Family Time and Tea Time

Though there are not any pictures to prove it we got a very nice family morning in on Saturday! With Jared's new job, schedule and energy level we are slowly find new routines. The last few Saturdays Jared spend a lot of time cleaning his work shop and organizing/setting up his tools (It has been really neat to see him have time, energy and motivation to work in his shop). 

This particular Saturday morning the house was still a mess, so Jared took Hazel outside to play for a bit while I very quickly blitzed the house.  

I happened to look out the back window just in time to see Hazel running around in the snow. This was really quite cute and funny as the snow had melted and hardened, but there was a fresh layer on top. Hazel was light enough to run on top, while Jared still was walking though snow up to the top of his boots. Jared was able to get a little video of it to share!

(Video Below)

Once I was done my quick clean, outside was calling my name too. Jared already had Hazel in the backpack carrier so we went for a tromp through our woods which looked especially beautiful with the fresh snow!

 Afterwards we had a quick drink on the deck and enjoyed the beauty of the day!

A Galentine's tea party was scheduled for the afternoon, hosted by M and J, it was so fun to get all dressed up extra fancy for an event again! I was able to make my own fascinator for the event, which was neat to try too.

Group Picture!

And some pictures of the fancy food before we ate it 😋

It was so fun to get together with all the ladies for a fun event! It was so well loved that I believe there will be another ladies dress up event in the makings soon!

A New Year, a New Start

This year started off with a big change! Jared got a new job! Just a few months shy of working at Northern Acreage for two years, Jared took a parts job at Babine Truck and Equipment. This came as quite a sudden change, but so far a very good one! Jared seems to have more energy and more time to spend with us with the new schedule and currently less energy draining job. 

I would like to share the story of how Jared came upon this job as again it is too providential not to share. Three weeks ago, on a Monday, one of Jared's days off, his curiosity got the better of him and he went to Prairie Coast to get some more details on the service management job they had available there, on the way there he realized that he didn't really like the commute and once he got there the parts guy he was hoping to use as a connect was away sick and he learned that management had been changed up since he last applied two years ago. 

This is where I think the providential side of things really hit me, Jared took a totally different way home, remembered that Babine was in that area (as this was another place he applied at before we moved up), and somewhere in the back of his head knew that they were hiring. Jared spent the next hour and a half chatting with John Bandstra and some of the parts guys and left there with a job shadow booked for the next Monday and a request from John for a few more references. 

The following Friday, even before the job shadow date, Jared had a job offer in his inbox. Which we found out later had followed pretty quickly after John had talked to Jared's references, Uncle Rick and the deputy chief of the Pineview volunteer fire department. 

Saturday Jared gave Alan, his boss, a heads up about the job shadow and on Monday after the job shadow gave his official two weeks notice to Northern Acreage. This was all pretty sad and hard, Jared liked Northern Acreage and felt quite loyal to Alan for giving him a good start in PG, but it was time to move on to a job that had the potential to be more career based and more income potential as well. Though it was hard to say goodbye to Northern Acreage Jared did learn that Alan had a lot of dreams for him that didn't really match up with his own. 

We did our best to leave Northern Acreage on good terms and keep a good relationship there as we will still be regular customers. I made a a gift basket for them which I must say turned our pretty well! and I surprised myself with how much fun I had putting it together.

The transition between the jobs so far has gone very smoothly! Jared has started a bunch of training courses on Volvo and Mack parts and has been doing lots of the receiving work, occasionally he has  been tasked with a few "rabbit hole" parts to find, and has been successful and enjoyed it. Jared's new schedule is still up in the air a bit, but this week he will be working Monday-Friday from 8-4:30. With the new schedule we don't see much of Jared in the mornings, but we are all enjoying Jared being home well before dinner! Currently we all seem to be thriving of the new schedule, we have yet to find out if it is just adrenaline or just a more sustainable routine, I'm really hoping for the latter :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

From the Flokstra Family to Yours

And a few more "to cute not to share" pictures from our Thanksgiving photo shoot. 

Photo Credit: Genoa Van Vliet

 

Unfrozen!

After a wonderful, almost flawless Christmas program, we came home to running water and no broken pipes! An absolutely great way to end the evening! And a wonderful start to our Christmas celebrations! Basking in God's many blessings of a warm house, running water, music and church family. 

Weather update, -17, warming up and lots of snow! All good things at this point. 

Oh, and Jared's truck was happier with the warmer temperatures and fired up this morning too. Slowly but surely life it settling back to normal! 

