CANADA DAY WEEKEND!!

 We start this blog with a "Happy Canada Day" to all our friends and family... And, I celebrated by putting a tiny Canadian Maple leaf on my nail.. Giggle.  I guess I had a little extra time and I researched Canada's beginnings... Here's what I found out... On July 1, 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain and a federation of four provinces:  Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec.  I didn't know this... John A. Macdonald was the 1st Prime Minister.  The anniversary of this date was called  Dominion Day until 1982.  Since 1983, July 1 has been officially know as Canada Day... So, I'm still a Canadian citizen, and proud to be so.  

The work on the deck continues... this doesn't look like much, but it sure is.  It not only is the form for the railings, but it's the also support for the covered deck.  It's pretty exciting.  The work on the railings for the 2nd part of the deck has started and is going well.

On the other side of the deck, we put up the lounge chairs and the wicker chairs, and I love the yellow colour.  It really breaks up the redwood... I love the redwood deck, and the yellow lounge chairs is an amazing contrast.  And, I might mention... Jim promises me the scaffolding is only temporary.

The work on the downstairs bathroom continues... It started with just a commode downstairs, and then we expanded to include a shower... Now, we're expanded one more time and put the sink in.  We had such a small space to put a sink in, that a regular cabinet would be too big.  I found this sink and cabinet combination about a year ago, and it fits just perfectly.  We are now going to turn the toilet square with the room....

I found this chicken in an antique shop in American Fork this past week.. I bought it because it was so colourful and I am sure that this one would get along with the other chickens in the kitchen....(giggle).  I didn't realize exactly what this chicken was.  The owner of the store told me this is what is known as Mexican Talavera pottery...  Again, a little research... this type of pottery dates back to the early 15th century... When the Spanish first conquered the Puebla region of Mexico, they introduced a new pottery technique from the city of Talavera de la Reina in Spain... The Puebla region of Mexico is a pottery making area... So, there 'ya go...  This chicken is something amazing... I just liked the colours... Jim's reaction was:  "Did you buy another chicken?"  The other line he used was..."Why did the chicken cross the road...." Uhuh...

It seems that every time we go to work at the cabin, there have to do a little repair work... OR, we can't find keys... It's always the two things.  This weekend, it was both... The boom truck had a little issue, and needed some TLC - Jim didn't get it completely fixed, but he did get it working... That was problem 1.  Problem 2 - there was water in the gas tank of the backhoe... had to be drained and new gasoline put in... Jim did get it running!  He's good like that!  Problem 3 - we can't find the keys to the conex... So, we are going to have to cut off the lock, and replace it.  After we got home, I went to Lowe's (even though I am a Home Depot kind of girl....) and bought another lock and sent it with Jim this weekend.

 One of the projects for this weekend was to move the cube that was to be used for water that has been housed in the loft for the last couple of years.  it was moved from the loft..

 . to the livingroom..... 

...to the deck....  Next, it should be making an appearance with it's sister down by the bricks... I was just thrilled to get it moved out of the loft.  We didn't know how long it would take the local water company to hook up the water, so we were prepared to haul and store our own water...  After you pay an outrageous amount of money to have them hook up the water from the street, they take their sweet time (8 months later) to dig the trench, and get the meter in...Sigh...

The electrics are almost completed... Here's the last can light in the kitchen... Jim has a couple of outlets in the bathroom to get installed, and the plugs behind the refrigerator still need to go in.. I am not sure what else needs to be completed, but he got the electrics in the loft finished off last week.  I know there is a ceiling fan in the great room that has to be installed, but not sure what else...  I am thrilled we are getting so close.

The maiden voyage of our pizza oven took place on Monday...  And, for this event, it sat on top of the grill, and this was the perfect spot.  My nephew, Seth and his two little ladies (Penny and Juniper) were visiting, so, it was a momentus occasion. ...  We don't quite have the hang of it yet, but we're getting there...Ben thought that we should make our own pizza dough, but I went with premade crusts for this event... I thought it would be faster and easier, and I have never made pizza dough before, and I wasn't going to experiment... In another life, Ben told us that he used to work for Domino's pizza (which I made a mistake and said Pizza Hut), but it's when I said we were using premade crusts that he looked like he was going to faint...

Seth was in charge of starting the fire in the pizza oven, and with the high winds that we had, it was a challenge... After many tries, I think he used lighter fluid or gasoline or something along this line.

Everybody made their own personal pizza and I thought they were really good.

I made a straight pepperoni pizza, and Jim did ham and pineapple...  Pretty yummy.

The little girls really liked creating their own pizza and especially wolfing them down...

Here's Juniper checking on the backhoe work that was going on..... and...

Penny, having a moment of reflection on the deck.  Penny and Juniper live in Hawaii during the school years, and are traveling with their dad all this summer.. It was so nice to have them visit.

After the absolute mess that one of our subcontractors made of the shower last year, (leaking to the point that our bathroom, kitchen and bedroom were flooded), Jim and Ben got down to business and started to replace the floor of the main level shower...  

We found out why the shower leaked so terribly... if you look at this next picture, there's a dark spot in the corner... that's a hole... yep.. a hole, and the drain was installed incorrectly also.  Small wonder the guy ghosted us... He knew he messed up, and didn't want to deal with the repair.  Jim and Ben got it repaired and repoured the cement floor... 

And, now, it looks all pretty... There still is some work to be done, but we are well on our way to get the walls put up... After we pass the inspection on the shower, we can finish the walls and the put the glass shower doors in, BUT, we can't do anything else in the bathroom until we get that stupid four-way inspection completed...

And, this little guy suns himself on top of the pile of bricks every morning.  We were at the cabin for 5 days, and every morning, he perched up on top of the brick, and was taking in the beauty...  

I have about 99% of the stone I want for the grotto shower... I was looking at the pile of rock and decided that I needed something a little warmer instead of the brown or grey rock.. I found a guy selling pieces of exactly what I wanted....All I knew was it was really old rock and it was red.  You can't see the red very well in this picture, but they were super red... Unfortunately, the ground is red also, so you can't really see the contrast.  Jim was taking the rock out of the bed of the truck and putting it on the ground, and he found a couple of pieces that have little holes drilled in them.  He told me that this is a technique the pioneers who came into the Salt Lake Valley used to break up the rock...  they didn't have the tools that we have today, so they drilled holes in the rock and the holes would fill with water, freeze in the winter time and then crack... I thought it was pretty cool...

So there's all our news of the week... was a lovely time.

The adventure continues...

Love, Jim and Cheri

"Mistakes are the dues you pay for living a full life"