Labour Day weekend was upon us and it was time to hit the road! After hearing how amazing the Joshua Tree show in Toronto was in June, I decided to get some tickets to see U2 in Detroit as they had added a few additional tour dates. Was it foolish to not go to the Toronto show with Claude? Perhaps! But that foolishness was soon rectified as we hit the road for Detroit rock city!
Vero, Sierra and I hit the road to head to Ajax on Friday. We had traveled with Sierra the year before so we thought it was due time to return to see some family. We’re still trying to see how Sierra is as a traveler. She pretty much slept all the way to Kingston which was great and we decided to pick up some food and head to a park so she could get out and stretch her legs. I loved how we met this other family who told us that this park wasn’t exactly in the greatest part of Kingston and that they needed to sweep the area for needles before their kid could crawl around. Yikes! Good to know for next time!
But Dad, I don’t want to go back in the car for another couple of hours!
We arrived in Ajax early afternoon and hung out with the Palmer clan. It was good to see them all without guitar in tow as I find that while I thoroughly enjoy a night of music, I don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with everyone while doing that.
Troy and Connie picked up Sierra’s new favourite toys for the bathtub!
Sierra showing Wendy how to eat corn on the cob….raw!
I didn’t realize what bag I gave Nanny at the time to entertain Sierra!
Of course out of 20 takes of a photo of the three of us, I had to be the one who messed up the best take.
Nanny has her eye on you at all times!
Nanny and Sierra heading out for a stroll.
The next day we headed out to Barrie to see Mackenize, Carson, Ryan and Emilie. I hadn’t seen all of them for a few years and they have moved to a new house I wanted to check out.
Best friend forever and still having a great time even if it’s dealing with three kids in a tub.
Sierra checking out what school is all about.
Sierra discovered Madame Emilie’s box of ‘now it’s time to be quiet kids’
Having fun! It was great hanging out with these munchkins. They have a lot of energy and it made me realize I need to mentally prepare myself for kids who just want to horse around all the time!
Arriving in the big city!
The next day was the main event…U2 in Detroit! Claude and I decided to meet at the Yorkdale shopping center which was convenient for him coming off the 401 and convenient for me taking the GO Train from Barrie. It was the perfect road trip other than a bout of construction on the 401. But other than that, the four hour trip to Windsor flew by…mostly because we can chatter about every topic like a bunch of ladies knitting for hours on end.
We arrived in Windsor, threw our stuff into the hotel and got the bus over to Detroit. I find it interesting that you can’t walk over to Detroit considering it’s 2 km from our hotel. This proved to be quite horrible when we had to get the bus back and it took us nearly 2 hours in traffic after the show. Ridiculous!
Arriving at the Ford Field, we didn’t check out the downtown core because we didn’t want to miss Beck opening up for U2. It was pretty smooth sailing throughout the entire night…no lineups for beer, food, or getting down to the floor. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a US football stadium before and it’s quite amazing how it can fit upwards of 70,000 people. Most of the people are in the first level.
That second beer was a bad idea considering we knew we would be stuck on the floor all night with no hope of getting back to our spot. One time in Toronto Claude had to go to the bathroom and I didn’t see him for two hours as he just couldn’t get back to us.
We had a great spot on the floor for a view standpoint. I really like how Ford Field feels like you are in a warehouse.
The stage for the Joshua Tree tour is quite awesome considering that yellow thing you see in the photo is a screen!
Overall, I have to say that the concert was fantastic. I really enjoyed how they structured the setlist with a few older tunes, the entire Joshua Tree album and then tunes from later in their catalogue. It was incredible seeing some songs played live for the first time compared to others that I’ve seen 5-6 times. However, there is one gripe that really affected me during the show.
Man, the Detroit crowd kind of sucks.
Sure, I’m in the extreme for liking to rock out at a concert as my friends can attest, but when the people around you don’t even chant on Pride (In the Name of Love) you know there’s something wrong. I have this sneaking suspicion that we were sandwiched between what I like to call the hardcore fans…the ones that travel the country to catch every show. Well, the thing is, if you go see a band 20 times and they play virtually the same setlist every night, I don’t think you’re going to be excited. I felt like we were surrounded by these people. There was no excitement around us. As Claude put it “I think we were the only two people singing along and clapping.” Let’s just say the religious experience of hearing Streets and having the entire stadium shake beneath your feet did not happen and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
Days later I managed to gain a little perspective and realized that it was still probably the best U2 show I have ever seen.
We were just to the right of the small tree stage on the floor. I quite liked the stage design of the Joshua tree casting a shadow stage on the floor. Or is it the other way around?
Witness the most powerful stage experience I have ever witnessed….when the black screen sprung to life with this incredible red. It really hit me.
You know it’s going to get good when this happens!
Our spot on the floor gave us a really cool perspective as the screen would have films that would sway and it made it look like the band was moving across the stage while standing perfectly still. It’s hard to describe. I need to find a video to show you.
Always a moving experience when the entire crowd lights up their cellphones at a show.
Other than Patti Smith and absolutely destroying a song, there weren’t many hiccups for a band that was on vacation for a few months. We left the show immediately feeling upset from the lacklustre crowd and headed back to our hotel which took us 2 hours…then a ride home for 8 hours the next day….but in the end, I feel that it was the greatest U2 show I had witnessed but the best experience still is from the U2 360 tour as the show and the crowd merged into an amazing experience.
