the night before the departure...

Twas the night before our departure and all through the room,

there were bags packed a plenty and an ora of doom,

for though we had fun here and wanted to stay,

our life can't be spent completely on play,

we'll leave all our mountains,

we'll leave our wood buildings,

we'll leave our quilt buddies, our yoga and signing,

we'll come back some day,

escaping from work for some play,

so take heart dear friends, the future is bright,

we'll be home in our brown house on Sunday night...

In Memoriam:Pink Kodak Easy Share, June 2007-March 2010

Please observe 2minutes and 18 seconds of viewing for our poor little camera...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgKrHT7Bip8

Maya and Jordan's Wedding, March 21, 2010

This is my friend Maya from my Sign Language Course. She married Jordan on Sunday and needed a hairstylist. As someone who also got married on a Sunday, I volunteered my services, knowing that she wasn't able to find another stylist on a coveted day off. The building behind the couple is St Eugene Hotel. Formally a residential school on the St. Mary's Reserve, the building has been transformed into a beautiful hotel, conference centre and casino. It's a gorgeous spot for a wedding.

I'm not bragging here, but I will say that I'm quite proud of this updo. Maya is a beautiful woman so it wasn't hard to make her look fancy for her wedding. Thank you Maya for the oppourtunity to spend some time with you and work with your lovely hair. May you and Jordan have a loving and fun life together.

Birthday Shoes

I wanted to show Angela, Ron and Rian what they bought me for my birthday, so here they are, ORANGE BIRKENSTOCKS!!! Moofut thought they were spectacular and I always weigh in his opinions when making my shopping purchases. Also, not to make you in the frostier regions of the country jealous, but I've been wearing these since March 7th, OUTSIDE! Now, at this time I will admit that I have mostly worn them with ummm socks, shhhhh, but I'm in hippy country. Anywho, Thank you Mom's of mine for the great gift.

Shutter Island parody

If you have seen "Shutter Island", and we highly recommend you see it, then this video will make a lot of sense. If you haven't seen it, better go tonight!

Moofut's first Teeter-Totter ride!

Allan, Dustin's fellow student and Sandy Allan's wife of one week, went to Fort Steele with us, and when we saw the See-Saws, as Allan called them, we couldn't resist! Thanks Allan and Sandy for a great day with us!!!

Disappearing Nine Patch

This is my Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt. I used the scraps from my quilt for Haiti, plus some coordinating fabric. I just finished the top today and thought you might like to see it. Now I just have one more top for a very special occasion, and then my quilting time in Cranbrook will be complete. In two weeks from today, we will be on our way out of the mountains and back to the prairies. Sigh!

Reflections on St. Patrick's Day!

This is Dustin's hat from the absolutely awesome St. Patrick's Day party we attended on Saturday! I don't think either of us had ever been to a St. Patrick's Day party before, so, in order not to be pinched, Dustin dressed as a Leprechaun, complete with a pot of gold (which were the truffles I made wrapped in Gold foil), and I found dark green scrubs. Being that it's 2010, they were "skinny" scrub pants, which I didn't discover until I got them home. I am generous through the leg, so the skinny scrubs made walking and sitting a bit of a trial, but we had such a good time, I eventually forgot about it. There were games at the party, and Rachel put on an amazing spread of 2 kinds of Irish soda bread, 6 different Irish cheeses, 3 different soups, and apple cake. Unbelievable! We played pin the Leprechaun on the other Leprechaun's crotch, while blindfolded. That was hilarious, and I was winning for quite a while, but eventually lost. We played Balloon Booty Basketball! One person had a balloon taped to their booty and the other one threw a balloon in the air and the balloon booty had to bat it into a big box! We lost. Oh, and we had to guess the irish person on our backs, I was Enya and Dustin was Bob Geldof and then Bruce Springsteen. Did you know that these people were Irish? We didn't.

When I think of the best part of the party it was the bookends. When we arrived both George and Rachel gave us HUGE FRIEND HUGS! I don't think I've allowed myself to get too lonely for my friends, but I am realizing that without hugs, I die slowly. That may sound dramatic, but I really need a lot of affection to feel myself, so, my favourite parts of the party were the hugs.

Thank you George and Rachel, Paul and Lochlan for a perfect place to stay and all of the kindnesses you've shown us while we've been here.

Oh, and here's a picture Dustin took with our broken camera, and I really thought it was sweet.

I think it's his Harrison Ford impression! Enjoy!

THE CHAINSAW MASCARADE

This is definitely an operation I wanted no part of . On this highly disturbing video is a man who is using a chainsaw at 10 feet up standing on nothing but a 4x10 rafter. Although his work is incredibly precise, his method parallels insanity. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

Raising the Chalet

Finally, the day came to raise the chalet. As can be seen above, all of the finished timbers were placed on the high lift truck and moved to the site where the building was to be raised. We began by using a transit level to make equal and level stones to place the main posts of the building on. Finally we began to raise each of the main walls, tie beams and finally the ridge plate. All that work and the actual building only takes about a day to raise. It was a great feeling! Best of all, despite being high up around pieces that weigh 350 pounds, no one was injured.

1234

I have not posted a blog, regarding timber framing, in some time as we have been busy working on our class project. We are building two structures, a chalet and a bent. The milling for the bent started two and a half weeks ago (see 1). I spent so much time working on the sawmill I actually became very proficient at it.

Then came what seemed like days of planing and joinery as in 2 and 3 above. My chisel and I became well acquainted and it had to be sharpened twice. We finally got all the pieces finished and were ready to start raising our first building, the chalet!

For Hank

Hello Hank, Nancy, Tanya, Gabe, Emily, Anna, Scotty, Patty, Tina,oh and Sarah! Thank you for commenting on our blog. Your comments are like little presents that bring us delight, joy and excitement. At this point I should say that Hank has not commented, just so you are not confused, but I know he will after he 1) checks out our blog when he remembers and has time, and 2) sees that we have written this to spur him on to comment on our blog!

I suppose I should add a picture here, hmmmm, let me see

can you find Moofut?

Completed and almost completed!

This is Wendy and the cute little quilt she made for MCC.

This is the quilt I completed for MCC.

This is my first big quilt that I measured incorrectly so the back was smaller than the front, so my solution was to add a big border, and voila, that fixed it.

This is the top of my quilt for Haiti. It needs a backing, a batting and it needs to be tied.

I've already cut out a new quilt with a disappearing nine patch pattern and I would love to show it to you, but we had a camera incident and the screen on it broke, so we are looking into having it fixed. Watch for our blog on the pictures we took with a broken screen, it might be the new wave of photography!!!

It would be our pleasure to introduce you to George and Rachel

If any of you have had the great honour of speaking to George or Rachel when you've called us, now you can put faces with names. These are the owners and gracious hosts of Elizabeth Lake Lodge. Toodles!

Elevator Adventure...

After experiencing the elevator at the historic Hume Hotel in Nelson. We decided that Moofut needed a ride!

39

I had my first mountain town Birthday this weekend, so I got my hair done. She wasn't very talkative, but she was very talented. Thank you for all of the calls and emails and I'm sorry if I missed a call because we were gone for the weekend! Bring on 40!