RAINWATER RAMBLING

I have been doing some tinkering on the blog design, I have moved to a 3 column format using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). It is something I have been meaning to do for awhile, just never had the time.

We managed to get the girls on an outing during March Break. We joined the masses at the Ontario Science Centre for some exploring and fun. We arrived as close to opening as possible and were able to try quite a few things without having to wait to long.

Here is the view the girls had as they raced down the course.

Gillian and Angela trying their hand at wheelchair racing.

Angela receiving an energy boost.

Claudia running back and forth so fast all you could see was a blur.

Gillian was picked to be a volunteer to go on stage to demonstrate the Van De Graaff Generator. Here is a website with plans on how to build your own Van de Graaff Generator.

Although it is hard to see all of Gillian's hair standing up, it was quite funny.

After the show everyone else was allowed to try it. Here are Angela and Claudia taking their turn.

In the Playing With time exhibit, they had this exhibit where it would create a tornado. It starts with this dust blowing around.

And it ends up with this...

One of the shows they put on only during March Break is Dangerous Science. We were sitting in the front row for this one.

Demonstration of the temperature of liquid nitrogen. After putting a banana in the nitrogen she used it to hammer a nail.

Nothing but a little bit of flour and a bunsen burner. We had to take an oath not to try this at home. Father's then had to take an oath not to break the oath we had just made.

We are now the proud owners of a family pass to the Science Centre. We're looking forward to a return visit.

Before...

and After...

What seemed like forever at times, but in fact was not even four weeks, has resulted in the feeling of "walking into a new house". The renovation is great, W.E. Marshall Construction did an excellent job, and once again we are very pleased with the quality of their work. The flooring looks good, we went through Pacific Flooring and Carpet (Mississauga West store), and we were happy with the sales and the installation guys. They removed the old vinyl and carpet and disposed of it and installed the laminate in one day. They returned the next day to finish it off with the quarter round. Slowly we are getting things back to normal. A few pictures of the family room and dining room.

We installed a new toilet in the powder room, with so many choices and available rebates from the Region of Peel it is hard to decide. In the end we went with the American Standard FloWise. It is a 4.8 L High Efficiency Toilet. It uses 20% less water than a 6 L toilet, which equates to a 20,000 gallon water savings over 5 years.

I feel like "Eldon" from Murphy Brown, he was the guy always painting something at her house. For the last couple of weeks, that has been me, always painting something. A few more touch-ups to do and that should be it for the main floor.

They managed to install all of the flooring yesterday, but they probably should have stopped a little sooner. They forgot to cut out the noise pad when when they put it down and therefore forgot to cut out for a vent. They are coming back today to put the quarter round around the edges. Some early pictures, I'll do a room by room when everything is done. Claudia and Angela fooling around with the left over foam pad.

Looking into the dining room.

If you have been following along, you know what each of the rooms are.

Carla checking out the new floor, I think he'll be glad when this is all done and no longer disrupting his routine, sleep, eat, sleep, sleep, eat, sleep...

Start with one strip down the edge...

Eventually fill the hallway...

The girls are still happy...

The carpet and vinyl floors have been removed, what a job to remove the vinyl, glad I didn't attempt it.

The guys took the old stuff away and went to pick up the rest of the flooring. The girls have been living in the basement.

I managed to clean most of the dust and dirt that has collected under the floors the last 15 years.

The frame of reference photo looking down the hallway.

The floor is being installed tomorrow, it has been a busy week, hence the lack of updates. Other than telling which room was being painted, not much has changed since last weeks update. The rooms are all painted, living room, family room, dining room and kitchen. It looks good. On Friday, Steve came to finish off the electrical, he installed the last pot light, wired a new outlet and changed the living room/hallway outlets and switches to the Decora type. Over the weekend I changed the ones in the dining room and family room.

I was in Moonbeam, Ontario last week, it is about 130 km north of Timmins along Highway 11. I was there to oversee a new building delivery and installation at our Bonner Lake site. There was lots of snow compared to southern Ontario.

The construction phase is complete, the painting phase is coming along, and the flooring phase is a week away. I had a helper this morning, she is practising for when we do her room.

A picture of the living room with the final colour on the walls.

We took a break from painting and managed to get out to Haru Matsuri. That is the Spring Festival at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. There was a booth there where the girls could dress up in kimono's and get their picture taken. Here is Angela and Claudia getting theirs on.

There was even a small enough one for Emi.

Gillian in here kimono.

The four girls all dressed up.

Some of the neat things they have around the building.

The girls really enjoyed watching the Taiko drummers.

The hallway ceiling was done today, the sprayer had bronchitis earlier in the week. He did a great job. Here are some photos from this morning. It doesn't take very much, he added about half a gallon of latex white to this mix.

The preparation takes more time then the actual spraying.

Applying the stucco.

You would never know there was a wall there.

Steve is a painter by trade and that is his bread and butter. He took some time to give me some painting tips on edging and rolling. Now I get to apply those tips. He left me his card, so if your in need of some interior painting, I can pass on his number.

Claudia lost her first tooth yesterday, actually she still has it and it went under her pillow tonight. Here is Claudia without her tooth, if you look close enough you can see her new tooth coming in behind it.

We have started the painting of the main floor. We have hired Ryan to do some of the painting for us. He has made good progress so far. Not much to report in photos. But here are a couple of the living room.