Bugs Palace!

Winter is coming to a close! The best way to know when it was ending for many years was by the passing of the Figure Skating Carnival up at the Hagersville arena. Abby, Reese, Holden , Arizona and Scarlette all did amazing! So did all the other kids as well! Brings back so many memories of being younger and watching my sisters and many of my friends putting on a show. However, I feel this may be Abbys final year. She enjoys it, but not enough to continue on. We will see how she feels in a few months. Right now shes happy to be retiring after “going out on top”. Proud of this kid.

While Abby has been busy with skating this winter, Joe has found a new love for skateboarding. The unfinished kids play room in the basement has been his very own training grounds. Hes been learning new tricks and putting on shows. Nice to see him finding a new hobby to do that keeps him active! Keep it up buddy! I have a feeling I’ll be building ramps before long

With winter finally coming to a close its time to start looking forward to the summer! I decided I’ve had enough of the winter, so I pulled the Triumph out of the shed so I can start prepping it for the season. I’ve got a couple upgrades to install before it hits the road. Namely a new 45 tooth rear sprocket and a RAM mount cell phone holder. While I’m at it the old girl needs a proper detail from top to bottom. Hopefully only a few more weeks!

Jeep tires will likely be swapped out before the end of the month. Even if we happen to get a bit more snow, the mud tires will certainly handle the roads well enough. Good ole’ Jeep is still going strong. She has 205,000Km right now and 3 months of payments left. Going to great not having that payment coming out of the bank every month.

Home renos are STILL ongoing. It’s been 7 months now and I feel the inside projects are nearly coming to a close. Not that there isn’t a bunch more to do, but I think Shannon and I are about ready for a break. Since my last update we’ve replaced the water pressure tank for the cistern, added a water filtration system and had the gas fireplace replaced under warranty. Shannon has also started priming the kids playroom. Over the next couple weeks she will finish painting the playroom completely, I will frame and finish a mantle around the fireplace and hopefully a new gas for the BBQ will be installed.

With the inside renos nearly ready for a hiatus, we’re getting ever closer to starting this damned garage. Because, when you are tired of working on the house, the most logical steo would be to add additional buildings to work on. Waiting on one final quote right now and then taking all the info to the bank hopefully in the next couple of weeks. God willing, we’ll be breaking ground in early May.

Finally, I’d like to wish my wonderful wife the happiest of birthdays. Forty-one has never looked so good! I hope you enjoy your gift. I just wish I had the nerve to join you. Love ya babe!

As the title says, site got hacked! I was pissed. Happened back in November. I has simply been too busy with house stuff and work to sit down and fix the issues. Finally did that – stupid 5 minute fix and I was up and going! I then did a full system update, secured it best I could and did a full backup. Happy with myself I typed up a long over due update that many of you may have seen. Then the stupid site went down again! This time someone cracked the SQL database. My guess is residual from first issue. I decided enough is enough and finally moved bugs78.ca to a cloud hosted server. No more home serving for me! I was fortunate that the back up I did a few weeks ago made for a real quick and easy migration. Down side is that it was done prior to my last post, so it’s gone so this is my piss poor attempt to recreate the post. I’m sure I’m missing stuff, but here will be the quick version:

Christmas has come and went! As always it was a whirlwind of family craziness. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The typical marathon of dinners and parties was such a welcome change from working what feels like non-stop getting our new house the way we want it. Thank you so much to everyone for making the holidays as amazing always!

As for the house — wow — we’ve been busy. I’ll attempt to break it down room by room.

• Kids rooms – Painted and nearly complete. Abby needs a desk, Joes bed needs painting
• Master bedroom – Nothing to report. Likely last room to get touched
• Upper bathroom – Washer/dryer/shower removed. New closet built and deep tub installed. Fresh coat of the original paint to freshen it up. Will be redone eventually
• Kitchen – border is nearly removed. Once finished, fresh paint and that’s it for now
• Dining/sitting room – Fresh paint everywhere, including the hallways and upstairs hall
• Lower bathroom – Nothing done at all. Eventual painting likely
• Family room – Complete rebuild. New ceilings, wallpaper removed, AV boxes cut into the wall and mounted flush with drywall. Wood installed behind drywall to securely mount tv. Surround sound roughed in. New carpet. Basically complete, just need curtains and some small receptacle covers. Love how its turning out.
• Laundry/Office – Wallpaper removed, fresh paint throughout. Bulkheads trimmed in pine as well as a box built behind the AV from the adjoining room to make them “disappear”. Wall trimmed back to allow washer/dryer install in former walk-in closet. Wiring ran for washer/dryer. Desk installed. Very happy with the pine trimming so far. Just need to build a bulkhead and barn door to allow the washer area to be covered when we want it more finished looking.
• Kids room – Far more work then expected. For a room that simply needed paint we’ve had a lot to do. Faucet in kitchen above leaked – alot and ruined pretty much entire east wall. Thankfully that was the cause. Removed all ruined drywall and refinished the wall. While I was at it I framed in to new closest on the north end to mirror the ones at the south side. The closets “frame” the tv area. TV mounted in between them and currently I’m re-building old drawers into a bench to house the AV and Gamer consoles. This is gonna be great when it’s finished!
• Utility area – Currently a dumping ground for everything we haven’t found homes for yet. Oh, and we replaced the 35 year old electric furnace and central air unit. They were still working fine, but certainly not cheap to run. Not to mention they are 35 years old. Decided to replace them before the crapped the bed in middle of a polar vortex.

