24 hrs left - then i'm truly a homeowner

Yup another day and we'll have the keys to our new house!

 

We even got to do the final walkthrough yesterday.  Mandi even gave us the back door key, just told us we couldn't go ahead and really use it until Monday. Which begs the question - can i be breaking into my own house?  I just want to go over now and start dropping things off.

 

In the final walkthrough, I started to think "this is really small".  Maybe it was  because we hadn't seen it in forever... but I think it's because the house is now ours.  And we always tend to be the most critical of our own property or abilities.

 

Still, can't wait to get moving.  So much yet to do still... We have a lot boxed up, but still alot we don't as well.  That part's not going to be fun, but at least we'll have a lot of hands helping.

 

So, in recap - tomorrow we get keys to our very first house.  We'll be moving the smaller boxes all week, and then Saturday will be the big move.  Maybe sunday or monday we'll have a "come see it before it's settled" party. 

 

I just really want to set up my home theatre room in the basement.  That's going to be fun. 

Camping at Quetico... again (always awesome!)

So we planned on this trip for a while... just hadn't planned it.  And when time came we talked it over and a 'simple' trip would suffice.  Go into Bemar, from there to Saganagons and then into Beechu back into Bemar.  It would be 2 nights, 6-10km a day, no portages.  Sounded like a dream... almost a let down seeing as we were used to 20km a day plus 3-4km in portages.

 

So we head out.  This year I even brought a fishing rod... you never know!  With all that extra time I wanted something to do.

 

Now the road into Bemar was brutal.  There's been plenty of logging going on lately so it was a real rabbit's warren trying to find the real road versus a logging road.  After about 2 hours of driving around we figured we'd have to turn back.  We decide quickly that we'll go into Quetico at Stanton and head around on Pickerel (one of our first options).

 

That was pretty awesome.  We just base camped it.  Finally got into the park (after telling them that we'd go into the park at Sue Falls - because Stanton was full) around 5ish.  We find a nice island just west of the put in and set up there.  It's a nice campsite.  On the way out we've trawled for some nice lake trout, but no luck.  So after campsite is set up we paddle around casting for whatever.  I catch my first fish EVER.  A nice little bass... but I let it go.  I'd want some pick/pickerel or trout.  Rory had a pickerel but dropped it back in the water.

 

Then we just hang out.  It was good, I read half a book while we were just hanging out.

 

Next day consisted of the same stuff.  Jarron invented "bacon pancakes".  Regan and I trawled for more trout south all the way to Watasi Island (around 10km round trip) and no luck.  Then some more fishing - more snags for me (lost 5 lures that day) and more hanging out.  Got to watch Regan cut up a bass.  Pretty neat - I think I need to  do more fishing. 

 

The night was pretty fun.  We started getting a mouse infestation.  I saw one by Regan's foot and said "there's one" and Regan stomped.  "man you almst got him, that was pretty close."  Rory thenflashes his light and it turnsout Regan did get him.  Into the fire he went... Regan felt SOOO bad.

 

The next day was even more relaxed as we just fished a little in teh am, took down the tent and trawled on teh way out...  Still nothing fo rme, Regan got a few more bass.  But that's about it.

 

It was a quick trip... and I felt a bit of a loss not doing a BIG trip with changes of scenery, but at the same time it was quite fun!  I enjoyed fishing and reading.  That wind tent/thingie Regan had was awesome.  I slept in there the one night and it was surprisingly still warm and bug free.

 

Can't wait to get out again.  Pictures will be up shortly.

I know lawyers are blood sucking vampires, but come on!

 Okay, it's really not as bad as I'm making it out.  But everything was going so right lately that there was bound to be a snag right?

So we went to meet with the lawyer... because apparently you can't buy a house without one (don't know why... Brandon, please inform me!).  We signed some papers, looked at teh title search etc...  Then he hit us with the bill.  A wopping... well let's say that it was more than 10% of the cost of my house.  Which is insane.  People were telling us we should budget about 1/4 of what he was charging.

 

Kept me up for a while.  Called the mortgage specialist for a few questions and mentioned the charge, to which she sputtered "that doesn't sound right."  So she made some calls and it turned out that the legal secretary had charged us an extra few THOUSAND dollars... a slight oversight in the math.  Man, she should go back to school. 

 

True, lawyers don't necessarily have to be good in math, but I found it  odd that the itemized list was all hand-bombed.  I mean who does manual math these days with computers and excel and whatnot... just reinforced that what I'm doing at PTC is a good thing.  Teaching people to see the importance of proper math / numeracy skills.