Our first Christmas tree in our first house....exciting.

We went out with Mark Jolin and his girls (mariah and ada) to pick out our Christmas trees. We went to a place outside of Cambridge, towards Hamilton, where you are taken back to the trees in a wagon pulled by a tractor. You are free to roam their many fields of different types of trees, and when you find the one you want, you cut it down. Then you go back to the wagon, if it is there you get on, if not, you wait until it brings the next group. Then you are taken back to the main area. At the main area, they shake your tree, wrap it with the tree wrapper and you can get a nice hot cup of cider. It was a neat experience, and if you've never done it, you should!

Our new house is coming along, unpacking is going well....but there are some boxes in the basement that need to be unpacked or stored. We are very happy to be out of our apartment. Thank the Lord for this provision!

Only three more weeks........yippie!

That's right peoples......only 21 days left until we are finally united with our very first home. I am so pumped, I can hardly contain myself sometimes, which heather loves I might add...:) The finances for the down payment are all coming together...it's looking really good.

We take possession on the 24th (as you might have guessed with some pretty heavy calculations) which is a friday, and we plan on doing some painting while the place is empty. Then saturday morning, I'm gonna grab the truck I just rented today and do the move with whoever is going to be helping us. Thanks in advance to all the family and friends who are going to help us that weekend.

Only a matter of time now!

Two years already!!!!!!!

Wow, it's kinda hard to believe...it's already been two years since Heather and I tied the knot.
Two years really isn't all that long, I know, but heather said to me just the other day, "can you believe that were married?" So, she hasn't even gotten used to being married yet. I guess that is good, we still have the flame that we had right from the start, which isn't the case in about 1/3 of marriages today...ending in divorce...it's pretty sad.

I am so glad that I am in a loving relationship with my wife. I love you heather, thank-you for your love and friendship...hears to many more years!

All Clear!

I should have written that the financing was all approved. So, as a result, we get possession Nov. 24th.
We are so excited, we can hardly wait!
If anyone out there knows of any good deals on water softeners or water filtration systems, please let us know........thanks!

House inspection complete!!

Nothing major found wrong. Just a couple little things that we should do to make our time in our new house safer.....like GFI outlets. And then, before we sell the place, do the roof on the garage, carpet in the basement, and the basement bathroom reno.

All we need now is the financing to be finalized by wednesday, and the house will be ours on Nov. 24th.

Please keep praying with us.
We are about to undertake a big venture...our first home!

It's not official yet...........

Well, we have a conditional offer on a property. We signed the deal on sunday, and are just waiting for a home inspection, and financing to be finanlized. If all things work out, we will take possession on Nov. 24th.


We'll let ya know when it's official. Please pray for all the details to work out.

Thanks!

Absent from blogger, present with my wife and my life.

I really have not been a very good blogger over the last two months. Probably because my life isn't really too interesting...but that's ok.

I've been working lots, and playing lots of baseball.
One note about my baseball. My church league team hasn't won a game yet, we are 0-12. And my city league team has won only one game since I joined them about 1 and a half months ago (2 total wins) It is really discouraging. I really want to win, and I know that for sure a couple other guys are serious about it, and it shows in their performance each night. But as for the rest of the guys, I don't know if they're really serious about it. We don't have to be too crazy competitive about it, but I would like to see consistent effort from everyone.

Oh, it's only a game, right?

60th and 40th all in one weekend!

This weekend we celebrated a life and a marriage. My father-in-law, Steve May turned 60 back on May 18th. We celebrated his b-day as well as His marriage to Phyllis this weekend.

We threw a surprise party for Steve on Saturday at Grove Park Home in Barrie that his friend, Terry Codling directs.

We had a great time, filled with lots of happy tears. We kids got together and gave them a trip to Newfoundland and Labrador where they lived for a while earlier in their marriage.

We love them, and are happy that they have had such a successful marriage.

Thanks mom and dad for your guidance, wisdom and love.......even for what I have received in the two short years that I have known you.

Thanks Dad

This is a public note to let people know of the nice thing my dad has done for us. We are heading down to Michigan for a friend's wedding...we will be staying at a B&B for three nights making it a bit of a getaway for us too. My dad has paid for the first two nights for us.

Thanks again dad, it will make our time away together even better.

Headin' to Centreville, MI

This weekend my lovely wife and I are heading to her friend's (I guess she would be my friend too) wedding. It is kind of out of town.......so I'm expecting it to be really nice, and in a quiet area.

