House

We just bought our first house. We will be moving home in late July to early August:) 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1180 sq. feet, full basement.

Saskatoon

Hi it's Karen here. Once again Blogger won't let me log in under my own user name. I will be in Saskatoon from June 13-20. I will be busy visiting with family and getting everything ready for our move. But please call me and maybe we can go for coffee, drinks, lunch or dinner:) I will be at my dad's, 374-4658.

House Shopping

So we both have jobs in Saskatoon starting in August, so we are trying to buy a house. With the way the Saskatoon market is right now, houses are selling 1-3 days after being listed, they are selling for like 30,000 more than asking price, and the average price of a house went up 20,000 in the month of April alone. So we are a little stressed about it. So what we have to do is look at pictures online, tell our realtor what we think we like, send our parents to look at the house and then decide if we want to make an offer or not. We made an offer on one house, it was listed for 219,000, we offered 255,000, and it sold for 277,000. So we didn't get it. Yesterday we get a phone call from Jeff's parents about a house, and we had two hours to decide if we wanted to make an offer or not as they were accepting offers until 6pm. We didn't go for it that time. So really, this is not a fun house shopping experience at all. I am soooooo stressed out about it, it's driving me CRAZY!! But something will come up and in the end we will have a house, and we will move home and all will be right with the world again:)

May Long

I am so jealous of everyone back home. I'm reading on facebook about all of you going to the lake and such. Well it's not even the long weekend here in the States. Next weekend is memorial day weekend, and I work on the Saturday night. So once again, no May long weekend for me!!!

Natural Bridge

Last weekend we went hiking at the Natural Bridge State Park. It's a pretty steep climb up, but the view from the top is definitely worth it. This is a picture taken from the bridge of the Lovers Leap ledge, which we continued to walk out to.

This is the actual bridge.


This is us on Lovers Leap.

Kentucky in Spring

We went for a drive and took some pictures of the horse farms. This is why people say Kentucky is so pretty.


This is the time of year when all the baby horses are out, and they can't even stand straight on their legs yet.



These are Bradford Pear trees. They bloom white flowers for about a week or two before their leaves come out.

Bailey's new hat

I got Bailey a new hat. He loves it. When we put it on him, he tried to paw it off, then he just stood still, and then he laid down.

Duma

Many of you will remember my cat Duma. We got Duma in 1990 when we still lived in Illinois. We moved to Saskatoon with him, and he's been a huge part of all of our lives for 17 years. Duma has always been a little scardy cat, it was only in the last few years that he would venture outside to the garden, but that was as far as he would go. Some of you may have only seen him running away from you, because he didn't like strangers.

Duma has been sick for the last few years, and it's gotten worse in the last few months. So last week my Dad took Duma to the vet to be put down. It was a very sad day for our family. Duma is in kitty heaven now, with lots of people to pet him, and stretch him, and give him lots of cat nip to roll in, and I'm sure he's not scared anymore.

Our other cat Walter is a little lonely. He is craving attention, poor little guy. They didn't like each other the first time they met, but then they became best buddies.

Montreal Game

So Tim came down for a weekend and we went up to Columbus to see the Montreal Candiens play. It was a very exciting game, and they broke their loosing streak and won the game!!! IF you go to my brothers blog you can get a more complete rundown of the game, and some of the people at the game. We were so surprised by just how many Candiens fans there were there. I took some pictures of them to show you. I would say there were almost as many Candiens fans in Columbus as there were Blue Jackets fans.

Indy

Look at this little guy. Don't you just want to pick him up and hug him? Well who wouldn't really. I can't wait until I live closer so I can see him more.

Blogs you should read

This is Karen, I can't sign in under my own name for some reason, so I'm using Jeff's account. My brother has been busy blogging about his trip down here last weekend, so you should all read about it. Either click on the link on the right of the page or click on this www.schizzo.blogspot.com

CNC working

Here is a video of my CNC machine on one of its first test cuts. The machine is running a sample program that comes with the control software. The software running the machine is called EMC and is free. The router is a Hitachi and the bit is a 1/8" straight bit.

My CNC

Well it has finally arrived. It being the CNC machine I have been dreaming of for quite a while now. The machine has arrived along with all the other parts needed to make it work. This "desktop" machine is three feet long, two feet wide, and two feet tall. The machine weighed over 100lbs before I started adding all the cables, motors and router. The router mounted on the machine is a Hitachi MV12. The machine has a working area of 14 inchs by 25 inchs by 5 inchs. Its not the biggest machine in the world, but it will do everything I need to do. This machine can cut a variaty of materials including aluminum with the proper set up. The machines main use for me will be cutting prototype electronic boards. At present I'm wiring up the stepper motors, encoders and other bits. I'm hoping the machine will be moving by this weekend. I still need to cut a MDF table top for the machine but I will worry about that once the wiring is done.

Kleenex

Bailey loves Kleenex. We have to hide it from him when we're not home.


