Emily's Birthday

I have not been very good staying on top of my posts this year. Emily's birthday was um, last Friday. She turned 7 years old! It was a busy week of cleaning, planning, and shopping to get ready for her birthday party on Saturday. After she got home from school, I dropped her off to spend some time with Dad at work. He took her for a walk at the Botanic Gardens.

Caitlyn and I stayed home to make dinner and decorate. Since her her birthday party was to be the next day, I didn't want to have to make two cakes in a row an opted to make a quick chocolate rice crispy treat "cake" instead for her actual birthday. We usually have her wait until her party to open her presents with the rest of her guests but thought maybe that it would be better to have her open ours on her actual birthday so that she has time to look at them and enjoy them instead of getting overwhelmed with too many presents at the same time and not knowing really what to look at first. So we asked her if she wanted to open them or wait. She said that she'd rather just wait (what a strange kid). But, as I already wrapped and got all her presents ready, we brought them out to sit next to her as we took pictures just to torture her (heh, heh). And what do you know, she caved instantly and changed her mind to open her presents on her actual birthday instead!
While Emily was distracted with her presents, Dad snuck in behind Emily and took a bite big bite out of her "cake."

Chinese New Year

This year, Chinese New Year happened to land on Valentine's Day...which was also a Sunday. So we headed over to my family's house on Saturday. Caitlyn was still sick so we were not exactly sure what we were going to do, but she woke up that morning without a fever and we headed over to my mom's house, hoping for the best. However, by the time we got there, she had a bit of a fever again and had to sit out of most of the festivities.

We basically, get together and have a traditional meal. Normally, we are supposed to get together at the end of the old lunar year as well as after the new year begins but as all the kids are busy these days with their own families and schedules, we some times try to just do it on one day. As a part of the New Year festivities, we normally hand out lucky money to the children and make dumplings and other dim sum like goodies.

My mom prepares the stuffing ahead of time and all the kids come over to assemble them. Most of the grand children are now old enough to help so we are teaching them how to make them.
We basically sit around and eat all day because as we continue to make dumplings, some of the batches come out of the kitchen, ready to eat...and boy do we eat. The dumplings are best eaten fresh so we, um...take advantage of that fact. Although, none of us seem to be able to really put it away like we used to. Getting old is no fun.

My Mom's Birthday

A couple of weeks ago, we went to my mom's house to celebrate her birthday. I haven't been that good this month in keeping up with my posts.

At first, I wasn't in the mood. Then Caitlyn came down with a really horrible flu. I had to pick her up from school early last Tuesday. She had a really high temperature for quite a few days. At one point she had a temperature that was over 104 degrees. We took her to the doctor on the third day just to reassure ourselves that we were doing all that we could for her. The doctor pretty much just confirmed that she had the flu and informed us that it just had to run its course and not to worry. After another day or two, she finally started making some improvements. She was almost over it by Sunday but this past Monday was her first day without a fever and she was finally able to return to school today.

So it would be back to business as usual today....if Christian didn't start getting sick now.

Anyway, as I was saying, a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my Mom's birthday. Instead of presents, we offered her our services in the yard. She had this thorny grapefruit tree that produced very bad tasting fruit. So we decided that it needed to go. There are a couple of other trees that were not producing very well either so we decided to replace them for her. My brother picked up a couple of trees for her and Christian helped him dig out the tree. The rest of us were on clean-up duty.

My mom turned 72 this year. Here is a picture of her with all her grandchildren. I took a bunch of pictures but I was apparently having trouble with my camera again because the boys in the back are slightly out of focus. I don't know why I had such a shallow depth of field for these pictures. I'm hoping that it was just because I forgot to change the picture taking mode again or something. It is very frustrating.

Done

We are finally done with all the plaster work (well, the ones connected to our plumbing issues anyway). The holes in the bathroom were not the only holes torn in our walls to accommodate our new pipes. A series of holes was also torn in our master bedroom where the pipes come in from the main and again in the garage for the water going into the kitchen, laundry and then out again into the backyard. We had to patch all those too.

Christian actually started in the garage to experiment on his recipes for his scratch coat and to get his technique down. Then we moved into the bedroom since the holes in there are smaller and in a not so conspicuous area. The bathroom was actually the last one finished because it was such a large hole and is right in the middle of the room with a light shining on it. We wanted to make sure that that one was perfect.