Deep Freeze Adventure Update

Thankfully after the heat tape was plugged in all night and all day it thawed out the valves enough that Jared was able to turn off our main water supply from the road. This was a GREAT stress relever as Jared was worried about that valve breaking and it allows us to have a bit more control of the situation if any of the other pipes are actually broken. 

So still no running water, but less stress and it is suppose to start warming up and maybe even snow tonight. 

Feeling a bit more on top of things as well, got some laundry done at Chantelles and I showered there was well. Got some dishes done and bread made when I got home in the afternoon. Jared had firehall training this evening, and they have a shower there that he can make use of. 

We are both very thankful that main water valve thawed out! Very curious to see if we will get running water or not in the next few days! 

Deep Freeze Adventure

It all started on one very cold winter morning, Tuesday to be exact.... when we woke up to -38 degrees. Well only outside, inside was pretty warm as Jared woke up at 4am to stock the fire, I happened to be up with Hazel at 6, so I stocked it again to, so we had a nice warm start in the house. But Jared's truck wouldn't start.... thankfully the Acadia did start, very unhappily though.... so we quickly packed and bundled up and drove Jared to work. 

Tuesday are typically my chore days, I don't remember exactly what I did all morning, probably getting stuff ready for the Christmas program and setting up a meal train page for the van Leeuwen family...but it wasn't my regular chores. The afternoon filled up very quickly as I practiced the kids songs with them at church, came home, picked Jared up from work, came home, quickly had dinner, and then headed back out to the church for the Christmas program dress rehearsal, all this with the whole time crossing your fingers every time we needed to start up the Acadia that it would start yet again as it only "warmed up" to a balmy -30 degrees! 

Wednesday came around with no sign of it warming up (High of -32/Low of -40), fast forward through the morning, I was out and about with appointments, Coffee social and picking up groceries. After lunch and a little breather I finally got started on my chores list, starting with dishes and laundry. Only to discover we have no running water! At all! No dishwasher, no washing machine, no sinks, no showers and no outside taps to get water from....! When this type of problem never even crossed your mind before it takes quite a bit of brainstorming to figure out what your next steps should be! 

Step one: find all the containers that would hold water

Step 2: go to Chantelle's and fill them all up

Step 3: find big buckets and fill them with snow. I originally put them in the bathtub to thaw out but that wasn't going fast enough and I needed some dish washing water. 

Snow shrinks a lot! 

It took a bit, but I got a bit smarter and did my next melted snow batch on the wood stove! 

Step Four: Jared went to check things out in the crawl space and discovered that a bunch of the pipes were wrapped in heat tape but need to be plugged in. We are currently biding our time and hoping the heat tape thaws out the pipes and that none of the pipes burst! 

Crazy how something so "simple" as, no water, can suddenly make things really rustic in a hurry! 

Hopefully I have news tomorrow that our Deep Freeze Adventure was short lived, but it doesn't really warm up till Friday (-13).... so we see how it goes. 

Hoar Frost and a Sunny Winter Day

 Tuesday night got really foggy and on Wednesday morning we woke up to this, some hoar frost! I think this is one of my favorite looks, especially because we have so many deciduous trees and the frost stick to all the bare branches. 

Managed to take a few pictures before heading out to coffee break

All beautiful in its own way. The fog ever so slowly burned of through out the day, but by the time it was gone it was likely dark already...

On Thursday morning we woke up to bluer skies and still crystaled trees!

I was super excited how some of these pictures turned out, even though it doesn't always look like it, it is quite bright outside and really hard to see what kind of pictures I'm taking on my phone. 

My fall festa all covered in frost! 

With some decently fresh snow, sunshine and no wind, this morning was a great time to play in the snow! Hazel likes trying to throw snow for Nova, brush snow off of objects and just walking around in it and climbing anything she can while bundled in her snow gear.

It amazing how much they all take in and see, Hazel brush the snow off of this sawhorse and then wanted to sit on it. I'm pretty sure that is just what Jared and/or I did last time we came to play outside. 

Hazel was so happy and giggling away while she sat up there!!!

Looking at this picture I was surprised that it kind of has an evening feel, even though it around 10:30/11 in the morning. The last few week I've really noticed the at sun does not come up that high anymore, really looking forward to Dec 22, which I believe is the first day that start to get a bit longer!!!

Not all these pictures quite captured the sparkling winter that I wanted to share, but I hope you all at lest got a little taste.