School Spring Break (March 5 - 11, 2018)

Ice crystals everywhere!

This year during the school March break Amy and William stayed with us for a week. Fernanda drove them to the shopping centre in Sherbrooke where we have met up before and after waiting around for almost an hour and starting to worry they finally showed up. After transferring  the kid's car seats to our SUV we loaded up with a weeks worth of toys, skates, snowsuits and other clothes then had lunch at the mall before the ride home discussing with the kids what they would like to do while with Grandma and Grandpapa. The past month we had had very little snow but the driveway was icy and would be fun for sledding plus we had a surprise for them later in the week. I needed a break from working on the house so was looking forward to being Grandpapa again. The first full day I took the two over to Aaron's house on the other side of the Domaine to visit with his chickens, ducks, rabbits and lamb, later walking down to the frozen river through his woods. It was a beautiful day and warm enough to enjoy the outdoors.

lunch in the mall, Sherbrooke

favourite place for wash time at our house!

out of the bath and in front of the fireplace

Marie reading a bedtime story

Watching Aaron chip a hole in the ice

standing on the ice of the frozen river

Amy in the woods

enjoying supper

sledding on our driveway

decorating gingerbread cookies

Amy doing her one of her favourite things - painting

William at the NDDB rink getting ready to go on the ice

The kids went skating at our local rink one day, Amy very confident on her skates. William...well maybe next year. Later in the week we drove over to Ste-Cécile-de-Whitton for a surprise lunch at the Bellavance sugar shack. Marie and I had gone a few years ago and loved the food so were hoping the two kids would find it fun. After the tasting of the maple taffy on snow (not William's thing) we waited  in the crowded hall before being ushered to our table. The food kept on coming - all you could eat boiled and fried potatoes, ham, salted pork cracklings (Amy's favourite), meat pie, eggs sunny side up, omelettes, homemade bread, green salad and coleslaw, homemade ketchup and pickles, baked beans, maple dumplings, maple pie, pancakes...ooo it was all so good! We patted the work horse before leaving, barely able to move. Then off to the Lac-Mégantic sports centre to spend the next hour in the pool.

William at the Bellevance cabane a sucre in front of the buckets to collect sap

Amy and the work horse taking a break from hauling sap

Amy digging into maple syrup on snow

At the Lac-Mégantic sports centre, getting ready to go swimming

The week went by fast and it was soon time to pack up and head back to Montreal to celebrate Phil's 33rd birthday. Thankfully the weather was great and the roads perfect. We went out to the 5 Saisons sushi restaurant on Sherbrooke St where we have been before and thoroughly enjoyed it, then home to blow out the 33 candles on Phil's birthday muffins. Marie stayed for a few more days to attend court with Phil (they were taking an unscrupulous person Phil had hired to do some work on the duplex who had run off with the money paid up front) and I returned to start laying tile in the basement. I drove back to the city a few days later to pick Marie up, this time in a snowstorm that made the roads absolutely atrocious, especially this side of Sherbrooke. I was driving our big truck so felt relatively safe. We eventually got about three feet by the following day and I had to hire a local boy and his brother to clear the stairs and deck. March is the snowiest month here and again this year we were not to be disappointed. Thankfully though we missed most of the nor'easters that have been hammering the eastern seaboard this past month and we are currently enjoying an unheard of run of nine straight sunny days! But we are all looking forward to April, warmer temperatures and an end to this long cold Canadian winter. And because it has been a few years since we have spent the whole winter here it just seems to go on and on and on and on.... Maybe next year we'll head south...gws

William relaxing with his tablet and Ben

it finally snowed and we all went tobogganing!

William, my sweet grandson

going home!

Happy Birthday papa!

Marie at a local Sushi restaurant where we took Phil for his birthday

Phil's birthday muffins

heading back home by myself near Magog

Xavier et William

Amy Penagos-Steward is 6

Amy turned six in January and we went to Montreal to celebrate, the party held this year at the Parc du Soleil, an indoor amusement park for kids in LaSalle. Fun time was had by all, including Amy's aunt Rocio who was in town from Mexico City. There was the usual pinata provided by Monica and candies galore, more gifts and a delicious birthday cake. Each one of these parties I attend now only reminds me how much older I am getting...gws

Our Retirement Home Part Forty-Nine (Stone Wall in Basement)

I began planning for the stone work that we had decided to put up on the north wall of the basement this winter, bringing the last of the stone in from storage outside where it had sat for the past five years, a home for spiders and squirrels. I had to let it thaw out and dry before laying it out on the floor to make sure there was enough to completely cover the wall, approximately 100 square feet, minus the section cut out for the big screen TV that was going on the wall. As the propane stove is in that corner of the basement it was always our intention to have stone behind it rather than driwall and a heat shield. I covered the wall first with Durock cement board as I had done in the living room and brought up the bags of Quikrete type S mortar. Marie finished the electrical outlets, covered them up and we were ready to go.

Will I have enough to do the whole wall?

putting up the Durock cement board

enjoying winter meanwhile

a visit from some wild turkeys as I work to keep me company

stone veneer going up!

done!

Driwall  and first coat of mud on!

Ben enjoying a wonderful February 21st thaw of 17 degrees Celsius! 

Marie by the waterfall, Feb 21st

ice formation I found in the woods

In between finishing the stone work we went to Montreal to attend Amy's sixth birthday and, sadly, celebrate the life of Marie's aunt Therese, who died on January 20th, in Sherbrooke. But before completing the stone work I put up the last six sheets of driwall in the rest of the basement, painted the area where the TV will go a flat black and brought in a few tiles to see how they would match with the colour of the wall. The last stone went up in the middle of February and, to my surprise, I had about 50 pieces left over. Before starting on the tile I painted the walls (one side a dark blue, the other a beige to match the lightest shade of the stone) and removed most of the furniture from the room. Again the biggest problem was where to put it. With snowstorm after snowstorm on the horizon there was no chance of putting it outside so into the spare bedroom it went. ...should have built a bigger house.  gws

Our Retirement Home Part Forty-Eight (Basement Ceiling)

 

After a lot of hard work and cursing the basement ceiling is pretty well completed. We started this project this past summer and, after a terrific rain storm in the late fall that ruined some driwall sections I had just put up and then had to be replaced, the end result is satisfying. Each section of driwall had to be drilled out for pot lights (15), that Marie installed, as well as holes for the smoke alarm, two speakers and a vent for the VenMar air exchange. As you know I dislike taping and mudding over my head so I decided to cover the driwall edges with 3 1/2  x 1/2 inch wood slats to resemble ceiling beams, criss-crossing them the length and width of the whole basement. I beat them up a bit and gouged the sides to make them look old, sanded and stained them a dark brown (Rez Woodstain Grain de Cafe), countersunk the screw holes and hid them with wood plugs. The most frustrating part of the whole project was moving the bookcases, record storage cases and furniture around to make room for the ladder and driwall lifter, the one tool that saved my back. It was a nice feeling to realize after we finished this final ceiling that I wouldnt have to work over my head again! The next task is putting up the wall board and durock before bringing in all the stone veneer left over from the exrerior walls from outside to dry. Then I can start the area where the TV and propane stove will be. This has to be done before the floor is tiled, the final stage in finishing the basement! Hopefully all of this will be done before April, my goal. I"m certainly hoping I won't look like the April Fool should I not complete this by then....gws