House Tour -Kitchen & Living Room

Just past the front room, you enter the kitchen/dining/living room.  To the right is the kitchen.

It has a nice, big island with outlets!  There's also a water tap over the stove to fill your large pots.  The door to the left of the stove leads to the 'spice kitchen'.

Beside the fridge is the wall-oven & built-in microwave.  The cupboards in the kitchen are so high that the kids can barely reach the bottom shelf, so in order to allow them the opportunity to empty the dishwasher, we opted to put all our dishes in the lower cabinets of the island.  It's strange, but it works!

Here's a peak into the 'spice kitchen'.  It has a double sink, & a gas stove & oven.  The idea of this is for when you make smelly foods, you can shut the door & turn on the industrial strength fan so you don't smell up the rest of the house.  I don't really use this room for anything other than a big pantry!  Right now it also is where I am storing more broken things that I need to keep until the moving company insurance comes through.

This picture is from the kitchen looking into the rest of the room.  It's one great big open room which is what we were looking for in a house.  We don't make use of a formal living room or dining room, so we wanted it all as one room.

The living room has a built-in TV unit which is perfect to hold all of our video game systems!

These bookshelves hold all of our DVDs, & girly fiction books.  PChad built me spacers so some of the shelves can hold twice as many books (it's hard to find shelf space for them all!)  The doors to the left are the laundry area doors...

...with a washroom beside them

Behind the couch in the living room are the shelves which had been in PChad's office in PEI, but now they are filled with general fiction & non-fiction on the left, & Christian fiction on the right.

Thanks for joining us on this tour, come back next week for the basement!
(Yes, there's MORE!)

House Tour -Front Room

Welcome to the main floor!  PChad & I are still disagreeing on what we call this space.  He calls it the front room.  I tend to describe it by what's in there (or what will be in there).  So, I call it the fireplace room, or the piano room (despite there not being a piano at this point)*

This is the front entrance!  This house strangely has no hall closets, so we installed a shelf with hooks behind the door.  A nice find on kijiji (Canadian CraigsList) which matched the decor perfectly.

As you walk in, just to your right is a nice fireplace & sitting area...

and a wall waiting for a piano!

*if you, or someone you know in the area is looking to get rid of a piano for cheap, or even free, we are in the market for one!

House Tour -Master Bedroom

Today we are exploring the Master bedroom, which as the largest room, tends to also end up storing some random things, & this time is no exception!

Bed, nightstands, dog crate...

At the end of the bed resides the Hope Chest which holds all the spare bedding for all the beds upstairs.  The large wardrobe to the left of the door holds all the blankets for the beds, & beach towels (we have a lot since living on PEI) since there is no linen closet, it ended up in our bedroom.  The door leads to my favourite washroom...

Between the window & the closet is my dressing table.  It holds all of the hair ties for Chancery & I.  Right now it is covered with all my jewelry since the moving company has not gotten back to me about my broken jewelry cabinet.  Just imagine the top of the desk is cleaned off.  That's what I do!

PChad & I have a walk-in closet in which I hang my plethora of hoodies, & he has all his nice clothes.  Hidden behind the door is our laundry sorter.

Now for the washroom!

To the left is the toilet room, two sinks & two more mirrors to clean...

Here we have his & her shower & bath!  Now you see why the kids want to come use my bathtub!  The shower has an adjustable head, as well as 6 jets, & a rain head!  This bathroom is insanely awesome!

House Tour -Guest Room / Office

Welcome to day 3 of the BC house tour!  Today I'll be showing you my office which doubles as a guest room.  YOU could be staying in this very room if you choose to come for a visit!

 This is taken from the doorway.  To the right is the private washroom.  It has a tub/shower combo for all your bathing needs!  The bookshelf you see here has our classic books, though some are missing since they got mixed in with PChad's office books.  The closed door is the walk-in closet which right now is storing our art.  We have not yet gotten around to putting art on the walls since we have lots, & there is not a lot of wall space in this house.  We have to choose carefully!

Here's my desk.  I inherited PChad's desk from PEI which is a massive upgrade from my desk space that I had before!  I am slowly learning how to keep a larger desk space clean!

Beside the desk we have 2 bookshelves which hold the rest of the kids books & chapter books that don't fit in the kids' bookshelves.  This is the first time in our 16 years of marriage that all of our books are on shelves!  Since the kids are now into chapter books it was time to haul them all out of the boxes!