For each of the holes, Christian had to cut each of them even bigger to square them and expose a stud to attach the gypsum lathe. Then he had to feather all the edges three steps so there would be less chance of cracking. After attaching the gypsum lathe, he had to tape the edges and apply the brown or scratch coat. After that dried, he had to put a thin layer of plaster or finish coat. It was a pretty stressful ordeal as we have not had experience with this kind of work before and there is a very limited amount of time to apply, smooth, and even out each coat before it set. Christian got pretty good at it by the time we finished the last hole.

He'll need the knowledge and experience to finish fixing the bathroom.

But our ordeal was not over when the last hole was covered up. When the plumbers first installed the new pipes we had to apply for a building permit from the city so that if anything happened to our new plumbing (especially since most of the pipes are now in the roof over our heads), the insurance company will actually cover it.

Now I know what you are thinking...why would we even bother since the insurance companies were so very helpful to us before? Basically, it's for peace of mind against catastrophic failure. Because you know that once you decide to pass it up, the chances of it actually happening increases exponentially.

Anyway, we spent a bunch of extra money to have some bureaucrat from the city "inspect" the pipes and make sure that it was "up to code." The guy barely looked at the pipes and signed off for "rough plumbing" work and said that we had to finish covering up the walls in order to get it signed off completely. What that has to do with the plumbing, I'll never know. But we had a one year window in order to complete it.

When we finished the work, we called for the inspector to come back and o.k. the work. Christian took time off and he came and he glanced at the one wall but he did not sign off on the plumbing. It's not that he didn't approve of the work done, in fact he barely looked at them. What he did do was give us a citation for not having smoke detectors in every bedroom. Nice, huh?

So we had to run out and get a bunch of smoke detectors and call again for another appointment. He came a second time. Christian handed him the paperwork again and a signed paper regarding the smoke detectors and he finally signed off on all the work done without even stepping foot in the house. What a nuisance but good riddance. I don't want another one of his kind stepping foot anywhere on my property looking for things to cite us on!

Toilet

I am sure you are wondering, why I am making a post and posting a picture of a toilet. Frankly, I have to say, it is just such a beautiful sight!

Have I lost my mind? Maybe, but that is besides the point. No, it isn't new...or fancy. Just a toilet. To be exact, this is the same toilet we lost after our huge pipe ordeal, almost 1 year ago, when we moved in.

We didn't see it as a big deal at first, after all, we came from a house that only had one toilet. And at some point, we were just happy to have running water again.

Then we were sent an angel named Keith, who tiled over most of the gaping holes in this bathroom which got us a working bathtub again for the girls.

But there was still a huge gaping hole above the toilet that needed to be repaired, so we decided not to put the toilet back in until we got that fixed rather than tear it out again so that we had room to work. We actually got an estimate on the plaster work but it was just outrageous...especially in light of how much money we put out to get the house and the money we didn't even have to fix the pipes.

Then we had the problems with the termites as a result of the plumbing problems. After that, we had the problem with the trees the month after that. Meanwhile, Christian was researching how to fix our walls ourselves because we were clearly not going to be able to hire anyone else to fix it. But when Christian sets his mind to fix something, it has to be fixed right. So, he wasn't about to just tack up some drywall and fill it with joint compound only to crack months down the line. He was going to restore the original plaster. Once that was decided, he researched all about plastering and started to look for sources of materials.

Unfortunately, we found that most of the materials are no longer sold. So we had to improvise a bit. We couldn't even find the raw materials to make our own plaster as most of the materials sold were already in ready to use pre-mixes (which didn't tell you exactly what was in the mix).

Meanwhile, the heat of summer came along and we were not able to work on anything...especially not the plaster as it would dry way to quickly and not set properly. This was the followed by a really dry autumn. So, here we are, nearly a year later. We did not expect that it would take this long. But the plaster in the bathroom is in and the toilet is too! And none too soon as the idea of having two bathrooms but only one working toilet was wearing thin on my nerves.

It was touch and go for a while and we were not sure we were going to have the toilet in and in working order after all. All the gaskets had deteriorated and Christian basically ended up gutting the whole tank and refitting it with everything new.

Now, all we have to do is to let the plaster "cure" for a while and then paint it. Of course, that probably won't be any time soon either because the previous tenant left some badly patched up areas in there from previous water damage.
And the plumbers left this little gift for us on the ceiling when they were in the rafters putting in the new pipes.To say that we have our work cut out for us is putting it mildly, but, we have a working second toilet....and I for one, am thankful.

New Stovetop

Okay, it's not exactly new. We got it back in September or so when we got a refund from our property taxes. We had been looking at them for a while (mostly window shopping and dreaming)...but we ran into yet another one of those fabulous deals that we couldn't pass up. We got this stove top for over 50 percent off.