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Snow

We had the most snow since I've been down here the other day. So Jeff and I went out to take some pictures of horses in the snow. Here they are.

More Pictures

Indiana with Uncle Tim Indiana with his new football

Indiana in his Bumbo seat

Sitting with Uncle Jeff and Auntie Karen

New Indiana Pictures

Alex is holding him up, but photoshop makes it look like he's standing by himself
Using Chopsticks
Drooling
Out for lunch at Saskatoon Asian
Shopping with mommy and Auntie Karen

Stupid Flying

So yesterday Jeff and I flew back from our wonderful vacation in Saskatoon. WE were on seperate flights because of a mix-up with the people who book the flights at Jeff's work. So plan A was that Jeff would land in Lexington at 430pm and pick up the dog and then drive 90 minutes to Cincinatti to pick me up at 605pm. We both flew out of Saskatoon at about 7am.
Moving on to plan B. AirCanada's system crashed nationwide, so although Jeff got onto his Northwest flight on time, my flight to Toronto was delayed. We took off about 45 minutes late.
Moving on to Plan C. I get to Toronto, go to Immigration to get my work Visa, and I walk into the the room and one of the officers is screaming at this poor guy about his paperwork. Then this woman officer starts yelling at me and everyone else who walks in the door to get our fingerprints and picture. And I do mean yelling. SO I finally sit to wait and thank goodness it was the quite person who got my file. I wouldn't necessarily say shw as nicer, but at least she didn't yell. So then I go to pay for my TN, and their credit card machine was broken, so I had to be escorted out to the bank machine, and then wait in line to get to the room so I can pay. So now we're not sure if I have missed my plane or not. So the nice customs guy walks me over to the desk to re-book my flight. Well that lady says I missed my flight and books me on the next set of flightw out and changes the tags on my bags. Then I go through security and get chosen to be the person who gets the "thourough" screening with the pat down and everything. Then I look on the board ans realize my origional flight hasn't left yet. So I go to the counter to see if I can still get on it. Since they already re-routed my baggage, I can't. So now I'm stuck in Toronto for an extra 3 hours. In the meantime I call Jeff and he got into Detroit early and should be boarding his plane at 2pm.
Moving on to Plan D. Jeff calls and they had boarded the plane in Detroit, sat on it for a while, while it got de-iced etc., then there was a mechanical problem and they went back to the gate and everyone got off. Then the flight crew had too many hours for the day, so they were waiting on a new flight crew. Then my flight from Toronto to Chicago was cancelled, so I got 2 more hours in Toronto. However they told me that if our flight was on time, most flights leaving Chicago were running late so I could probably still make my connecting flight, but I couldn;t get a boarding pass for it.
Plan E. After a five hour wait in Detroit Jeff is finally in the air going to Lexington. I board in Toronto, and sit on the tarmac for 2 hours. Miss my connecting flight and I don't have a boarding pass for the next flight. So we finally take off for Chicago, we land and I run to the next gate. They were already boarding the plane and I begged and got on the last flight of the night for Cincinnati. I call Jeff to tell him I will be in Cincinnati at 11:14, it's about 10pm and Jeff has just gotten into Lexington and is on his way home to get the dog. So I land in Cincinnati and no big surprise, my bag didn't make it. So I file a claim, Jeff picks me up and we go to a hotel with the dog and all three of us crash until 10 am.
Now it's 5pm and I just got a call saying my bag is on it's way to our house in the next few hours.
When I was a kid and we came back from Kenya I rememebr telling my cousins we had been travelling for 24 hours. That included driving time and layovers. It took me 19 hours to get from Saskatoon to Lexington. That's ridiculous.

Here's to my Grandpa

My Grandfather passed away on Sunday, he was 84. I was lucky enough to get there in time that Grandpa knew I was there and talked to me. I was also there when he passed, and it was very peaceful in the end.
The past week has been a bit of a blur. I have seen my entire family from that side, and we have spent many hours catching up with each other and sharing happy memories, and I think Gramps would be happy with that.
Some of my fondest memories from my childhood are from my grandparents farm. We spent a lot of time there while growing up. It was like one big playground. There were the horses, the barns, silo, the cellar, the chicken coop, the corn crib. And of course Garndma and Grandpa. Grandma would always make the best pies, and I hate meat loaf and roast, but I love my grandma's meatloaf and roast. My grandpa loved kids, he loved playing with us, and we loved playing with him. As we got older he loved to hear about our accomplishments. When he met Jeff I will never forget the look of pride on his face. He was so happy to meet the man I married. He also loved horses. Jeff and I would buy Grandpa coffee mugs and comemerative plates from the horse park and the Kentucky Derby Museum. They are still displayed proudly in the house.
So I'm sad, but I'm happy that I had such wonderful grandparents and that I had my Grandfather for so long. Keep checking back to this entry for new pictures as I download them.





This is my two cousins Nikki and Danielle when they were pregnant, and my Uncle Lou and Grandpa who are not pregnant.

What a cutie

Yet another cute picture of my nephew.