Where are we living this summer?

So, as most of you know we sold our house (as long as all goes well on the 29th of this month, fingers crossed!) and some of you may be wondering, where are you moving to??
Well although I would love to be moving to something like this...


                                             (source)

or this...


                                           (source)

or {sigh} this...


                                          (source)

We haven't found our perfect house/farm yet (and truthfully if we found something looking like any of the above pictures it would most likely be out of our price range {sigh}) So, here's our plan...
We are staying at my mom and Al's house for a month, house-sitting and garden-sitting while they are away on a sailing trip (I know, I'm jealous too!). Then, we are going to be camping for the rest of the summer in our tent.

Just kidding! About the tent part, not the camping part :) No, we are getting a travel trailer to camp in for the summer :) We are going to really enjoy our local area and see all there is to see for camping spots. We live in a gorgeous area with mountains for hiking and biking, a lake for swimming and water sports and tons of little picturesque towns to explore. We have to stay in our area because my hubby still has to work, but it should be fun with the five of us and our dog Stella. :) The kids think it's going to be a grand adventure (they love camping) and they know they are also going to spend some time on Grandma Dusty's farm :)

So, anyone else camping for the summer? Anyone think we're crazy? :) Have a great weekend!

All pictures above were found on Pinterest.

Our Kitchen Update

This post has been a long time coming, I know, but I finally went ahead and took some "after" pictures of the little reno we did in our kitchen. You can check out the original post HERE.
So without further ado, here's our kitchen:

Before




After

Before




After

Before









After

Before





After

I am so happy with the way everything turned out! It is so much brighter and happier in our kitchen now :) I was originally thinking of painting either the island or the stools a different colour like maybe a barn red or black or green, but after living with it like this for awhile (and because of the fact we were selling the house) I decided to leave them. I figured it was nice to have the wood tones there to tie in with the rest of the house still (which is log remember) and the ceiling as well. I wanted to add more pops of the red as I like to do that all around the house, it's kind of a continuity factor (and I just love the colour red!) but since we're now moving I guess that won't be happening:) I can't wait to find out what our new kitchen is going to look like!
So, I hope you have enjoyed the tour. If you have any questions, I'll try and answer them to the best of my memory :) Stay tuned and I'll tell you the adventure we are going to have this summer and our plans on where we're going to be living! 

Are we sick of this yet?

Hi! I know I've been really deck heavy with the posts lately, but I promise I'll share something non deck related tomorrow. I will say it has been a little challenging posting on the ol blog and will be for the next week or so as we go through the last stages of selling our house and moving (as well as last week of school/gymnastics/soccer kerfuffle around here) so please bear with me as we go through these changes. Hopefully I'll be back to blogging normally (is there such a thing? :) the first week of July :)

So, onto deck updates!

Last week I shared how we got our cement wall all ready to go (you can check out part one here and part two here )

The next step was to get the wood materials delivered to start on the framing and joisting (is that a word? oh well, I'm just going to go with it)

Anyways, my little man sure enjoyed watching the delivery from his perch in the window :)

And then after a few hours of hammering, sawing etc we had this....

Woohoo this baby is finally taking shape!! Now, if only the weather would cooperate we could finish this project :)

Anyone else waiting for weather to cooperate to finish an outdoor project?

More Deck Updates

So, Friday morning, just as we were getting ready for our whirlwind trip, this truck pulls up...

and we were on our way to finally rebuilding our deck! 

Go concrete go! See that deck above the conveyor in the picture above? We all stood up there and watched the cement zip by below us :) And I gotta admit, I found it pretty interesting myself :)

Pretty fun watching it all from above even though it did set us back awhile from our original leaving time. Then, on Monday morning the guys came back and took all the forms off and we were left with a nice solid concrete wall ! :)

It's exciting watching how fast this is all coming together! And while the guys are working on our deck, I'm pack, pack, packing away as time keeps ticking down to moving day. 

If you want to see the beginning of this project, you can check out demolition day here and you can check out part one of the work done HERE.

An Extraordinary Day

Yesterday was a special day as on June 11, 1912 this amazing woman was born.

That woman is my Granny and she turned 100 years old yesterday! (sorry it's a bit blurry, the pic above is a picture of a picture) This weekend, Pat and I and the kids went on a quick trip to see her and join in the big birthday bash held for her. Our kids were really thrilled to meet her (well, the girls have met her, but Nyla was 2 and Cady was about 4 months so they didn't remember) and of course there were numerous pictures taken, my favorite was this one of our five generations: Granny, her daughter (my grandma), her grandson (my dad), her great granddaughter (me!), and her great great grandkids (my three kids).

She actually has five great great grandkids, the eldest being almost 10 and the youngest is about 9 months old. Aren't they cute?

At one point, the four older kids stood up and sang a couple songs to Granny including "You are my Sunshine" and "Happy Birthday". It was really cute!

We had a wonderful time visiting with family and relatives and for my kids it was a wonderful chance to meet everyone again as we all live so far apart (about 7-8 hrs drive). It was also so interesting to me to hear stories from Granny's children and grandchildren about what she and my grandad were like and the fun and love they had together. There were even a couple of women there who had known my Granny as a girl as she had babysat them 85 years ago!

