Welcome To Our Place!

The much awaited pictures are here! We've been slowly piecing our place together in the week we've been here and finally have it somewhat presentable enough to take pictures of! So here is a tour of our place!

When you walk in the front door, you'll see the kitchen to the right, then the living room. On the left, you see our storage room, a closet, the bathroom and straight ahead, our bedroom.

This is our storage room, which houses our camping gear, car top carrier and several pairs of shoes! Both the shelf and the shoe rack we acquired from the side of the road! Don't worry, we'll make room for your shoes too!

This is our closet! In here you'll find the extra sheets and brand new pillows that await your stay! If I forget to grab you a towel, you can find one in here!

This is our bathroom - you'll notice that there is NO counter space or even drawers to put anything in! But don't worry, we bought our own storage for your (and my) convenience! (Pssst! Extra toilet paper is in the bottom drawer).

And now, welcome to our kitchen! Help yourself to whatever is in the cupboards and fridge!

This is our bedroom (and when you are here, it will be yours)! We are still in need of some decor for the walls but by the time you get here, it should all be in place!

Finally, the living room! In here you can enjoy our comfy blue couches, our lovely view (of the parking lot, some grass and some trees) and by the time you are here, there will be a TV unit to house our TV (sorry, at this point, VHS only!).

A close up of our comfy, baby blue beauties! Betcha you can't wait to put your booty in that one!

This is where you will eat most of your meals when you visit us! The first, being a lovely dinner with wine and a toast to your arriving in our little home!

Now all thats left is to find out when your flight arrives! Hope you can come visit soon!

And it begins!

So yesterday I dropped Carl off for his first day of school...Well, sort of! Yesterday was the first day of orientation, the classes don't actually start until September 13th. He said the day was pretty dull. He is in a program called SURP (School of Urban and Regional Planning) with about 30 other students, most of them probably between 20 and 30 years of age. Carl said they sat in the same room from 9am to 4:30pm listening to introductions of peers and teachers and getting a basic overview of what the next two years will look like. Besides learning that his school is going to cost us about an extra $2500 a year than we (and several other students) thought, there weren't to many other surprises. Ohhh except for the fact that his last exam may not be until December 22nd?! School ends on December 3rd but exams aren't until late - the schedule isn't set yet but it looks like I may be flying home a week earlier than Carl (to hopefully get a cheaper flight) but Carl may not come out until the 22nd :(

While Carl was on his way to get learned, I went to all the Scotiabanks in town! They are all pretty close to each other, our place and the school so thats exciting! I went to the first branch and got my first shift for this Friday! I went to the second branch and turned down a job I was offered right off the bat (it was 4 days a week and only 4 hours a day right in the middle of the day) but I am scheduled there for the next 4 weeks from Tues-Fri! I went to the last two branches where the supervisors were busy so I just left my name but might hold off on contacting them as I think I may get enough work between the first 2 branches! That was easier than I thought!

Last night we went to a SURP trivia night with the people in the program which wasn't to exciting but nice to meet people! Tonight we are going to a SURP BBQ at one of the teachers houses, tomorrow is a corn maze, Friday night is a house party and Saturday night is a Pub Crawl. For the pub crawl, we have to dress up as a typical person from our home town - But I told Carl I wasn't comfortable dressing up as a Surrey girl so we are going to just wear our Canucks t-shirts :)

Searching for Roots in Tweed

Today we decided to go on a little (funky) adventure! My mom was originally born in Ontario but when she was still young, her and her Dad (my Grandpa) moved to BC. I didn't really know any of my relatives back in Ontario except for my Great Grandma Langevin who visited us often and whom I remember visiting once when I was little. My Grandma lived in a small town

called Tweed, which is about an hour away from us. I remember small things about our visit to Tweed (which was between 15-20 years ago) like my grandmas's house, her sister in law next door (Aunt Joanie - I think maybe my great great Aunt?), the school across the street, etc. I really wanted to visit Tweed to find her house and visit the grave where she was buried 10 years ago. So after getting some info from my mom about the area and getting Aunt Joanie's phone number, we were on our way! It just so happened that we had to pass through another small town called Napanee and anyone who is a fan of Avril Lavigne like I am, would know that Napanee is her home town! As we drove through the winding roads of Napanee, I wondered "did Avril drive down this street?", "Is that the house she grew up in?", "Does that guy know have Avril?". What a thrill - hehe!

