Lara's first job!

Times might have changed, and we can't send Lara down the mine or to the mill to work at seven years old, but she has got her first job.  Her skating coach emailed today to officially request that she be a coach's assistant for the summer skating lessons sessions, where we have Dan enrolled. For his first set of lessons, she was allowed to help the coach out but it was all a bit unofficial. Today the head coach has given approval for Lara to be asked to help officially. There's no payment as such, of course, but she should get "something" at the end of the session for her efforts.

Late night cleaning

It's gone 1.30am and we're up, Olga's tidying & cleaning and I've been painting (walls, not seascapes), ready for our estate agent to come tomorrow afternoon to take the photos before the house is put on the market. The house hasn't looked this bare since the day we moved in.  We've filled about 70% of the 1000 cubic foot storage unit we hired, and I've another couple of truck loads to take tomorrow morning.

It is only the photos tomorrow, but the viewings should start in a couple of days hopefully, so the place has to stay spotless - easier said than done with two kids and two dogs, but there simply aren't enough things left in the house for the kids to clutter place up with! 

Time for a glass of wine and a relax before bed. I think we'll have a rest tomorrow night before the madness of viewings start. The word on the street here is that our kind of house in our development is selling in 6 to 9 days, so if that's accurate, that would be very nice, we might have sold it before Grandma arrives in two weeks...

Time for a move

(not our pile of boxes!)

We've taken the decision that it's time to move house. This current house was perfect for us when we first arrived, we needed somewhere nice, low maintenance, in a good area, that we could afford, and it ticked all the boxes.
But now the kids are two years older, and in particular the difference in Dan, from being a 1 year old to a 3 year old, means that we just don't have the floor space here that we need, we're constantly moving toys around from one place to another, and the kids just don't have the room to run around inside, which is necessary when it's too cold to play outside for 4 months of the year.
So, we've bought a load of cardboard boxes, and we're packing up, ready to have our estate agent ("realtor" over here) come and take the photos and list the house on the market, sometime next week hopefully.
Things can move quite quickly here with house moves, and though this move probably won't be a as quick as when we bought this place (2 weeks from making the offer to moving in), we hope it will all be completed before we go off on our summer camping holiday in early August. We're not anticipating any problems with selling this house, we just have to hope that the right house comes on the market at the right time for us, in the Airdrie area or very close by. The most important thing is that Lara continues in her current school, she's settled in so well, and has made lots of friends and is very happy there, so we won't move too far away.

Beardy Weirdy

My playoff beard has outlasted the Calgary Flames by a few weeks now, since they lost to the Anaheim Ducks, and I'm quite attached to it now, although I think it's in need of a trim - I find I can still be eating my dinner 5 minutes after my plate is empty, as I find bits of it stuck in the forest above my top lip. So here is a photo of it now, in all its glory before I trim it. The photos don't quite do it justice, it's bushier than it looks!

It's been seven weeks or so since I last shaved, but for the last three weeks there has been very little change in it, I think it's decided that it's had enough, that's that, no more.

10 years ago today

2 great things happened 10 years ago today.
In order only of timing, firstly Liverpool won the Champions League Final after coming back from 3-0 down at half time. It's a game I've still not watched, as secondly I was busy that day, proposing to Olga at Powell Point, overlooking the Grand Canyon. It was a long way down for one of us if she'd said no!
We went back to Powell Point last summer as part of my 40th birthday trip, with the kids this time.  Lara was allowed to see the exact place where the proposal happened, on that cliff-edge 10m in front of her, but no way was she allowed to get any nearer to it!