Bran Muffins

For as long as I've known him,  PChad has always raved about his mum's bran muffins.  Now, I'm not a huge fan of muffins in general, I'd rather have a cookie or a brownie, so when I think of baking, muffins are not at the top of my list.  But a few days ago PChad asked if I could please make his
mum's bran muffins, so I figured it was time (and he only asked once during the process if I was making them the way his mum did!).  They are pretty tasty... as far as muffins go!

This works the best if you make it in the really big Tupperware Bowl (Wonderlier)

Bran Muffins

Pour 2 Cups boiling water over 2 Cups All Bran (original), set aside (in Tupperware Bowl)

Cream: - 1 1/4 Cup Margarine

             - 3 Cups White Sugar

Add:    - 4 Eggs & Beat

            - 1 Litre Buttermilk

Pour mixture into Tupperware Bowl & mix with Bran mush

Add:  - 4 Cups Bran Flakes

          - 2 tsp Salt

          - 3 tsp Baking Soda

          - 2 Cups Raisins

          - 5 Cups Flour

Let stand overnight in fridge.

Fill Muffin cups & Bake @ 400° for 20 minutes.  Makes 5 Dozen

House Tour -Asher's Room

 Welcome to another day of the BC house tour!  Today I will be showing you Asher's room.  This boy is the most organized member of the family, so it's no problem for him to keep his room straight!

As you walk in his room, to the left is his closet, followed by his full bookshelf.  He has 3 drawered carts full of Lego & those 2 things represent his favourite pastimes.

We recently purchased a loft bed for Asher.  It is a double on top with a desk & more shelves below.  It was a good deal from Kijiji since it was covered with graffiti, but a magic eraser & a few well placed stickers took care of the bad parts!  The only downside to this bed is that it is so tall that Asher can't sit up on his bed, so we are on the hunt for a bean-bag chair or floor cushion for him.  His dresser is by the window, & the door leads to the shared kids' washroom.

House Tour -Chancery's Room

We have settled into our house in the last month, & are to the point that we have almost stopped shuffling furniture around... almost!  So, I figured it was time to show you some pictures.  We're going to take is slowly.  I'm only going to show you one room at a time, & today I am going to show you Chancery's room.

 This is looking straight ahead from the doorway into Chancery's room.  It is considerably smaller than her room in PEI was, & she is working on learning how to keep her small space clean.  It can be very difficult when you just want to play with ALL the toys!  We got rid of her bed in PEI which had lots of drawers built-in, & now she has Asher's old bunkbed.  At least it's tall enough to fit tote boxes under!

At the end of the bed is a dollhouse & her closet.  Thankfully we have numerous bookshelves, & we had one that fit perfectly between her closet & washroom door to hold some of her toys! 

Chancery's bookshelves are full to capacity.  She is making the transition from kids books to chapter books.  There are so many old favourites it's hard to know which ones to get rid of!  Just to the left of the dresser is the door again!

The door you see here leads into a washroom that the kids share.

  It is only accessible through their rooms, & they are learning to share, & remember to unlock both doors when they are done!  There is a shower, but no bathtub which isn't ideal (it means they want to use MY bathtub!), but it works!

It's Been Quiet Around Here!

...because my life has become chaotic!  Our moving truck finally arrived 5 days after we had first expected it,

but apparently something had gotten missed from head office to the moving men, because they didn't know they were supposed to assemble any furniture as had been promised in our contract.  We have been talking to head office for several days, & they have been doing their best to work with the crew here to get things done, but alas, it was not meant to be.  Now, after sleeping on mattresses on the floor for nearly a week, we have been told a NEW crew was hired & will come tomorrow to assemble the beds, couches, desk, shelving units, & jewelry cabinet.  We were starting to take bets on what would come first, our internet provider, or the furniture assembly crew.  Well, they are both coming tomorrow!

In the meantime my parents have come back up & been helping me go through each & every box to check the contents for damage.  I have to commend the kitchen guy who packed all of our things in PEI.  He did a great job, & there were only 2 broken kitchen items.  If only the rest of his crew had taken lessons from him!  I think a pack of monkeys might have done about as good a job packing some of these boxes!

Once we have all the furniture put together I can get started on putting everything where it is supposed to go, though we have discovered that our house has no coat closets!  None by the front door, none by the garage, not even a linen closet!  I know what I'm going to look for in our next house!  Then, once I have furniture, & stuff where it goes, I will be able to go buy groceries! and various things from Costco & Walmart to help us organize our closetless house!  And I will have internet, & I can put my computer together on a desk!  And then I will join the real world once again.  Until then you can find me carrying various items through my house with a crazed look on my face muttering, "Now where should this go?"  Visitors are welcome, especially if you come bearing Starbucks!