We carried on to Tweed in search of my grandma's house and a graveyard! We found the graveyard first and located the site where my Great Grandpa Joe was buried (who I never met), my Great Grandma Jessie and their two children, a son who I believe was stillborn and their daughter Marlene, who is my mom's mother and who died the day after my mom was born. It was pretty neat to visit the grave. Ever since my great grandma passed I'd wanted to visit her grave but didn't know that one day I actually would. I wish she was still around...She was an amazing lady and even though I didn't get to see her that often, every visit with her was special and I miss her! I wish I could have met my grandma Marlene - I often wonder how alike my mom is to her and what qualities I might possess that came from her. But there they were, four people in my family, buried together, an immediate family reunited again in heaven, somewhere where I will someday meet them all! We continued on and found the little house that I remember visiting my Grandma in, looking just the same way I remember it. Somewhere there is a picture of me and my brothers and my grandma sitting on the steps outside this house when we were little.

Our last stop was Aunt Joani's! I called her up and she immediatly had us over for ice cream and coffee! For a ninety year old lady she sure is sharp! She remembered me and my brothers names and was telling us about her children, grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren! She talked a bit about my Grandma who was her sister in law (my great grandma married her brother) , her neighbor and a very dear friend. Carl and I already feel at home with Aunt Joanie and her friend Fred. Joanie called us later on today and Fred has offered to give us his T.V so we plan to go back out to Tweed next weekend and maybe play some cards with them when we pick the T.V up! Joanie has also mentioned that all her children will be in the area for Thanksgiving and that we should come out too! I used to be pen pals with Joanie's granddaughter Renee, so it might be nice to catch up after so long :)

Aunt Joanie, me and Fred

Finally up to date!

Ahhhh it feels good to be up to date on the blog! Not that I have to write everyday but these are the days when stuff is actually happening - soon I will just be writing about work and school and the mundane run of life! So enjoy these somewhat exciting posts :) Today we got up and went to a church close by! It was a small church, the people were very friendly and overall it was a good experience but we might church hop a little before settling! Then we decided to explore the campus of Queens a little more in depth. Kids, I mean students were all over the place! Everyone is in their "Queens" hoodies and t-shirts, singing frat chants and doing scavenger hunts! Ohh campus life! We walked around, checked out Lake Ontario (which I keep referring to as the ocean as habit!) and then it started to rain. So we hopped back in the car to continue our tour! We ended up getting side tracked with looking for free furniture on the side of the road! We picked up a box of hangers, a side table for our printer and a shelf to put in our storage room for my shoes and possibly some other items that might fit (if there is room). We also grabbed a dresser but it didn't work out - we couldn't fix it. So now all we really need is a dresser, a kitchen table and chairs! The place is coming together, we just aren't sure what to do without a T.V? Right now our couches face a bear and bleak looking wall! Any suggestions? As soon as I get around to taking pictures of our place, I will post them! I took a video of when we entered our place for the first time but unfortunately it wouldn't upload on here! After a two hour nap on our new couches we came here to starbucks, our source for internet until we get it hooked up! Tomorrow we will do more sight seeing and then on Tuesday Carl's orientation starts! I will go visit all the Scotiabank branches and see if they have any hours for me yet! Then the next phase of the journey begins!

Garage sailing!

It’s Saturday today and you know what that means – Garage Sales! We got up, had breakfast at our nice kitchen/camping table and headed off in search of garage sales! We grabbed a paper and punched the addresses into our GPS and we were on our way! About five hours later we had purchased, a microwave, a coffee maker, glasses, mugs, a book shelf, a side table, an ironing board, a garbage can, a PAMPERED CHEF pot, a large picture, a few other items and A FAN (thank you Jesus!) all for about $60! But we still didn’t have a couch…We had almost given up but thought we would check out the Salvation Army one more time to see if anything new had come in since the day before. Sure enough, we went in and saw a couch set that apparently someone had literally just dropped off! I asked the lady “how much?” and she looked the set over. I was expecting her to say maybe $150 if we were lucky and then she blurted out “I’d say $75”, I looked at Carl who nodded his head and I looked at the lady and said, “Consider it sold!”. For another $20 our beautiful baby blue, micro suede couches were delivered to our door! They are actually in pretty good shape, originally from Sears and very comfortable! Carl also found a couch side coffee table out by the garbage that was in bad shape but he brought it in. We figured out that the person that put it together obviously wasn’t familiar with the Ikea way of doing things and so Carl took the thing apart, put it back together the right way, and now we have a nice little coffee table! The day was a success! The weather has cooled down considerably! It rained a little last night and today there is a surprisingly cold breeze blowing about! We got our phone numbers changed so if you didn’t get the email with our new numbers and address, let me know! We also discovered calling cards! For $5 we get 125 minutes of long distance – 4cents a minute! I’m sold! Now we are just waiting to find a deal on Internet and get that hooked up so I can post these blogs on the day I write them!