Heather and I are taking advantage of this time away. We are booked into the Mendon Country Inn where Stephanie and Craig are having their rehearsal dinner. It looks like a really nice place. We are pretty excited about the time away, and the times that we will have, just the 2 of us.

By the way, if anyone reading this has a recommendation on what is the best way to cross over to Michigan...please let me know. I got directions online, and because of the area in MI where we are heading, the Sarnia and Windsor crossing are almost the same distance to drive. So, which one is better for scenery, or road conditions, etc. I know the roads are bad in Detroit, so maybe we won't go that way.

ALGONQUIN...you've gotta try it!

So, here are of the few shots we took on our trip. We had a really great time...and we even kinda got spoiled with some nice weather. I think the May's would even admit it. Heather always tells me that there is a May curse or something...when they go camping it's not usually very good weather. Last year we had a couple of really bad days, and maybe only one good day, and then a couple of not bad days. This year we had three days of great weather.

The weather, I must admit made this trip easier on me than last year...and I guess that we didn't do as much moving as last year.


Although this year we did a
3200m portage...last year our largest was 2345m. The biggest one this year was listed on the Park map as 2800m, but we thought it seemed longer than that...sure enough in a book about a lady who had been traveling the Park for 70 some years said that it was actually 3200m...so we felt better after having read that.






Anyway, it was such a great time...but at the end it was good to get home and start recovering. I am already looking forward to next year. I don't think I'm ready for more than one of those trips per year yet.

Thanks to the rest of the people who were along with us. It was a really great week. Thanks to our Lord for his beautiful creation that we enjoyed first hand for 6 days.......we really do take it for granted I think.

Nice House!!!!!

Well, we just got back, and we didn't take any pictures......but you've got to believe me....we saw a great house tonight. It has been completely re-done inside and out. New siding and roof on the outside, and new everything on the inside, even an addition on the back.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pray with us and for us. We really liked it, but if it is not for us it won't be there when we are ready. The guy wants to sell it by the end of the month, and will pay the mortgage for June and July if it sells by the end of may, so then we would start paying in Aug, which would work because we have already paid our last month at our current location, so we would have money to start paying. We are also looking into a no down payment mortgage, which would help us even more to get started. Please just pray with us and for us.

Thanks a lot everyone!

Yippie.........I can go to church Sunday Mornings again.........it's been so long.

Yes, the title is true. I got a posting I applied for at work. I will be going from the perishable department ( 32F - 0C) into the freezer (0F - -18C) and I will have sun-mon off. I am so excited because for the first time in 5 years (except when I was recovering from my arm surgery) I will be able to attend morning church, and Sunday school class.

This will give heather and I a real opportunity to find a good church and get involved in it.

Thank you Lord!

Annie is home

So, the little one has returned home. She is moving around the apartment a little slower than usual.......understandably.

She has been eating a little bit which is good to see, she always had a good appetite. She will be ok, we hope. She has to go back next tuesday to get the 7 stiches removed...poor girl.

Poor Annie

First of all, I just read my friend Andy's blog...you should too. He just wrote a good one on Creation

Secondly, I want to tell you about our little kitty Annie. I just dropped her off at the vet this morning. She is getting spayed. She was so scared...the poor little girl......well, I guess she won't be a "girl" much longer.
Mason seemed to be pretty happy when I got home, could have been for one of two reasons. Annie is gone, because he really doesn't like her. Or, he was alone, and was just happy that he wasn't deserted all together!

Anyway.......I hope annie is ok, and will recover fine after.

Final Four

Who in their right mind would have picked George Mason to make it to the final four......no one right? You would be wrong. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I had sportsnet on the tube. Jack Armstrong, who used to be a college coach, told the viewers that ESPN had 3 million people join their online NCAA bracket challenge, and only 4 of those 3 million picked the four teams that are now in the final four.........that is amazing. If even one person picked the four remaining teams I would think that was amazing, but 4!!! That is incredible.

Here's to some great ball this weekend! Go George Mason!!

New Shift

I know, I know.......it's been too long. So, here I am.

I just wanted to let you all know that I am already, really loving my new days off. It was so nice to have this past Saturday off. Although, the original goal is to have one nice day all for my wife and I, I ended up going to see her parents. haha.

I love my in-laws (Dad, you know I love you...there should be no doubt in your mind). I went up right after work on Thursday, got there in time for dinner. Then we watched a bit of the leaf game (waste of time) and went and played hockey ourselves (not a waste of time........what a great time it was).

