Moving In!

5 months to the day we are moving out of our little cabin and into the house. It is still very much bare bones, vapour barrier walls and no electricity or running water, but it is warm and BIG(compared to the cabin) I felt kinda of sad moving everything out of the cabin, it echos as you walk in now. It is great to finally move into the house, and when I look at the cabin, I see our little guest cottage. It did its job well for the last 5 months, keeping us warm, dry and cozy, soon it will keep friends and family warm, dry and cozy on future visits.

Christmasy Activites we have been doing

We have been up to our eyes balls, not only in house building but Christmas activites too. From Building a Gingerbread House to tree hunting with friends, to Christmas concert and of course sledding!!! We have to include sledding as Christmasy because we have never had snow except at Christmas.


This was Gingerbread House building - they had a ball, but the arguing - Holy cow - I can't reach I can't see.... Now its can we eat it, can we have a piece.


Tree hunting with our friends Jason and Bev and their three girls. We had a great time. As you can see the kids rode around on the trailer with the dads, as the moms walked behind for exercise and chatting! We found two beautiful trees, then went back for stew and marshmallow roasting.


Snow angels, who could resist, the only problem, as soon as the kids got down in the snow Shayleigh decided they needed help, and would lick and jump around them.



Thats Russ second from the right, Dylan is in the back. Tayler and I ringing our bells. On the far left is my friend Bev with Cora and Baby River, Sheila is in the festive vest, she is Taylers teacher. Tay loves her!!!


The kids were all in a Christmas Concert at Forest Grove. The boys were elves in the skit The Shoemaker and The Elves. And Tayler and her classmates from Strong start rang jingle bells to "Jingle Bells" Tayler was ringing so hard the bells almost fell off.The concert was 2 hours, we had lots of community participation - from the Forest Grove Church, to the Volunteer Fire Fighters, young piano players, singers and a belly dancer. In the end there was an audience of almost 200 people -pretty impressive for a school of 25 kids!!! And of course Santa made an appearance!
They are getting so confident with sledding, they have jumps, and now they are standing on the sleds, future snowboarders!

Winter Pictures

I was enjoying a walk in the snow. when I decided there are very few pictures on me on this blog, So I took one and amazing it turned out

These are pictures of our driveway. I love driving out as it is soooo pretty!

Clearing the driveway behind the house. Ed has become a pro in the last few snow falls. And I think he really enjoys doing it too !

Christmastimes a coming

My Christmas wreath for the cabin. This is the first wreath I have made in a very long time. Pretty Good if I do say so myself.

Temperature Sunday Morning

I had to take a picture of this, it will get colder than this but this is the temp. we woke up to Sunday morning!

My Farm fresh eggs

I bought eggs off one of Taylers classmates at Strong start today.He was so happy to get more "Bucks" to put in the bank. I had to take a picture because of the three different colours. Brown, white and Green. Now where did I put that green ham to go with them.

My new outside Christmas tree

Sledding

Enjoying the snow !

My Crazy Dog

The other night we were working away in the house and Cody was in the cabin basking by the fireplace. After awhile I could hear him howling and crying, he sometimes does this to get in or out of the cabin, so I went over to check. But he wasn't there. I called around the cabin and could hear him so I went back in, and to my surprise he was looking down at me from the loft. I have no idea how he climbed the ladder without falling off, but he did. I think he is going a bit crazy in his old age.

Wintertime is coming, Wintertime is coming!

Well this morning we woke up to minus 11, the cabin stays pretty toasty though with all of us in it, thank goodness. I think the snow is here to stay now, it looks really beautiful in the trees and around the property. I was told that by spring I won't think it pretty any more I will be cursing it.

Today Ed is working on garage doors for the basement and I am stripping wires - ohhhhh are you jealous!!!

The kids have had this whole past week off for their Fall break - who know- I had to triple check with about three people to be sure I was hearing it correctly.

Today was the first day we were able to recieve phone calls at the house, I have figured out it is choppy at times and I can not be uploading pictures at the same time - opps!

Dylan got a call from his Best friend Travis today and that made his day!!! I'm sure he will be talking about it for a while!

I think your tractors Sexy !!!!

After 35 years of waiting Ed finally has his own tractor. Its a F*%^ing Universal - but it gets the job done!!!

Snow and Lots of it - in OCTOBER!!!

We had an early snow adventure. It fell a few days before Halloween. We were thinking we would be trick or treating in Snow suits, but it was gone a two days later. It was absolutely beautiful!!

The first picture is taken from the corner of Eagle Creek and Canim Hendrix Rd. looking down the highway towards home. The second is Forest Grove - red roof is the store and gas station and the other building is the hardware store and post office. The Community Hall, Library and school are behind me and the church is 2 blocks from the post office.

An example of the amount of snow. (ignore the dates on the pictures - I was too lazy to change the setting!!!)

Halloween in Forest Grove

We had a great Halloween - we trick or treated through the Grove with some friends then headed to the Community Hall for HotDogs and Hot Chocolate, and one of the best Fireworks shows we have ever seen!!!

Dylan the Lumberjack - With the chainsaw he bought with his hard earned money

Tayler was Cinderella

Russ was a hunter and with that look he means business!!!

FIREWORKS ( The show was over an hour!!!)

FYI

There are a few posts below, with plenty of photos from Kelly's camera card. Hope I got the facts right, and that you all enjoyed the pics. I'll send the card back up to Forest Grove and hopefully Kelly will fill it right back up with lots of new photos for us all to enjoy. I believe that doors and windows are now going in, which is good, because it's nearly November!

Thanks for reading,

Erin

Kids in the country

Is it just me or does Dylan look like he's grown about a foot and aged at least a year?!

So much more room for driving their trucks!

Pretty in pink, and gumboots.

Field trip to the butcher shop

Apparently this was Dylan's idea, and the teacher thought it was a good one so she booked a school trip for the kids to learn about the whole meat-making process. Kelly drove some of the kids on the field trip to the butcher shop. The kids had a great time and especially enjoyed the beef jerky!

The students and the butcher pose for a photo!

Russ checks out the ground beef. (I think it's beef, anyway!)

Dylan and some fellow students enjoying the jerky and listening to the presentation.

Mmm! Meaty!

Life in Forest Grove these days

Hello all,

Erin here (again!) to update you on life for the Kelseys on their big, beautiful property. Kelly sent me the photo card this week so I'm posting lots of pictures of the progress at DRT Springs...

The roof looks great, doesn't it? And almost finished. I love the front porch with its big pillars, too.

Tayler takes a ride.

Beautiful Forest Grove sunset.

My Dylan (aka "Little Dylan") informs me that this is Cody.

And that this is Shayleigh. I'm not convinced! But I have to confess I'm not entirely sure myself. Hopefully Kelly can update this to make any necessary corrections...

Oh, I just bet the boys were loving this!

Here comes the cement...

Tayler gets to work. Who says three is too young to do manual labour?

More of the beautiful Northern sky.

Not sure about this, but do I see a wee bit of snow on the river banks?!?!

Dormer in progress.

Tayler and the pups hanging out in front of the big, beautiful house!

Kelly and Ed's room?

Miniature DRT Springs. The birds love it.

And most importantly... we now have HEAT!!!