August 2nd and 3rd

Ok, just a quick side note before I get writing - look closely at the cooler on the left and you'll notice a bunch of water in the back left hand corner. See it? It didn't rain last night - that is from the HUMIDITY! Have I mentioned how humid it is?! Anyways, it was weird getting up this morning and knowing that we would be arriving in Kingston within 2 hours! We decided it was a good idea to get there in the morning to find our bearings in the new place, unpack and start getting organized! So we loaded up the car for the last time and headed towards the border! The closer we got, the more anxiety I felt! All this time, it’s just felt like a vacation and now it’s starting to sink in that we aren’t going home! We pulled up to the border, no line-ups, just crossed

right over from New York into Ontario and about twenty minutes later we were in Kingston! It’s quite nice entering into Kingston the way we did, you are greeted by the mouth of the St. Lawrence and get a nice view of Lake Ontario. Tall brick buildings surround you, many of them old and full of character. We headed straight to the building on campus where we picked up the keys to our new (and temporary) home! The buildings on campus are pretty much all made of brick and are massive and old looking in a cool way! It looked pretty neat and is really close to Lake

Ontario. Our place which we were told was on campus but I guess is just “campus housing” is actually about a 7minute drive away – a little farther than we expected but still doable for Carl

to walk. We looked at our odometer and it read 999.8kms. We kept track of the kms for the trip but it resets every 1000kms making our total kms 5999.8! Crazy! And then it was time to

enter our place! We pulled up the building, and it looked just as we expected from seeing it on Google Maps. We entered the building, not to bad looking, a little dated and a little worn but expected. We found our unit, first floor, and then we opened the door…To the right, we have a little walk through

kitchen and our living room, to the left, a fair size storage room, then a closet, then the bathroom and straight ahead, our bedroom. The kitchen has more cupboard space than we expected and there is more storage than we expected but the bathroom doesn’t even have a counter! There is a bathtub, a stand-alone sink on rusted poles, a toilet and about enough room to turn around in! The walls are all the same color, a bland off white color that is peeling all over the place! The floor is a beach colored, old style hardwood. Our first thoughts were, “not bad, we can make it work”. It’s a little disappointing that all the paint is peeling and that the bathroom has nothing to be desired but it’s home for now! We have a big window in the living room and in the bedroom – our view is of the parking lot and the main entrance (everyone walks by our unit to enter the building). We unpacked our car and started out on our first mission, find a bed and get cleaning supplies! After shopping for several hours and bringing home a new bed set (Queen size box spring, mattress, bed frame and 2 free pillows for $370 – YES!), it was time to clean! We started at 7:30pm and gave up at 2:30am! It was dirtier than we thought – in fact, it was disgusting! After about 7 hours of cleaning, we had only tackled, the bedroom, the bathroom and part of the kitchen! Carl spent 2 hours just scrubbing the toilet! You can imagine how dirty it was – ugh! So, off to bed only to wake up at 7:30am the next morning and keep on cleaning! After about 12 hours of both of us scrubbing until our fingers hurt, was the place clean enough (and we are not THAT anal about cleanliness!). All this done, in

sweltering hot and humid weather with no fans! Apparently this is the second heat wave Kingston has had and the FIFTEEN stores (no joke, we counted!) we visited were ALL sold out of fans!!! Even the locals were

complaining about the heat and humidity and they probably had a fan at home! Anyways, our first few days have been hot, we have cleaned more than we hope to ever have to clean a house again, and we have ran around town a lot, visiting Wal Mart and various other stores about 3 times in 2 days! But we are finally at a point where we feel somewhat organized!

