So staying true to my word, here’s another update! After spending most of Saturday and last night with a trowel in my hand, I think I might be half done… Needless to say, mudding is an artform! But unfortunately, I think I’m reaching the end of what I can do on my own. All that’s left is the seams and corners on the roof, and working against gravity on your own with mud, not an enjoyable experience. But, I’ll soldier on and see how it goes. I’ve attached photos of the progress as a sneak peak.

In other non-reno news, Crystal’s daycare officially starts today. I have all the support in the world for her, but now know there is no way that I could do a job like that all day ever day! Luke continues to stand up and pull himself along the furniture, he’s growing so quickly it’s a little scary!

Anyway, it’s time to get to work. More updates to come, take care everyone, have a great week!

Hey everyone! No, we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, we’ve just been on the move a lot lately! Where to begin with this update… Christmas I suppose is a good place to start.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, this year was Luke’s first Christmas. So, in order to be fair to both of our families, we decided it was best to host his first Christmas at our place. So on Christmas day we had our families gather here to celebrate and spoil the little man rotten! Seriously, he now has a FLEET of ride-on toys (Pirate Ship, Race Car, Caterpillar Truck, PlaySkool Stand-n-Ride) plus a ton of clothes and more non-rideable toys. Needless to say, a great and over-the-top haul for him this year! Of course, Crystal prepared an amazing feast for us that day, and everyone went home happy and full!

That brings us to New Year’s Eve, which this year was also spent in the city (no, we’re not lazy!) celebrating my uncle’s 60th birthday party. That was a good evening with lots of family that I hadn’t seen in a while. We missed most of the party, Luke had had about enough of crowds by about 9:30, so we actually rang in the new year quietly at home as a family, so kind of a boring, but nicely different way of starting 2012.

In other news, our basement reno continues. For those out of the loop, we decided in November to completely overhaul our basement here as a daycare/theatre space. This included removing all the dark paneling and ugly ceiling tiles, and cutting in a new window. 2 Saturday’s ago my slaves….er, work crew (Jason – as always!, and my cousin Kyle) helped me install all new gyprock on the ceiling and walls. We just started the mudding process today (Crystal’s learned how to mud and fill screw holes) and tomorrow will likely see more mudding and some taping. I had thought about either hiring that part out or renting some equipment to speed up the process, but it appears that finding an affordable/quality taper/mudder and/or rental equipment, is a bit of a challenge in Saskatoon. So it looks like I’ll be winging it, at least for now. I’m not ruling out bringing in someone to tape/mud corner joints, but I think I’ll at least get a start and see how far I can get before getting frustrated and packing it in.

We were also able to par-take in a funspeil last weekend out in Hanley. It was the first annual Carl Palmer Memorial funspeil in honour of my late uncle. It was a lot of fun, we won our first game and got blown out of the water in the second, but it was great to get on the ice again. And we weren’t even that sore afterward! Who knew!!!

For those that haven’t heard from or seen us in a while, Luke is crawling around like a mad man. He’s also started standing up with furniture and even standing on his own! I think he’s getting close to those first steps, he just has to figure out this whole balance-while-you-walk thing and he’ll be well on his way. Tonight, his teeth appear to be on the move as well, so it could be an interesting night as far as sleep goes.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of for right now, I’m sure I missed some things here and there, but I’ll try to make updating this place a bit more of a priority in the coming months. I’ll also post up some pictures later of our finished work in the basement once it’s complete!

Take care everyone out there, talk to you all soon!

-The Palmers!-

Another weekend on the way, and another road trip in the works! Short trip this time though, off to the farm for the weekend to help things along there. Our fun-filled August long-weekend will include such highlights as killing chickens, and swathing & baling hay! (Can you sense the sarcasm there!?) But I’m a little overdue for pitching in at the farm so am not actually complaining. Follow that up with a short work week and finally a weekend in the city! I didn’t say a free weekend, but it’s a start! We’ll be around for the whole weekend, save for a Saturday event celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary.

As I alluded to in my last update regarding friend catch ups, we haven’t been able to accomplish nearly as much as we had hoped. We met Jason & Kara for supper one evening…and that’s about all. We’re really falling behind guys so sorry . Looking ahead though, we only have the following weekend booked up for a wedding in Regina, and then we’re probably free until harvest starts, so here’s hoping we can get in some much needed (and at this point deserved!) socializing!

It seems like every summer we say “We need to slow things down and find more time…” but it never seems to work, so I’m not going to try to make that statement again. I just hope that one of these years we actually find a little R&R time to just breathe and hang out a little more than we currently are. Anyway, I really should get back to work before someone catches on to my brief moment of time on my hands being used to update the site.

Until next time, take care everyone! And to those friends out there (im)patiently waiting, let’s make some plans right now! Stake your claim on a weekend/weekday night, then we’re committed to it!

Later all!

(PS: Random Luke camping picture attached to post, just to prove he/we’re still alive out there!)

Alright, so not to be outdone by my better half, I figured I better put up an update on here too! Seems like our lives never seem to slow down at all, especially now with Luke in tow! As mentioned previously, we have just returned from 8 days at Canora Beach and it was great! For those that don’t know, Canora Beach is located on the North East corner of Good Spirit Lake (oddly enough, 18km from the town of Canora). It’s a private campground with the strangest beach I’ve ever been at. We were literally able to walk probably 1/4 mile or more from shore and still touch the bottom! And our 8 person party island was definately a good investment, we had a great time with it the entire time we were there, including Crystal’s Mom & Dad, and we were even able to float Luke out there a time or 2 so we were literally able to have everyone out on the water all together. Besides the water, we were also able to squeeze in a round of golf in Canora, I had hoped to be able to get in a few more, but I’ll take what I can get!

Looking forward, we’ve got another Bodnarus Auctioneering sale this Saturday, home to help out at the farm on the long weekend, Regina for a wedding the following weekend, then maybe another camping weekend (a guy can dream can’t he!?). So the Palmer family schedule continues to fill up, I think I’ve just got to learn to accept it. We are hoping to catch up with our long lost friends that have been travelling this summer as well, some gone to the USA for a month, others that were on their honeymoon in Hawaii, so here’s hoping we can get some friend-suppers going on in the next week or so.

Anyway, that will have to do for now. Life continues on, I’m trying to re-focus on work after being away for a week. Just in time for another ADESA Public Auction tomorrow @ 5:30. Should be a hot one! Take care all, until next time!