August Update

Greetings all. Hope all is well for everyone. I have good news and bad news this time. The good news is that we finally have high speed at home. Had to go wireless card with a laptop, but at least new I can sit upstairs and play online. The bad news is that I am still not working. The company brought me back for a day and a half and gave me another 59 day layoff. I wont put it into words what they are being like, but they wont terminate me cause they don't want to pay me a severance package. So they lay me off and hope I quit and walk away from everything including stock options. But Im stubborn and refuse to walk away from 9 years of working my butt off without anything. I was not working for 3 weeks but now have a one month job welding for a business associate. After that I'm not sure, but the company has to bring me back to work by Sept 14 or they terminate me. So we will see. I will try and post some new pics this weekend of our trip to the east coast and off course our children. And whoever reads this please email me your email addresses as I lost mine when my big computer crashed last week.

July Update

Hello again. Just a quick note again. We just got back from our 10 year anniversary trip to the East Coast. We spent a week in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Had lots of fun but it was nice to get home again. Still swinging a hammer for work, but I am supposed to find out this week when I go back to work or if they are going to terminate me and give me a severance package. Will let you know what happens sooner or later. Other than that, nothing new up here. Love you all, take care.

A Slow Time

Just a quick note for you all. As some of you already know, I was laid off from my job last Wednesday. Came as quite a shock as I just took a 22% salary cut 1 1/2 months ago to avoid this, but apparently it was not enough. The Canadian oil patch is very slow and in bad shape right now, and my company is not in a good position right now. The layoff is supposed to be a temporary layoff for a max. of 59 days. I am still considered an employee of the company, receiving full benefits during the next 2 months, and can be called back any time. So in the meantime I am staying busy making a bit of money building houses with the guys who built our house. Lots of fun working with these guys again, just wish it was under different circumstances. So for the next while I will not be posting pics on our blog as I do not have high speed internet at home. And please do not email us anything but text in any emails as they will take forever to download. Take care, all and dont forget about us up here just because I dont post any nice pics of tractors, quads and pets. Love Chris and Tanya

May Update

Our new family member- 30 HP model 790 John Deere with front end loader, tiller and rear scraper. We finally found the one we wanted for a reasonable price after looking for 7 years. And yes, its a real tractor, no spark plugs in this baby. Just pure diesel power. Funny how 2 tractors ended up in our families blogs on the same week. They are much nicer to look at than motorcycles, eh?

Baby foxes near our acreage. 4 pups in total.

A few winter pics from around our place.

The easy way to cut firewood

This stupid cat thinks he has to take a look at everything that comes into the yard.

I took the work loader home to move the 70 foot logs this time. Lots easier on the back.

More 2008 Christmas shots

One of the more serious moments.

I think the only reason Tanya wanted a deck is so we would have more places for Xmas lights.

Warm Winter Days

Hauling more firewood for ourselves and the inlaws.

They actually get along once in awhile

A Break From Work

A couple of us guys needed a break from work so we went to Nashville Tennessse for 4 days. We took in a NFL play off game between Baltimore and Tennessee, and a NHL game between Nashville and Chicago. Had lots of fun and saw lots of neat places from the historical music business like the Grand Ole Opry.

Fishing off Vancouver Island in 2006.

Brother in law ice fishing on Pigeon Lake.

Christmas Day at our house

I have a long way to catch up with Dwight's motorcycle pics. This is just another picture from a quading trip out west in the foothills.

This is Tigo, our 5 1/2 year old Retriever/Collie cross that we adopted. He beats the living daylights out of Eden whenever she gets out of line, even though he is half the size.

Here is Eden, our 2 1/2 old Great Pyrenees

Cleaning up our forest after a huge windstorm. We lost about 25 big spruce trees.

Playing in the mud has its costs

Hauling firewood at our acreage.

A beautiful view of the valley above the North Saskatchewan River west of Rocky Mountain House.

Quads dont run well in 4 feet of water. He was hung up on a rock and couldn't move because he sucked his engine full of water.

Welcome All. I dont know how often I will be adding pics or comments to this, but I figured if Dwight can do it, I can at least try.