August31/Sept 1

August 31st was our longest day of driving! We left our camp by about 9:30am and drove the rest of the way through Iowa. We have a picture upon entering every state BUT we missed the welcome sign when we entered Iowa! So I told Carl, “if we miss it on the way out, we have to turn around and go back!”. Sure

enough, the sign, on the opposite side of the road was impossible to get and it was impossible to pull over! So, we crossed the Mississippi river, and then we turned around, crossed it again, got a picture of the sign and crossed it one more time! It’s not like we were going to see anything else worth taking a picture of that day! We were then in Illinois! It looked just like Iowa and Minnesota and Eastern South Dakota and had about as much to offer – so, pretty much nothing! We debated on popping into Chicago but the traffic

on the main hwy in the suburbs of Chicago was enough to scare us away! It was hectic and stressful to drive in! We will go visit Chicago but will be taking a train! We passed through Illinois and then we passed through Indiana and then it was onto Ohio!

Carl’s roommate Tom, from college lives in Ohio so we had planned to stop by for a visit. Tom graciously offered his home to us for the night so we pushed through to Dalton, Ohio and would have arrived a little before 11pm if we hadn’t taken a slight detour.

As we were heading to Dalton, the name of a small city on the map close by caught my eye and we just had to go there, of course, to get a picture of the sign! So we drove down some dark, winding, rolling streets, made a few turns and then a few u-turns, watched out for any wildlife that might jump out in front us - but lost a possum on the journey. But it was all worth it (at least for us – RIP Possy), because, THERE, in all its glory, reflective letters glittering in the headlights was the sign that read, “Funk”!

We arrived at Tom’s around 11pm, after driving for about 12 hours, gaining an hour in the meantime! We are now the full 3 hours ahead of home. After visiting with Tom, it was off to a well-needed sleep! We awoke this morning at 8am and the three of us went out for breakfast to what seemed to be the only diner in town! Tom had biscuits and gravy – a meal that seems to be a traditional breakfast in the USA. It hasn’t appealed to us yet. Afterwards, he gave us the tour of the town – there was the diner, a hardware store, the church he worked at and then my two favorite stops, an Amish home and Tom’s Dad’s shop. The area is well inhabited by traditional Amish people and since Tom’s dad employs some Amish people, he knows some of them personally, one couple in particular who don’t mind visitors. We drove down the driveway to be greeted by Andy, the families second oldest son at 14 who was putting the horse and buggy into their red barn by the white house (traditional colors for Amish homes). We knocked on the door and were greeted by Maddy and three more of her eight children. She showed us their kitchen and living room, very basic rooms. Herself and her children were dressed in home sewn clothes, the girls with head coverings and the boys with their hair cut in sort of a bob just above their ears. Everything in the house was pretty much homemade and made of wood, some of it painted a light blue. It was like looking at an old house in a museum or something that maybe our great parents had lived in. Maddy explained that later on that day she was going to can peaches on her wood burning stove, maybe after she tackled the pile of sewing she had to do! Seeing how it was already hot and humid in the house, I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like when she started the fire in the stove! Andy took us back outside and showed us the family business of handmade baskets and then explained how their well works, using the wind and a windmill! It was all very eye opening! From my short visit, I can see that Amish people are extremely hardworking! Tom explained that there are varying levels of Amish and for example, some will have a horse and buggy yet others will have a car but it has to be black. Tom also explained that the Amish community, although noticeable in Dalton is still quite small and therefore genes are getting mixed and more and more Amish children are born with down syndrome (we met one). After visiting the family, we went to Tom’s Dad’s shop, P. Graham Dunn. Go to any Christian bookstore and I bet they carry his stuff! He makes wood plaques, inspirational pictures, wood frames, etc. It’s the “in style” décor kinda stuff!

We got see the whole, factory where the wood gets carved with a laser, painted, finished, packed, etc. It was pretty cool and the stuff is beautiful! After our “tour of the town” it was time to say good bye and hit the road again! We drove through Pennsylvania

and then into New York! It was soooooo humid! We found a

campsite and set up camp for the last time! As I walked to the bathroom, I noticed the grass was really wet like it had rained – nope, that was just from the humidity! So so so so gross! Sorry there aren't more pictures of us, there wasn't much to take pictures of and we couldn't stop at these signs!