Well, we officially give up possession of our current home at 15 Stewin as of this coming Wednesday at midnight. We have made some good memories there and I will miss it, although Mike says that he won’t. It was the first house that Mike and I bought together, it is where we spent 4 years of our lives together, along with our children and the dog. I am both sad and happy to be leaving the only area of Winnipeg I have ever lived in, it is where most of my friends are and of course my parents still live in Transcona.
I am way more excited than sad looking towards the future and the closer our new house gets to completion the happier I am. Nikkole is looking forward to going into the grade 2 – 3 split at Ryerson Elementary and Austen will be going into grade 9 at Acadia Junior High come September.
In the meantime we are living in Fort Richmond at my in-laws house. It is taking some getting used to, I have to say. My sister-in-law is being a gracious hostess and I hope that we can all make it the next few months with as little clashing as possible. Thank you very much to Connie and Lothar who have vacated the property and moved out to the lake so that we can take over their house and not be homeless while we wait for our house. Their sacrifice is greatly appreciated.
It is going to be a great adventure and I am all looking forward to it!
Posted on 23 August '09 by lisa, under Family, House, Job, School. No Comments.
Work on Fable 3 has been announced and is scheduled to be released in late 2010. Peter Molyneux doesn’t appear to be hyping the game up (yet) to the near fantastical levels that Fable 2 was hyped up to, but we’ll see if that changes in the future. I can’t say I’m personally excited about the announcement, as I never got interested in either Fable or Fable 2 so I can’t say a third interests me either. Lisa, however, devoured Fable 2 and the Knothold Island addon (as well as the Pub Games) and seemed to be a really big fan of the game. I think more information will have to be provided about the gameplay before she would make a decision on this one; from the announcement, it seems like it may be more political than action/adventure. I could be wrong though, as it does say that you start as a son/daughter of Fable 2′s hero and work your way up to be the ruler of Albion.
At least it may be a game that Lisa could look forward to, apart from Dragon Age: Origins slated to be released in November 2009 (I don’t think she’s interested in Blood Bowl at all).
~MikeR.
Posted on 20 August '09 by mike, under Video Games, XBox 360. No Comments.
Last night Lisa spoke to her cousin Rob on the phone. They recently moved in to a brand new Monticello in the Sage Creek development, just on the other side of the south end of the city. While it took them a very long time to get in to their house once building started due to a very cold winter, Rob had something to say that makes us feel a bit better about our situation; once the painting and sub-floor was finished, it took four weeks until they were able to move right on in.
If this is the case and our house goes long the same schedule, four weeks will put us around mid- to end-of-September, just over a month ahead of what we were initially told. I’m not sure how it will work out for us however, as they may have had some “rush” put in by Qualico simply because it had taken so long to begin with. I’m really hoping ours goes along the same route though. While I truly appreciate the generosity of my family in allowing us to stay in their house, it will be a tad rough for a few weeks. The less time we need to impose, the easier it will be for everyone.
Oh, and congratulations Rob and Kelly on your pregnancy. Our best wishes to you and your coming little bundle of joy!
~MikeR.
Posted on 18 August '09 by mike, under House. No Comments.
“Moving Day” has come and gone. Well, more like “Moving Week” really. I had the joy of spending my last week of summer vacation away from work moving furniture and boxes upon boxes out of our house.
On August 10, PODS dropped off a 16 foot container wherein we were going to store our larger and sturdier worldly possessions. It worked out quite well. Podzilla, while perhaps not the most elaborate creation, is still pretty neat to watch in action when the container is being loaded/unloaded from the truck. So, there I was Monday to Sunday every day hauling stuff out of the house. Who knew a single family could collect so much stuff over the course of just a few years?
Of course, the weather was absolutely incredible all last week. Perhaps even the best it’s been all summer! Too bad I was too busy to enjoy it, but at least Matthew was able to go out to the lake with the grandparents and enjoy the weather there while I sweated away, soaking like a rag in a bucket of water. Oh well… at the end of it all, the PODS container is completely full, and so is my parents garage. We just have to go back a little later this week (probably tomorrow) to pick up the barbeque, lawn mower, trampoline, and a couple of other items from inside the house. Getting the meter readings at the end of next week will be the final thing to do, and we’ll be out completely.
As to our new house, it’s coming along. Lisa and I stopped by yesterday evening and while the doors were locked, we were able to look in through the windows. The subfloor is almost completely in, and the door kits are stacked in the dining room. The garage pad has been poured, and the chicken wire is up on the exterior for the scratch coat. It all can’t get done fast enough for me.
Well, vacation is over and I’m back to work. Sigh…
~MikeR.
Posted on 17 August '09 by mike, under Family, House. No Comments.
Wow, has it really been three weeks since I last posted something? Time sure flies!
Last week Lisa, myself, Nikkole, and Matthew (Austen is in Calgary visiting with his dad) all went to Wasagaming, a town on the shore of Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park. It’s my personal favorite place to go for summer vacation, as it has everything you could want (in my opinion at least); cabins/motels to stay in, shops to browse, places to go eat (including the Wigwam, where I always make sure I order the Bison Burger), and of course the lake itself. Clear Lake is aptly named, as the water is incredible, especially when compared to Lake Winnipeg. The lake itself is very cold however as it is quite deep, and is spring fed. We had so much fun, even though we only went for three days. We rented a four person bicycle (quadcycle?) and toured around town for an hour. We spent a lot of time just walking around enjoying the sights. The kids played in the motel pool a fair bit (as I said above, the lake is quite cold and we haven’t had a hot enough summer to make it tolerable). We ate out. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was also Lisa and my third anniversary, and we sure enjoyed it.
As I mentioned above, Austen is in Calgary and had left at the end of July. We talked to him on the phone a couple of times and he really seems to be enjoying himself. Nikkole left with her Nana yesterday morning to visit and come back with him before school starts. She seems to be having fun too, even though she cried the night before because she said she didn’t want to go. Her opinion changed in the morning though, so while we’re sad to see her go for so long, we’re happy she’s having fun. It’s just Matthew for the next week.
I seem to have gotten Matt hooked to Microsoft’s latest XBox development, Kodu Game Lab. It’s a “visual programming language” that basically allows you to create your own game worlds in a fairly simple and straightforward manner. While it seems to be aimed at getting children interested in development, I can’t wait to have some time alone with it and see what I can come up with. It would be really wild if Matthew actually took serious interest in it and used it as a stepping stone to becoming interested in more advanced application development when he’s older.
Well, that’s about it for now. The next few weeks will be super hectic since we’re basically packing up the whole house and putting it into storage until 26 Kingfisher is ready to move in. We have to be out by August 27, so hopefully we have enough time to get everything sorted. We don’t really have a choice though, do we? 
~MikeR.