Friday Steve (my father in-law) and I put new canvas on a canoe that he had stripped for someone.
I probably haven't mentioned this before...Steve has a business (pack and paddle adventure company) on the side of his ministry at the sundridge church of Christ. He started out my making bent-shaft paddles, and it has evolved, almost, into more business than he has time for.
Anyway, so then on Saturday morning we stripped the fiberglass off an old, big canoe. That was fun..........if I ever end up working for Steve in the future, if we move up there, I think I could get used to being part of the demo team. I really enjoyed peeling that old crap off of there.......lol!

Here's to more Saturday's off.........hopefully my wife and I can have some great times together.

Brad Paisley

I was really looking forward to doing a blog about the Concert I went to last night, at Copps. BUT, unfortunately, I was not as impressed as I thought I was going to be.

The performers were Brad Paisley, Terri Clark, and Johnny Reid. I would have to say that Terri Clark was probably the best of the three...Johnny Reid wasn't bad either, but he was the opening act and he only sang for about 20-25 mins.

One of the main reasons for my disappointment was that Paisley didn't plan two of my favourite songs from his new album...but I guess they can't please everyone, eh?

It was a good show, and I'm glad I went. A special thanks to my wife, who bought the tickets back in November, as soon as they went on sale (for my Christmas gift) and we were on the floor in row 24...they were great seats. Thanks Heather, I love you!

Why do you have to be like that?

Something happened at work again today that got under my skin. It really isn't that big of a deal, but it didn't have to happen, so it was kind of annoying.

Long story short, they had two guys from perishable department working in the freezer, when two guys from the freezer were working in perishable...because at the beginning of the shift, there was no freezer work. So, when work came down for the freezer, the guys that are posted freezer (applied for that department) should go over in the freezer, right? You would think so, but things don't work that smoothly at your friendly neighbourhood Loblaws. They just started at the bottom of the FT list of order pickers. So, one of the guys that was in the freezer mistakenly asked me if there was a union steward on our shift (he just came from perish. afternoons). I said, "Yes, but he is on vacation. And the grocery union steward just went home. Why, what's up?" So then he told me, and then I told him I would speak to a supervisor about it.

The supervisor that looks after the freezer was filling out a couple of accident reports, so he said that he would look after it when he was done...That was about an hour later (so part of what bugged me was that the guy who, by rights, didn't have to be in the freezer ended up being in there for another hour - - they took the temp. in the back of the freezer a couple of weeks ago and it was -32C...that is pretty cold.....would you want to be in there if you didn't have to be??) So, when he finally made the switch, he made another mistake...he took out one of the perishable guys, but then took out a freezer guy too. So, the other perish. guy drove by me at break and I asked him if he got switched yet......this was when he told me what switch had been made. So, I talked to the supervisor again, and he corrected things the proper way.

I guess my point about this whole thing is that the supervisors aren't stupid (although sometimes we wonder.....I guess it's like when you're kids and you don't think your parents are too swift sometimes...I don't know) so they know how seniority, and postings work...so why can't they put people in the proper places. Then they wonder why guys give them attitude, etc. Maybe it's because of the way you handle your workforce???

Anyway......that was my day.

Blue and White

OK, ya know what.......the Leafs Suck! I can't keep it in anymore. I hated watching them about 1/3 of the way through the season, and haven't watched even one full period since before Christmas...well maybe once at my in-laws..........but you get the picture! They are painful to watch, they don't show motivation ( how can you not be motivated to play a sport for 7 figures?? I would do any job for 6 figures...I would take the NHL min. to just sit on the bench, and hand other guys a water bottle if they needed one......or a towel..........hey, I guess that would make me an equipment manager.......I bet they make good cash) they are professionals.........they should be motivated.

The trade deadline is March 9th, and I really think something needs to be done with this team. But, there's a problem...who do the leafs have, that they can afford to get rid of, that anyone else will want. Some might say Sundin, and I know a lot of people who don't like him. Personally, I like the guy...he has worked hard for this team for about 10 years now, and I would like to see him with a Cup with the Leafs. Another guy I wonder about it "The Eagle". He's really getting up there in age, and hasn't looked too sharp, too often this year. Maybe it is the lack of D in front of him, but your reflexes have to slow down when you're in your 40's and have played the game for so long. I think he should "hang 'em up."

Alas, after having said all this, I wonder if they Ferguson will ever do anything drastic. He has the Board, and the Teachers breathing down his neck. He doesn't have the freedom to do whatever he wants........I don't care what Peddie says..........Ferguson is on a tight leash.

It makes me sick!

Go MLSE Go!