All in all a fantastic weekend and an amazing tribute to an amazing woman :)

                                                           We love you Granny!

Independence Days

First off, this was supposed to post on Friday, but I guess I forgot to schedule it.....oops!

Well, it's been awhile since I did one of these posts, but I got bored of always writing the same thing and then in the midst of major May planting I just plumb forgot! Anyone who doesn't know what this is all about can check out my original post HERE. So here we go!

Plant something:  Replanted some basil as my little helper (Gabe) watered it too much the first time and I think they drowned :)

Harvest Something:  Rhubarb woohoo! (I love rhubarb)

Preserve Something:  Rhubarb (froze some)  Asparagus (canned some)

Waste not:  Just the usual

Want not:  Got a new canner as I somehow messed up the old one :(


Eat the Food: I've been keeping up pretty well with making my own bread and learned a new recipe for homemade granola that is really excellent.


Build Community Food Systems: not much this week


Skill Up: I offered my help and hands to a friend with a farm so I could gain some hands on knowledge.

Have a great weekend! We are off on a whirlwind trip that I'll tell you more about next week  :) 

Really Rad Raspberry Cream Muffins!

This is one of our all time favorite muffin recipes that everyone (even the picky one!) enjoys. In fact, it is difficult to actually snag one around here when I only make a single batch (a single batch makes 12 muffins).

Raspberry Cream Muffins


2 cups     whole wheat flour
1 tsp        baking powder
1/2 tsp     baking soda
1/2 tsp     salt
1/4 tsp     ground cinnamon (I usually put in a 1/2 tsp as we like cinnamon!)

1/2 cup    butter or hard margarine, softened
2              large eggs
1/2 cup    sour cream(or plain yogurt)
1 tsp        vanilla

1 cup      coarsely chopped frozen raspberries


-Measure first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Stir well.
-Beat butter and sugar in a medium bowl. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add sour cream and vanilla. Beat to mix. -Add flour mixture. Stir just until moistened.
-Fold in raspberries. Fill greased muffin cups almost full. Bake in 350 F (175 C) oven for 30 to 35 minutes            until golden. Let stand 10 minutes (if you can stand to wait!) Remove from pan to cool on rack.

I haven't tried it yet with fresh raspberries, but they would probably get mushy. As I'm writing this I'm thinking this recipe would probably be really good with blueberries (and just about any berries) too!

So.... Enjoy!

What is your favorite muffin recipe? I love muffins, but the only thing I don't like is washing the pan, all those little cups are annoying!

A Deck Update

      So, when we last left off on our deck remodelling saga a few weeks ago, we had just completed our demolition and were awaiting permit approval. Well the permit took a little longer than expected to come through, but it finally did and now we are on our way to rebuilding.
      Here is what it looks like today as we wait for cement to be poured (hopefully today or tomorrow)

All the forms and re bar ready for concrete. See on the right, the way it steps down? That's the proper way to build a cement retaining wall (or so I'm told by the experts)

  I am so looking forward to having this deck back! We've all really missed it the last few weeks with the weather so nice. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you use something until it's gone.
  Hopefully it will be all done before we need to move and I can enjoy at least one morning coffee out there on the swing :) Those french doors, below, go out from our kitchen, so it is really handy for barbecuing and summer suppers outside.

All ready for cement! See all that metal in there? It'll make the wall nice and solid because they actually tied in the new wall to the old footing by ramming re bar in there. Our deck is already looking more solid :)

Remember this old thing?

Well we are all super excited to see how this whole thing turns out. I will keep you updated on our progress (whether you want it or not :)

Any new decks,porches, outdoor living spaces going on in your life? Have you done a reno of somewhere that you didn't realize how much you used it until it was gone/unusable? Feel free to comment, I love to hear feedback :)

My busy month

Yes, that is my old fashioned paper organizer ( I don't even have a cell phone) all marked in with all the things going on in my life this month. I'm pretty proud of myself for actually sitting down today with all the calenders and writing it all down in one spot that I can bring with me everywhere. I know a lot of you are even busier, maybe you have a bunch more kids, or work full time as well as do all this kind of stuff, but for me that is a super busy schedule (oops I see I forgot to write the actual game times on the Saturdays). On top of all that "mom" stuff, I'm packing like a mad woman and doing all that other moving shenanigans because see on the bottom right hand corner, it says "completion day" and "possession day" so we have to be out of here by the first of July. Now, hopefully by the end of this week we'll have some idea of where we are moving our stuff to!  

                                                                                :)

Anyone else on the move? Anyone else out there have a crazy jam packed month ahead of you? Do your kids have school till the very end of June like mine do?

Have a great week!

My Summer Blog Banner

         So, as you may have noticed, I've already changed my banner (the pictures at the top of the blog) and background for summer. This comes partly as preparing for a busy month coming up and I've been wanting to add some pops of colour to the ol' blog :) My latest favorite colour combo? As you can probably tell is turquoise and red! I noticed my affinity for those two colours together as I looked over my pinterest boards like this one:


                                                    (source)

or this one,


                                                             (source)

or *sigh* this one ( I love the polka dots, so sweet!)...


                                                          (source)

I love pinterest, don't you? What are your favorite colour combos? Do you have pictures of your animals wearing sunglasses?
Have a great Friday!