We Have A House!

We have a HOUSE!

Sorry, it just takes a bit for it to really sink in!  We sold our house in PEI in August, & January 1st we got the keys to our BC house!  We had a group of people from the church come & help clean.  We washed all the walls & cupboards, tubs, showers, & stoves (they were gross!)  We had requested for our household goods to arrive January 2, but that didn't happen, so instead we did some touch-up painting.

We did a few coats even since there are 2 very similar taupe colours (light & dark), we picked the light one & put it on the dark wall, discovered that was wrong, then painted the darker colour everywhere, only to find that the first room was the only dark room, so we had to repaint most of the spots again with the lighter colour! Phew!

I have been in touch with the moving company trying to get a date of when our stuff is coming (we are eager to make our house our HOME!), but unfortunately living at the top of a cul-de-sac has its drawbacks.  A big moving truck can't fit, so they have to put all our stuff in 2 smaller trucks, so now it's supposed to come on the 7th.  Hopefully there are no further delays, but hey, it's been 5 months already.  What's another few days?

Christmas With The Folks

Living in BC has a few perks.  One big one is that we are only 4 hours from my parents.  So, for the first time in 9 years, we got to spend the holidays together!  We headed down on Christmas day, & had a nice meal around the dining room table on china plates, & crystal, complete with wine for the adults, & sparkling cider (for me, the kids don't like sparkly drinks)!

On Boxing day we opened our gifts, & the kids were delighted about the cereal tradition that lives on!

 Who wouldn't be excited about Christmas Crunch?

 Chancery was excited about getting the entire boxed set of Roald Dahl books.  "I love these books!"

PChad got some London Tea.  It's always a bit of an experiment if the tea will be any good.  Last year I got him some really cute tins of tea & the tea in them was gross, but the tins were super cute!  Hopefully this box is good tea!

Asher opened Inside out, which we have seen a few times & is a very fitting film for our family in the midst of our transition. 

This was the highlight of the day.  Grandma opened a gift card to a restaurant & the card said, "Will you go on a date with me?"

Grandma replied, "Yes I will!"

To which Asher replied, "It's not from me!  It's from Grandpa!"

On Sunday we went to my parents church, & the new pastor there is a friend of ours from seminary.  Pastor Jacob's wife, Kami, is one of my best friends.  She & I were pregnant with our first kids at the same time, & got to spend the first year of being new moms together.  After church they came to my parents house for lunch & we spent the afternoon catching up & enjoying each others' company.  We do not get a chance to see each other very often, so it was nice to get to be together most of the day.

Monday we all headed up to an extended family Christmas celebration with cousins from near & far.  My cousin from Hawaii was visiting with her son, as well as a lot of local cousins, & we had a nice evening despite not playing a single round of Dutch Blitz.  We must be getting older!

Then Grandma & Grandpa left with Asher & Chancery to go back home, & PChad & I went back to BC.  Grandma & Grandpa had always said they wanted to spend more time with the grandkids, so we let them have them for a whole week!

Christmas Letter 2015

This has been an EPIC year for our little family.  It all started with snow, & more snow until Prince Edward Island broke the all time snow record & got 18 feet of snow!  The kids had fun in it, I had fun looking at it from inside the house with a cup of coffee, but I don't think PChad had fun snowblowing it!

We had a long winter full of snow which lasted us right up 'til April!  PChad has been doing an Executive Masters which means lots of travelling to Paris & London, & I got to join him for one of his weeks in London!  Now, when I say I joined him, what I really mean is that we flew together, then he went to Oxford for the week, & I gallivanted all around London visiting friends & shopping, then we met back up at the end of the week & flew back to PEI together!

April was also my Dad's 70th birthday, & my brothers & I few out to Seattle to surprise him!  It was awesome to get together for a few days.  We also had a breakfast together with a bunch of Aunts & Uncles & cousins we had not seen for a few years.

PChad received & accepted a call to a church in B.C., with a move at the end of the summer.  We knew we had to take full advantage of our last PEI summer, so we hit the beach as often as the weather allowed!

At the beginning of August we packed up, & headed across the country.  We decided to take our time & visit family along the way, which made of an EPIC 3 week road trip!

We stopped at both of my brothers' places, Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, met my parents for a weekend at my Uncle's ranch, & Chad's parents house!

