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Sierra’s 29th Month

I feel that Sierra is forming more complete sentences this month which is interesting!  I would say at this point she’s speaking 90% French and 10% English.

Sierra was enjoying our time at the outlet mall.  This was the best part.

Me and my helper working on a new piece of music.

On a cold day at the end of September, we headed to the Cumberland Farmer’s Market.  Man it was cold that day!  I was not prepared for that temperature drop and wind.  No matter, we still had a great time and Sierra liked helping carry some vegetables.

I’ve been showing everyone this video of Sierra hanging out near the geese.  It’s hilarious!

The Cumberland market even had horses!

Etienne and I stumbled upon this gem at a hair salon downstairs at work.  Etienne managed to bring the guy down from $50 to $20!  We gave it to Mihai for his birthday.  He still doesn’t know what to say.

Andreane came up for a visit at Thanksgiving so we decided to go out to Larose Forest for a walk.  We stuck to the same trail that we had taken in the winter but I’m excited to explore different areas!

Sierra was a lucky girl getting Maman to carry her!

Tandreane teaching Sierra how to fish.

Prepping Thanksgiving supper!

Sierra was quite interested in the cutting of the turkey.  I was perplexed as to why it wasn’t going as usual until I realized that the bird was upside down!

The Cantin Clan!

A walk to the cemetary

Running in a snowsuit is definitely slow going!

Testing out one of the Halloween choices…a cat!  Meow!

Here`s the other contender which is good for a cold night out…a warm outfit of a witch!

Sierra has really been into the new music video for Silvery Sometimes by the Smashing Pumpkins.  We’ve had a dance with her babies each night for a few weeks.  Sidenote: the new song is pretty good!

It’s that time of year again!

Slowly but surely I will assemble an army of leave rakers!

We bought a LOT of pumpkins. this year.  Just kidding, this is the patch!

Sierra picked out her own pumpkin but it was a little heavy.

Is it the great pumpkin?

What’s the difference between a pumpkin and a gourd?

The winner!

We checked out the Navan elementary school park right next to the pumpkin patch.  They had some neat play structures but I felt a lot of them were geared to older kids.  But Sierra really enjoyed these things!

There were a few photos from this series, but I like this one the best because Sierra is having a fun time in it, even if she is covering her face.

This picture makes me feel great.  So here’s the thing…at this age, Sierra is quite shy among people.  Every time we go to the neighbours house or our friends place, she hangs out on her own or plays with toys.  This worries me a little but so be it…maybe she will grow out of it or maybe this is how she will be forever.  ANYHOW, after a few hours among friends, I come into the living room and there she is eating some strawberries on the couch with everyone else!  No more worrying!

The next day Sierra definitely recognized her friend when we met up at the Vars craft sale and she was excited to see her.  So I really don’t have much to worry about.

When sifting through some boxes in the garage, Vero found a ton of extra power tools for Sierra to play with. 

After hitting up the pumpkin patch, I thought it would be good to show her that pumpkins are an important symbol of Hallowe’en.  Considering there aren’t that many short kid-friendly Hallowe’en specials available compared to Christmas, my go-to had to be ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”.  She was enthralled with it.  She has never sat down for an entire 20 minutes of a show before but something in this really spoke to her.  Maybe it was the pumpkins that she had just played in the day before, maybe it was the appearance of witches, maybe it was the rocks that Charlie Brown receives in his trick or treat bag.  Either way, in the last week of October she was watching this once a day, sometimes twice.  The day before Hallowe’en we started showing her the concept of holding the bag open for people to drop candy into.  Last Hallowe’en was a disaster so we’re hoping this year is a little easier on her and she enjoys going around to the neighbours.  Can I also point out how much I love that kids shows from the 1960s have hilariously high levels of adult dialogue in them?  It’s fantastic!  I suppose this was the concept of ‘giving something the parents could laugh at as well’.

I’m pretty sure Gaetan is showing Sierra some highly complex calculus equations.

I can’t stop laughing at this one.

Sierra playing cribbage with Grandpapa and Dad.

JF shoved five kids away from this thing so he could have a turn.

Sierra wasn’t entirely interested in posing for this picture!  Great outfits from all.  I love how Annabelle snuck a trophy into the picture.  It wasn’t even part of her costume but now it makes it looks like she won first place in a contest!  I had a good laugh at that.

We can’t forget Victor in the photo!

I was showing Sierra and Victor how to run trains down this ramp.

I’m pretty sure I asked them to show me their Dad’s face.  Yep…Maelle pretty well nailed it.

Skeleton dance!

Chantal and Jon were nice enough to host an afternoon Hallowe’en party along with chili!  I had forgot how much I love Chantal’s chili.  She makes it with black olives!

Annabelle smartly had a change of clothes before eating chili.

Here I was worried about Sierra not playing with her friends…she seems to be having a great time near the end of the night!

Watching Charlie Brown with Fredo

Where are we…Northern Ontario?  We received quite a bit of snow Saturday evening into Sunday.  It was the best snow ever…great for snowmen!  I don’t even remember making a snowman the year before!

Collage of the snowbirds

Sierra helping build a snowman

Sierra has become the torso of the snowman!

I love both of these photos from the same scene.

Sierra’s first snowman

Vero said the snowman reminds her of Gord Downie with his purple hat

Can’t forget the nose!

The neighbours dropped by to do a little sledding.

Last snowmen of the year?  Who knows?!  Three days after this shot, they are the only things still left in the yard consisting of snow.

 

 

 

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Historical: Paying off the mortgage

This posting will be useful for historical reference.

On Tuesday October 16th 2018, our mortgage was paid off.

I personally started having a mortgage in 2005 when living in Orleans.  After selling that house, Vero and I purchased a house in Vars in 2010.

So it took us 8 years to pay off our mortgage of $300K.

We went from a 25 year mortgage, down to 22 years (as soon as you choose accelerated biweekly payments, it automatically achieves this), and over the years, we made lump sum payments when we could.

Upon final calculations, we paid around $50K in interest between 2010 and 2018.  If we had continued paying regular payments for 22 years, it would have been an additional $76K.  This is not including the five years I had a house on my own in Orleans.

By saving up money and putting a lump sum (generally we were targeting $16K a year), we managed to cut 14 years of payments which would have equalled $76K in interest.

Thoughts:

  • I have to admit the first time I dumped a lump sum on the mortgage, it was NOT a good feeling. In essence, you don’t get any instant gratification for throwing money onto your principal.  I wish I would have done some calculations to show me “Hey, if you throw this lump sum on, it’s saving ‘x’ amount in interest and ‘y’ amount of years!  I think that would have made me feel better.  A good example of this is I did some calculations for a friend a few weeks ago and showed them that if they threw $1,000 onto their mortgage ONCE in 22 years, they would save $969 in interest!  That’s quite the savings!  Anyhow, no, no one was around to reassure me I was doing the good thing AND here’s some facts to show you.
  • That being said, it got quite addicting near the last couple of years to see a mortgage pretty close to the finish line. You started coming up with schemes to put more money onto it.  Then you had to pull yourself back and say “No, you still need to drink beer!”