Finally some great news and some terrible news. With Chewies passing a little over a year ago the house has felt quiet with just our little Bekka. Shannon and the kids have been not so subtley letting me know they wanted another dog. I did too if I’m honest, but I was the hold out. I didn’t want to do it until the spring when the snow is gone and the weather is nice and the construction is complete. Well, as I always hunt for stuff on Kijiji, I stumbled across a breeder who had English/French Bulldog mixed pups available. I found an excuse to be away for the day. and surprised the family with our newest addition – Jabba the Mutt. She is beyond adorable and has really changed the house for the better (most days). Other days shes a little bugger and I wonder WTF did I do, but we love her dearly and shes here to stay. Bekka wasn’t too sure what to make of this much larger puppy coming into her house, but never so much as growled at her. Jabba was fairly gentle with her as well. It’s like she knew how frail she was. We have some great photos of our girls together. I’m so happy they were able to spend some time together and Jabba was able to meet her.

Not long after Jabba moved in Bekka was having some issues. We had made her an appointment to be checked out by the vet after work. Shannon thought she needed cuddles while she was getting ready for work. Since I get up after her, and was still warm in bed, she put her in bed with me. She went under the blankets and cuddled up to my hip like she always does. 20 minutes later when Shannon came to say goodbye and tell me it’s my turn to get in the shower we realized the our poor girl had passed away while snuggling me in the bed. We were heart broken. This old girl had been with us for nearly 17 years. She and Chewie had been with us when we got engaged, married, moved to our first house, brought home the kids, and every other life event since. She had been there for the good, the bad and everything in between. They were our constants in this otherwise crazy life and just like that – she was gone. I so happy to have had her in our lives. She came to us with one ear up, and the other down. Months of nibbling by Chewie and she had two floppy ears. Only a few months old we realized she had two sets of teeth and looked like a 3 pound furry piranha. Stark contrast to her senior years when she had no teeth and her tongue always hanging out the side of her little face. My dearest Bekka Boo, you will always been in our hearts and thoughts. We love you so much and hope you can finally rest in peace. Say hi to Chewie for us.

Well that was a crazy few months! My last post was 3 months ago today. And we moved 2 months ago today. Where has the time gone? Ultra fast re-cap time. Lord knows I’ll miss a bunch of stuff due to the overwhelming timeline but I’ll do my best.

Crazy summer. Baseball season came and went. We’ve got two amazing little people who love baseball nearly as much as Shannon and I do. Watching them try their best and enjoying the game has been a highlight of this otherwise rough summer. With so much time taken with prepping the house for sale, showing the house, selling it, and finally packing it, there really wasn’t much time for anything else. I’m very thankful for the many trips the ball diamond and a fantastic weekend in Darien Lake. If not for those things, the summer is pretty much a blur!

August 24th we left David Street and moved into our new home. I don’t feel as though we’ve stopped since. We totally re-did one of the rooms in the house when we moved in. 24 hours after moving in, we had removed the ceiling and started removing wallpaper. Neither Shannon and I were a fan of the plaster on the ceiling and removing and re drywalling was the only real solution. New lights were installed and new ceiling hung. Hours upon hour of wallpaper removal and a few holes cut in the wall for a recessed AV unit and the room started to take shape. Dozens of other touches and I can finally say the room is coming along nicely! Since we moved in we also turned a shower stall into a closet and replaced the bathtub that had been removed many years prior to us moving in. Mind you the one we installed is much deeper. Wall was opened up in one room to create a laundry room, wiring ran and hooked up and both kids rooms have been repainted.

There are still more tasks to be done but I don’t have the ambition to outline them all. I think I’ll just update this space as jobs are completed.

I can’t thank my family and friends enough for their support of Shannon and I in this crazy little adventure we have taken. The amount of hours and sweat and love you have all given in these last couple months is a debt we will never be able to repay. From the bottom of my heart thank you all so very much!

Since the move we have celebrated the first of many family events in the new house. Happiest 11th birthday to Abby. Love you so much baby girl! And after the house full of people left, the house was still standing. I call that a win!

At the end of September Shannon I went to San Diego to visit two very good friends. We had such an amazing time seeing parts of southern California and the ocean. We tried several local restaurants and took in a Padres game along with other “must do” sight seeing excursions. Thanks again to Andy and Starla for hosting us! We had a blast!

Finally for this quickie post I have to congratulate Mr. and Mrs Faux! I had the honour of standing up with Foxxxy at his wedding this past week. The day went of without a hitch and we had a great time dancing, singing and drinking along with one of my oldest and dearest friends as well as many new friends. To the bride, groom and wedding party – you guys rock !

I’m exhausted and sure I’m forgetting all sorts of stuff…..  I’ll leave this post as it is. With my web server finally unpacked  I can finally get backing into regularly updating. Good night!