We arrived in BC just as they were having a huge windstorm that caused a 2 day power outage.  Thankfully we had a lovely couple from church to stay with & they took good care of us.  We housesat for the first almost 3 months living in BC, & looked for a house to buy.  We found one really close to the church, but it was being rented & we had to give a full 2 months notice to the renters.  Unfortunately, that means we couldn't get into our house until January, so we are now renting a duplex with furniture donations from church people.  So, for the last 4 months, we have been 'camping' as I like to call it.  ("Sorry kids, we can't bake Christmas cookies, we're camping!  Everyone knows you don't bake cookies when you're camping!")  The kids have learned to adapt to our transient lifestyle quite well, but I think we are all ready to be in our own place with our own things.  When we packed for this adventure it was July, & we never anticipated we'd be without all of our household belongings this long.  Thankfully we packed a few sweaters & long sleeved shirts as it has been a bit chilly, & we have even had a tiny sprinkling of snow!  Now that we live only 4 hours from my parents, we are taking full advantage & spending a few days with them over Christmas!  It's been 9 years since we celebrated Christmas together & we are really looking forward to it!

My address book is in the moving truck, so this is as close to a Christmas card as it's going to get this year...

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Idle Threats

Last night PChad had a meeting, so I put the kids to bed.  Asher knows that once he's in bed, he needs to be quiet, & if he calls out we usually ignore him because he will just keep talking if he knows he has a willing audience.  So, when a few minutes later I heard him calling for me, I did not answer.

He was persistent though, & after awhile decided to change tactics, "Mummy!  Are you being rude & ignoring me? ... Mu-mmy!  Well, I guess I will just have to turn my light on & read then!"

(We have also discussed that he may not read at night, & have removed his bedside lamp because the temptation was just too great)

"I'm going to read now, & I might just read all night!"

I wasn't too concerned that he would actually do it because he knows he'd be in big trouble.  But after a few more minutes he couldn't take it any longer.  He came out of his room to tell me, "My arm really itches & I need some lotion!"

Grocery Store Prices

After 3 months of living in BC & always wondering if the "closer, more convenient" (Save-On) grocery store was THAT much more expensive than the "seems cheaper, but farther away" (Superstore) store I decided it was time to make a list.  And make a list I DID!  I wrote a big list of the regular type things that I buy from the store, sometimes I get these groceries from Costco since it is so much closer than when we lived in PEI, but here's what I found...

On my list was:

Broccoli
Cranberry Juice
Veggie Juice
Dr Pepper
Milk
Coffee Creamer
Pilsbury Biscuits
Eggs
Butter
Margarine
Yoghurt
Magnum Ice Cream Bars
Vanilla Ice Cream
Cream Cheese
Bread
Bagels
Coffee
Coffee Filters
Tortilla Chips
Salsa
Flour
Sugar
Brown Sugar
Ketchup
Soup for Cooking (cream of mushroom)
Soup for eating (Italian Wedding)
Pasta Sauce
Butter Chicken Sauce
Oatmeal
Granola
Peanut Butter
Nutella

I compared the same sized items, & priced according to the brand I would normally pick if I was shopping at that store.  I only put the full price of the item on the list so I wasn't comparing sale prices  I then added all the prices as if I had bought one of each item at both stores & compared the final cost.

The results were...

Save-On-Foods (with 6 store brand items)  $203.04

SuperStore (with 5 store brand items)  $168.64

Individually, the only items cheaper at Save-On were bread & broccoli.  I did not compare other produce, but I'd be interested to know if that is cheaper.  I don't really like the selection at Save-On for produce though...  I was shocked at some of the price differences!

Brown Sugar       Superstore $4.98          Save-On  $6.49
Peanut Butter      Superstore $8.97          Save-On  $11.88
Salsa                    Superstore $6.99         Save-On $12.89

I'll still shop the flyers since I know Save-On have good sales on some of my regular items (Magnum Ice Cream Bars!), but I definitely will aim for Superstore more often now!

Three Things...

It's been a busy few weeks, so just for fun, I decided to do this fill-in. 

Three names I go by
1 Sherilyn
2 Mum
3 Chad's Wife

Three places I lived
1 Poulsbo, WA
2 London, England
3 Charlottetown, PEI

Three places I have worked
1 Solicitors' Office
2 Western Retail Store
3 Doctors' Office

Three things I love to watch
1 The 100
2 Orphan Black
3 The Chicago Fire, PD, & Med shows :)

Three places I have been
1 Israel
2 Newfoundland
3 Greece

Three things I love to eat
1 Pizza
2 Brownies
3 Shrimp Cocktail

Three things I am looking forward to
1 Christmas with my parents for the first time in 13 years
2 Moving into our own house after 5 months of temporary housing
3 Summer!