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.

Soccer Season Wrap-up

My second season of coaching house league soccer came to an end today as my U-15 girls team bowed out in semifinals. We reached semifinals by finishing fourth in an 8-team round robin consisting of four games. The girls gave their all in all the games which included a game on Wednesday, Friday and two on Saturday. Sunday morning's game was also very hard fought but unfortunately our opponent scored the game's only goal late in the second half.

My team, however, was still rewarded with a medal for reaching semifinals. I also bought all 14 of my girls a gift card to Marble Slab for a cone of ice cream. Thank you Brooke, Michelle, Katherine, Leah, Heather, Isabelle, Melissa, Megan, Carly, Danielle, Jamie, Kayla, Emily and Stephanie for a wonderful season.

Heather was unable to attend any of the games as she left Friday morning for Sault Ste. Marie to attend her grandmother's memorial. I should have been there too, but I couldn't keep track of all my commitments.

We Are Starting to Move

Today, we finally took a big step in the process of moving our belongings from the condo. A week ago, Heather and I drove to Woodstock after work to reserve a storage space for our stuff and I followed that with a trip this past Friday to make the deal official. The property manager, Stefan, gave me a thorough explanation of the conditions of the agreement and I even managed to leave a couple of boxes there. We chose a location in Woodstock so that the next, and final, move will only be a short distance away from our new house.

We were moving on a Sunday because yesterday I spent the majority of the day at my brother Greg's bachelor party in Toronto. So, with not enough sleep, we went to U-Haul to pick up a cargo van. The first load included a couch, a futon and a few boxes from our condo storage. We then drove just down the road where my mom helped us load all unopened wedding gifts that were still sitting in her basement. After the van was full, we had a small breakfast and left for Woodstock just before noon.

Given the fact that I was paying 49 cents/km, I went into savings mode and tried to take the shortest way by distance. As we were driving down Trussler Road towards the 401 I noticed an unusual thing in sky. On closer look, it turned out to be Snoopy Two, one of the famous Metlife blimps, which have provided aerial shots for many sporting events including the Super Bowl. At home, I did some extra research and found out that the Metlife blimps cover the PGA Tour which will be taking place in Toronto from July 22nd to 25th thus its presence in this area.

Snoopy Two soaring in the sky.

We arrived in Woodstock less than hour after leaving. The unloading went very quickly and without a major mishap. A tiny piece of glass broke off one of the door from our wall unit but we'll worry about fixing that later. From the storage unit, we drove through downtown Woodstock taking in the sights and familiarizing ourselves with various local businesses. We ended up at our future home where we visited the model home and one of our agents who was there.

At the storage space in Woodstock.

Back in Waterloo, we went home with little desire to go back. Heather went for a nap but I changed my mind and braved the heat again and put more boxes in the van. Once Heather woke up at around 4, we first drove back to my parents' house to unload some plants we borrowed for staging purposes. We arrived at pretty much exactly the same time that my two brothers did so we stayed for dinner.

The second trip to Woodstock started just before 6 and this time it took us less than 15 minutes to unload the few items we brought with us. On the way home we encountered yet another unusual sight. A coyote crossed our path as we were on the Cedar Creek Road off ramp on the outskirts of Cambridge. You read that right, a COYOTE. What's even weirder about it was that earlier in the month I read an article about a coyote alert in neighbouring Perth County. Very strange. Heather mentioned that it reminded her of Johnny Cash's coyote on an episode of The Simpsons. Her comment kind of surprised me because it's usually my department to associate everyday events with a scene from The Simpsons (like the blimp sighting) but all I could think of was a scene from Collateral (a very fine movie with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx).

In the end it proved to be a very productive day with only two weeks left to vacate our current home. Stay tuned.