Our New House - Week 3 Update

We left Sudbury at 8:30 this morning after a short stay although we did manage to visit the grandparents just before leaving. I took pretty much the usual route home: Hwy 69/400 to Barrie, then Hwy 27 to Pete's Donuts, then turned right towards Hockley Valley. While there we encountered a mass or 20 or so cyclist riding together and slowing traffic down for some 6-8 kilometers. That must have really pissed off some motorcyclists. From there we went through Orangeville, Arthur, Shakespeare all the way down to Woodstock where I arrived on fumes.

We got to Woodstock at almost 3pm to look at the progress on our house. To our amazement, this week the whole framework was in place, majority of the windows were installed and a couple of doors were also there. The floor on the main floor was also there for us to take a walk through the house.

Front view.

Rear view.

After a few minutes of taking in the sights we set off to Branford where we'd visit Darryl and Erin and their 9-month old twins Vincent and Avery. As always, it was an enjoyable visit. We finally made it home at 10:30 pm, just in time to get to bed and get ready for another week of work.

Quick Trip Out of Town

A couple of weeks ago, Heather and I decided to get away from town after all the hoopla of the previous month or more. So if we are going to get away we might as well go all the way and so we drove to Sudbury right after work. We arrived in Sudbury at 11pm and stayed up for about an hour. Today, we left home after 9am and headed to the driving range to loosen up. We also stopped for breakfast at Tim Hortons.

After the driving range, we all went to a new Wal-Mart store just to waste some time before arriving at Stonehill Golf Course at 11:30, well ahead of our noon tee time. The day was very hot and we were glad that we booked power carts as even on a comfortable day, the golf course is very challenging to walk through.

Stonehill Golf Course.

We kept score on and off for most of the day. Heather and Sandy stopped playing midway through the back nine while Jim and I laboured through the entire 18 holes. We arrived at the clubhouse at 4:30pm. Our reward after such an exhausting day was a great supper at Casey's. We spent the rest of the evening watching movies at home.

Greg & Justyna's Wedding

Greg and Justyna's special day was finally here. For Heather and I that day arrived well before 5am since we had to go to pick Agnes in Elmira and take them to downtown Waterloo for a 6am hair appointment. I was also then in charge of doing a quick Starbucks run with a list from all the five girls in the wedding party. Since I don't frequent Starbucks, only detailed written instructions will help me in getting what is needed.

The other four guys in the wedding party joined me sometime later at my parents' place where the photographer and videographer recorder our preparations. The limo picked us up at around 11am and took us to church for the noon ceremony. The girls arrived right at noon and the ceremony started a couple of minutes later.

The bride and groom.

Once the ceremony concluded it was off to the Sun Life building in Kitchener for some photos. Since the bride and groom both work there, we were able to get indoors and it helped since there was a persistent mist throughout most of the afternoon. The process of shooting photos was very long since we had nearly 4 hours to kill before the start of the reception.

The photos were bound to get silly.

After we finally made it to the reception, we partied well into the night but a grueling day finally got to us and Heather and I left at 12:30am. Congratulation Greg and Justyna!

Our New House - Week 2 Update

I quickly drove to Woodstock after work today as Heather was off preparing for the wedding. The additions this week included first level floor and a wall in the rear of the house.

You can track the entire progress of the building process here.

Front view.

Rear view.

Rehearsal Night

It's only a few days from the wedding of my brother Greg to Justyna and today was their rehearsal and dinner. We actually had dinner first at a King's Buffet in Kitchener. Our party included the wedding party, parents and a handful of family members that are here from Poland for this special occassion.

The rehearsal was at 7:30pm and thanks to Greg, the guys looked sharp and in sync for that event.

Agnes, Heather, Justyna, Margi and Ildiko.

Wojtek, Tom, Greg, Mark and Mike.

Our New House - First Update

What will be a weekly occurence, we drove to Woodstock this morning to check on the progress of our new home. We were pleased to see construction was well under way as the foundation was already in place.

The foundation of our home.

After taking in the sights and quickly dropping in to say hello to our real estate agent, I took Heather deeper into Woodstock to explore the town and things it had to offer. As we left our future neighbourhood we saw a motorcyclist approaching us. However, I was the only one to notice as he dropped some things which I identified as gloves. I pulled over and walked over and sure enough found both gloves. The unlucky biker came back to pick up his belongings which apparently also included a half-smoked cigarette. Clearly, multi-tasking while navigating a vehicle is a difficult thing for a lot of people.

We continued a couple of kilometers down the road where I parked the car since the road ahead was closed. The reason for the closure was soapbox derby. Unfortunately, we came just after they had ended and didn't see any kids in action.

Soapbox derby track.

We kept walking and eventually made it to a local park where the annual weekend-long Cowapalooza festival was taking place. The festival is sort of an homage to the town being the Dairy Capital of Canada, which was once home a record-milk-producing cow, the Springbank Snow Countess. The festival featured the above mentioned soapbox derby racing, dancing competitions, several vendors, fun for kids and of course cows, although it didn't have, to my disappointment, a cow-milking station. Maybe next year we can also catch the Bee Beard Festival in nearby Aylmer.

Cowapalooza Festival in Woodstock, ON.

We're definitely looking forward to further discovering our new hometown.

The Move-Out Is Complete

It was an early start to the day on this holiday Monday. Tomorrow is the closing date of our condo so we wanted to be moved out by end of the day today. We picked up a 14' U-Haul truck at 7am and an hour or so later Mike came by to give us a hand with loading our belongings onto the truck. My parents also came and offered their help. Once we were done with the condo we drove to my parents' place to unload our bed, had a quick lunch and headed to Woodstock shortly before noon. Mike followed Heather and I in his van to our storage unit in Woodstock and unloading the truck didn't take as long as loading it but it was still difficult on a very hot day.

After we finished, we went our separate ways and Heather and I had returned the truck back to U-Haul by 3pm. But just before that happened, I managed to make Heather's day by unintentionally slamming on the brakes causing her to spill a carton of chocolate milk all over her shirt.

And now we wait for the next four months...

Standing in an empty condo after the accident.