Trevor's Suprise 30th!

Trevor is 30! I threw a 30th Surprise Party for him... I won't ever do that again! He's such a stinker, trying to get him to the party was the biggest ordeal. I told him that we were meeting his parents for dinner at Smitty's (where the party was to take place). He did not want to eat at Smitty's so we end up going elsewhere for dinner. Our challenge: to get him from one restaurant to another. With much challenge, and a lot of suspicion on his part, we got him to his party. Of course his response when I asked him if he was surprised was: "I'm smarter then you think, I knew you were up to something". Whether he figured it out on his own or not, I would say that the party was a success. We had a blast with a bunch of family and friends we don't get to see often :)

Our New Home

Now that the holidays are over, we are starting to settle into our new house! Its an older 3 bedroom farmhouse settled on 160 acres outside of Vassar. We are excited to finally have a barn for the horses, and an attached garage. We have big plans on expanding our hobby farm and creating our dream home here :) Here are some pictures....

Our "Cozy" Living Room



Kitchen

 

Eat in Kitchen

 

 Rec Room/Den

My Walk in Closet :)

 Master Bedroom

 

 

Barn 

 

 

Trevor's Quonset

 

Reflecting on 2013!

2014 is here! Reflecting on the last year, it was a crazy one....

We expanded our hobby farm with more chickens! We started breeding our chickens and tried our hand at incubating our chicks. We did well for our first year. We kept some and sold some. Our breed is a sought after chicken breed and already have pre-orders for spring hatching!

Trevor surprised me this past spring by buying me a horse! Its my first horse since the horse I had as a child/teenager. This was a very exciting for me :)  She's is an ex-race horse with famous bloodlines. The famous Secretariat is her great-great-grandfather and her grandfather Something Royal was also known around the track earning a million dollars. I was working on breaking her as a western pleasure horse, but was defeated at the end of summer when I was thrown and had a nasty fall. I'm looking forward to working with her more this summer. In fall we plan to breed her.

 

At the end of summer, Trevor bought himself a yearling. We named her Something Bourbon, after her father Not Bourbon. Not Bourbon has done well at the track, earning himself half a million dollars. Something Bourbon will start training this spring to race in summer in Winnipeg.

Trevor became the defensive coordinator for the Sabres (Steinbach High School Football team). He was a secondary defensive coach last year. After winning the Championship last year in Division 3, the team was bumped up to Division 2 this year. The season wasn't looking too promising for the team but they made their goal of making the playoffs. They tied for first in the regular season and after an upset first playoff game, they lost 3-7. Coach Goulet has a goal of winning it all next season. They have a good shot!

I became a Landed Immigrant this year and was granted my Canadian Residency. This gives me all the rights as a resident and am able to finally live a little more "normal" again. I have the right now to work, study, and volunteer places without having to apply and pay for visas to do so. With this I was able to start working within schools again. I am enjoying being back in the classroom and teaching :)

To end the year with a bang, we moved at the end of November. We bought a house, sold our house, and moved all within a month. It was a crazy month and made the holidays that more hectic. We are starting to settle in our "new" house and are enjoying the lifestyle change. We now live just outside of the town Vassar, MB, located closer to the Canadian/US border. We bought 160 acres that has the barn set-up we need as well as a large shop for Trevor. The house is an older farm house but nicely remolded. I'm loving having an attached garage. We both still work in the Steinbach area, so commuting (about an hour drive one way) has been a change. We like having the convenience of crossing the US border into MN to do our grocery shopping and misc shopping. Trevor is also looking forward to ice fishing this winter now that we live minutes from a lake.

What we have to look forward to in the new year.... Trevor has a big birthday, as he turns 30 in a few weeks! (he's getting old in his words). We are looking to expand our hobby farm with another horse and pigs in spring. We are excited to see what this year has in store for us!

Summer is Here!

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged! It isn’t because I haven’t had anything to blog about,  it’s simply because I no longer have internet at home L

Spring finally has sprung! We are finally able to get to our summer projects!  At the top of our list this summer, we had wanted to build a small deck on our house. This has changed! My husband gave me a big surprise two weeks ago and went out and bought me a horse! This is very exciting because anyone that knows me knows that I am a huge horse lover. I got my first horse when I was 12. She passed away while I was in college. We had talked about eventually getting horses, but not in another year or two, once we had a fence and barn in place. I guess he changed his mind about waiting!  So our horse has been staying at our friends’ house while we prepare for it here. We need to get a fence up ASAP and start on a small barn.  

In addition to our horse, we will be getting more baby chicks this week and our baby turkeys.  Our hobby farm is starting to grow very quickly!

Our other big project in place is getting our garden up and running for the summer. This summer we are planting corn, jalapeños, green peppers, pumpkins, green beans, peas, potatoes, white onions, green onions, tomatoes, raspberries, and strawberries. 

 

My Horse "White Buns" renamed "Royal"

 

Crazy Busy!

Its been a few weeks since I wrote a new entry. It’s just been crazy busy! Since last time I wrote, my sister came out for a few days to visit, I had the flu for a solid week, we have been shopping for a truck, and we have been working on getting ready for spring!

We are expecting some new additions to our small hobby farm in the next 60 days. Spring comes baby chicks, and this year we are getting turkeys! We also will be home to a few pigs by the end of the spring. Trevor's hobby farm dreams seem to grow bigger and bigger each year. We hope the snow will soon be gone so we can get cracking on building fencing for these new additions!

Weekend Adventures

We had another weekend of company! Trevor’s cousin and his girlfriend came out form Saskatchewan for a weekend visit. Things always get a little crazy when we get those “Saskatchewan’s” out. We shared a lot of laughter, sleepless nights, and wine! Thanks so much for visiting us Brenton and Erica. We can’t wait till your next trip!

After our company left on Sunday, Trevor and I spent time out in the beautiful weather snowmobiling. Since we only have one sled, we enjoy pulling one another behind the sled on a snowracer. I’ve been itching to do this all winter. My turn didn’t last very long though! I was thrown off my first round with my boot catching and getting stuck to the side of the snowracer. I was pulled along by my leg. Luckily I didn’t break anything, or anything that I know of at this point! It didn’t help that this happened to my left leg, which is my weaker leg. When I was 15, I was kicked by horse in the back of my leg, right above my knee snapping my hamstring.  Needless to say I’ve be cooped up on the couch. I hope I can heal fast and loose this bad limp!

Trevor enjoying the snow :)

This is Trevor being pulled on the snowracer

Winter Blizzard Weekend

This weekend, we had house guests join us! My parents came up for a weekend visit. We were excited for great winter weather to go snowmobiling and enjoy the outdoors! Unfortunately the weather ended up being not so nice, and we got dumped with a winter blizzard. We didn't get to go snowmobiling at all but did enjoy a dinner out at the Melting Pot, dessert at Baked Expectations, and made a trip to IKEA. The rest of the weekend we spent time indoors watching movies and playing games. Our guests traveled bravely back home Monday in the blizzard and thankfully made it home safely!

This is a picture of the Metling Pot

Restaurant. We love this place and its amazing food!



 

Seafood and Meat Platter






For dessert, we made a trip to Baked Expectations. Its a Bakery and

Restaurant. This is where Trevor and I got engaged. We also ordered all our Wedding desserts from here.