep it neutral and just lightened it up a bit.

Once the painting was done it was time to install the flooring.  In order to do this everything needed to be packed up and I have to sing the praises of the restoration company as they came in and packed up everything in our entire 2 upper floors.  What a blessing it was to have this done for me and not need to do it myself!  Each evening Hannah and I would come home and guess what our house looked like.  There were only 2 nights that we needed to stay with my parents which was pretty amazing considering absolutely everything we owned was packed away.

Living Room

Kitchen and eating area

Hannah’s room when it was being used for storage.  (LOL – yes, she made a game of making her way into the rooms each evening when we checked out the changes.)

Then the following day as they were laying the carpeting in her room.  I can’t imagine how many people it must have taken to pack and move everything and it was all seamless to me.  I’d leave for work and it would look one way and I’d return to a completely new home.  All of this was coordinated by the restoration company and I am SO grateful!!

Friday night I was just hoping that we would be able to stay in our home for the weekend.  You can imagine my excitement and awe when we walked into THIS!  Yes….I cried!  Even the beds were made!  I was so relieved that after 11 long weeks our lives were finally going to be back to normal!

Playroom as a storage room

The playroom

Mommy’s Room stuffed to the gills!  This was what it looked like Friday morning when I left for work…

And this was what I came home to 9 hours later!!!  EVERYTHING was back in it’s place!!! There were more tears when I walked into my room.  (I’ll admit there were even tears the first night when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, just being able to FINALLY put my feet on the floor without having to find shoes or slippers first.)

The final room to be renovated was the washroom where the flood started.  The renovation company had hoped to keep a functioning bathroom in our house each night but the night I arrived home to this and I realized that that hadn’t happened!  This is what I saw when I opened my garage door.   LOL – of course this was also the night that my piano students were coming to my house for lessons!  Oops! I sent out some quick texts to let them know that the house would be without facilities.   Then ran to a local McD’s to use their facilities as it would be an option for the next 3 1/2 hours!!

Because the bathroom vanity sat in water for over 24 hours the insurance company replaced it and what a treat it was to move from the 4 door cabinet

to a new one with drawers!  Such a treat and I’m so happy with this new piece of furniture!

The very last step was to have the new couch delivered that had been sitting in storage for almost 2 months.  Our former couch (aka: the Big Blue Sponge) was old;

the filler love seat was tiny;

but oh…the new couch (with recliners!!) is wonderful! 

It was a LONG, somewhat challenging few months as we recovered from the flood but now that all is said and done and it is behind us, it was a blessing in disguise.  I would not wish this on anyone but now our 20 year old home is fresh again and we couldn’t be happier!!

A big shout out to so many who helped us through this!!  There are too many to name (and I know I’d accidentally forget someone!) but, you know who you are and please know from the depths of our hearts, how thankful Hannah and I are!!