The old stove top was just one of those cheap Chef Magic things...which was okay, but was not the original stove top and therefore, installed improperly. They kind of just crammed it in to the space available so part of it was installed into the counter and part of it was sitting on top of it. You can imagine how lopsided it would be when you had a pot full of stuff on the range. Plus, since it has been like this for some time, it tweaked the entire range so that it could not be fixed...or maybe that was their way of trying to level it out...who knows.

Here is a pic of the original range:

In fact, that picture was taken before the old owners moved out. That's their stuff still sitting there. It's not that obvious how bad it is until you actually cook on it. Plus one of the knobs was melted and another one was broken. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen so this was a bit irritating for me.

Actually, one of the things that really spurred us on to the purchase of the stove top was a recent incident in which I was making some broth and it had boiled over. I cleaned up the top but forgot to clean the stuff that leaked down. I was going to get it later as it is a pain in the ass to get into it. But several days passed and a smell started permeating through the kitchen. I couldn't figure out what it was until it got nauseating. I definitely wanted a cook top that was sealed to spills!

We found the Fisher & Paykel one on clearance at Lowe's and we were able to haggle the price down with the manager. It's a decent stove top with a nice design...not the best, but not bad for the price (especially our price) but part of the reason we were able to haggle the price down was because the wok ring was missing. One of the features I was buying it for. We called the company before purchasing it and they said that we can buy a replacement so we bought it and brought it home to try out to make sure it not only worked, but met our expectations. The stove top itself was fine but when we tried to call back to order the work ring, we just got the run around. We spent a couple of months on the phone with them, sending e-mail back and forth and then going to a couple of their "authorized dealers." It took another month to get it as they sent us the wrong one at first and we had to send it back and get another one. It was a horrible experience. I doubt that I will buy anything from that company again. They have the worst customer service ever.

Anyway, here is our new stove top:
We had to put it up on slats on top of the counter since the hole for the range was about an inch too small on top...but at least it was level...just too tall. I cooked with this on top of my counter for months while we tried to work out the stupid wok ring with the dealer and then we got too busy to do anything about it.

But no more, it is finally in. Christian installed it on Monday. It made a huge mess in the kitchen though and we had to spend the rest of the day and night scrubbing everything in the kitchen down. Luckily, the neighbors had invited the girls over to play for a while (even though I had to run them over there in the middle of the storm).

It's actually a bit disorienting after all this time of living with it the way it was. I still need to get used to it. It isn't in there exactly how we would like it since we ran into a few problems but it will do for now and it is a so much better than it was. The rest will have to wait as we have other more pressing issues to address. Christian has been working all over the house fixing things since the Christmas break. Unfortunately, the girls never let us commit quite as much time as we need to on, well, anything.

New Year's Day

A new year, an old goal. We've been wanting to hike up to the ranger station at the top of the two trees trail since we moved into the area. We tried several times but we couldn't find the trail head the first time and it was too hot to make it very far the second time. Actually, Emily tried another time in between those two times. She went up with our neighbors but they ran out of daylight and had to come back before making it up to the top.

So, on new year's day, we decided to pack a snack and work our way up the mountain. It was a beautiful day for a hike as the clouds gave us some cover from the hot January sun. It took us several hours but at last, we made it to the top.We had several rest stops to enjoy the scenery along the way.And of course, the girls did a little rock climbing too.Here is the view from the top.While we were having our little picnic at the top, we saw other hikers and horses. One of them was kind enough to offer to let the girls pet their horse. Caitlyn found that being that close to a real horse was a bit too daunting. But Emily mustered enough courage to go up with her dad and touch the horse.
Apparently, from the ranger station, the trail leads off in several other directions. In fact, you could just drive up and park there to take the other trails (of course they will charge you though). We hope to all be in better shape soon and will have more time to explore the other trails another time.

We also spent some time along the way taking pictures...of course.


We knew that Emily would have no problem with the hike but we were happy to know that Caitlyn could do it without any help as well. We never pushed them around in stollers and things much once they were able to walk and run strongly on their own two feet. We usually made them walk on their own and we are continually training them in the hopes of taking them on a real hike and camping trip as we used to do.

Here is a picture of Caitlyn and her Dad when we got back down to the trailhead.Caitlyn also found a big stick that fell from the tree at the trailhead and wanted to take it home. Christian shrugged and said that if she could carry it back on her own, she could keep it. It was rather hilarious watching her drag this big stick down the streets and all the way back home. She only complained slightly about it once when one of the ends of the stick got caught on something and she ended up carrying it above her head for some time. You can't say that she wasn't determined to keep the stick...but really, it was more of a branch than a stick...
The arrow shows where the ranger station is from our house.