We can live in our house!  On Oct 31 we got a conditional occupancy permit and are free to move in.  We still have a few things to do before the building inspector will give his final approval, but we can move in! (and who needs proper stair railings anyways?). In any case, we’re still living in the trailer while we do a few final jobs, but now that my sister is living with us and we have a dog, we’ve got…
At the beginning of August we went to the San Juan Islands for 10 days. Â We’d never been before, but we had a great time and we’ll certainly go back. We hit the beach a lot, hiked, explored some rocks and caves, Â We stopped in Friday Harbour for a night to see the big city, fill up on ice cream, and re-stock on fruits and veggies before we got scurvy (you can’t bring most produce across the border). Â While…
Just in case any one still checks on this very neglected corner of the web, I thought I’d put up a few photos to show how things are going around here. The house is coming along and we hope to be in this fall.  Not that the RV has been bad, but I won’t miss having to get a kid up before I can turn their bed back into our table. Here’s the current status (please focus on the lower right corner and not…
Over the last couple of months we have stopped the destruction (or at least slowed it down) and begun some construction around here! We’ve started with bathroom renos  (ie removing the horrible makeshift outdoor tub). and working on the w/c (why does Doug always pose for the the bathroom shots?!) The kids are getting into the construction. We even hosted the first meal in our house (-shaped object, it’s not a real house yet) and afterwards…
It’s been a busy few months. On March 1st we took possession of 5 gorgeous acres here on Salt Spring Island. It came with a few extras: . . . and on March 2nd we lit our first burn pile, ordered a dumpster, and put a trailer hitch on the Echo. For a brief time we owned this school bus, this cut-out of the USS Enterprise, several toilets, this hovel, and this hovel. We’ve borrowed trucks, had lots of help…
For the kids’ 2nd birthday I decided to make them a play kitchen. It all started when I saw a cool one online that someone had made based on an Ikea nightstand. At first I had planned to just do the same, but since we have no Ikea here, we had to start from scratch instead (actually Ikea would have happily sent me one of their $20 nightstands, if I had happily paid them $40 in shipping). The kids and…
We spent the remembrance day long weekend out sailing with our friends on Rampart. The weather was beautiful and clear, but cold! there was frost on the decks soon after the sun went down and we had to run our diesel fireplace all night. However, we bundled up and had a great time, we went to the beach, visited back and forth between boats, and even did a bit of sailing. Here’s the crew on iceberg watch Sunset sail (at…
Well this blog was sorely neglected, but we’ve had a great summer. We moved back aboard the boat for 3 months and also moved from Gabriola to Salt Spring Island. We sailed quite a bit, short one-night trips mostly, but we made an effort to look super cool when we were out there, and we took some friends, and we always ate a lot of snacks. Summer baths were had in the cockpit (Where Nyah did her best Astro-Boy impression)….
We’ve never been to Montague harbour, so now that it’s only an hour and a bit from our home port we decided to hop over there for the weekend. We woke up Saturday morning and headed out, the advantages of being back aboard for the summer! We found a private beach, where Nyah tried to follow Doug out on a limb, with eventual success. Our sweet ride. When we got back aboard West spent considerable time making the perfect nest…
Way back in September we decided that since our family had suddenly doubled in size we would need a new dinghy. Unfortunately we wanted it all, something both big (enough for all 4 of us) and small (enough to be easily lifted and stored aboard), something cheap (in dollars) and high end (in construction). The laws of both physics and economics were against us. Nothing fit the bill until Doug got the idea that we would build a nesting dinghy….