The month of August has flown by and that is probably because of thinking of the deck rebuilding project. However, Sierra has been tons of fun as she walk around quite well these days. Here are some things Sierra has been doing in the past month:
She now goes to the fridge or her high chair if she is hungry
She babbles with the words “ma ma ma ma MA!’ quite a bit. Some other words make an appearance once in awhile but that is the major word that she uses for everything. I’m not sure how close she is to coming up with a new word
I am pretty sure we have given birth to the Incredible Hulk. She takes pride in finding the heaviest toy in the toy box and carrying it around. Actually, she just carries the entire box around, that’s how strong she is!
She is enjoying daycare quite a lot. The boys at daycare seem to like her as well. I picked her up one day and they all gave her hugs and kisses when she left the building.
While she doesn’t particularly like sitting down and reading books (she doesn’t stay still all that long in general), she does enjoy ten minutes of cuddling in the morning after her bottle. I think she is just still half-comatose from waking up!
Enjoying a pickerel dinner! Thanks Dad!
Rob’s birthday had the most candles I have ever seen on a cake.
Sierra loves going up and down stairs these days, including the ones at the playground.
She also loves the slide!
In the middle of our week off, Sierra came down with some kind of stomach bug on my birthday. Vero caught it as well that night! What a horrible night for us all. I don’t think Sierra went down until 4am! I managed to catch the bug 24 hours later which was a miracle in a way so at least one of us was functioning!
She definitely was in better spirits the next day as she brought out the birthday balloon!
Hanging out
Ont brosse les dents
Sierra sure loves going around in her car. This is a daily ride.
I can’t recall why Vero was so excited!
Sierra decided we should stop at Harvey’s for lunch. She didn’t have any, but she enjoyed the change of scenery.
She also enjoyed the visit to Sears Home Store. Plenty of room to run around
Training her young!
We all had a fantastic time at Jon and Chantal’s corn roast. While it poured rain for most of the afternoon, the rain let up for a few hours when we arrived. They were well prepared for the event with a tent and a portapotty on the premises!
The hood isn’t just used to cover your head!
Chantal dropped off a tricycle she found on the side of the road. Either Sierra found a better way to ride this thing, or she still has a few months to learn.
Sierra Potter in the house! Unfortunately she had an encounter with the vanity in the bathroom.
Sierra is quite the fan of corn…she doesn’t even wait for it to boil!
A rainbow
A dragon (?)
A ketchup explosion
She sure loves the swing in the backyard! This is quite the shady spot.
Looked who dropped by for a quick visit! Sierra was happy to see her Aunt and Uncle from Hearst. Guillaume managed to give us some good tips on building a deck.
Sierra hilariously blows bubbles all the time. I was showing her in the selfie mode what she looks like.
Sue told us that she used to carry Shawn around like this while mowing the lawn. Sierra seems to like it!
JF and Marie-Claude had a bunch of us over for a bbq. It was truly my favourite day of this summer. I even got to fly a kite! Please note that the kite in this photo was quite ridiculous. It never got airborne. It was some weird parasail practice kite. I switched over to the classic kids kite that looked like a dragon and had fun with that.
Waiting for a miracle to happen
Still waiting for a miracle to happen
Vero managed to get it up!
Hanging out with Victor
Sierra trying to negotiate a sip of apple juice from Jonas
Jon pretty sad to see that he didn’t get to eat any of this great food in front of Sierra
Fun at the kids table
Clearly I need a better phone/camera. At least it captured the fun moment.
This is an adult sized Adirondack chair. Sierra grew a lot in the past month!
Having fun in the grass
Having fun with Mom
Some wild hair made an appearance on the ride home!
Chef Boyardee made an appearance at home
I love how Sierra loves how to dance. However, her use of the tea towels makes me believe that she wants to become a cheerleader.
This year it was decided to embark on the ultimate renovation project…rebuilding the entire deck off the back of the house. It was getting quite rotten in spots and after we tore it down, you can see it was even more rotten in other spots! Here’s some photos documenting what was done so far.
July 8 – The deck as it was.
July 8 – The first day of tear down. I think I made the mistake of taking up each board carefully and taking out/hammering each screw so that Sierra wouldn’t hurt herself on them. It took me the entire day to get 75% of the ground level deck torn apart this way. The next time I went to tear down the rest of the deck, I decided to take the faster method.
July 26 – Check out the rot under these boards! I saw a few carpenter ants crawl out of there at the same time. I think it’s very odd that this section had so much rot considering how much airflow it is getting. I’m assuming it has to do with the deck being 15+ years old, me not sealing it every year, and ants.
July 28 – The old ledger board. After some thinking, I decided to build a free floating deck in Version 2.0 of the deck so I took this ledger board off. (Update November 7 – Vero’s Dad convinced me otherwise and we put a new ledger board back on.)
July 29 – The deck next to the hot tub.
July 31 – Vero tearing it up!
July 31 – Know how I was mentioning how I would find a quicker method to tear down the deck? Yeah…this is quite the large woodpile that has accumulated next to the firepit. Sierra doesn’t play in the back yard much any more unless under direct supervision away from this pile. For the first few weeks of garbage collection, I had sawed them up into manageable pieces and left about 20 pieces each week. However, a month later, I received a notice saying they aren’t going to take any more pieces due to it not being bundled and there are nails/screws sticking out of them. I can’t blame them.
July 31 – A diagram of the proposed deck. There isn’t much changing other than we are extending the ground level portion for an eventual gazebo.
August 1 – Vero and I took the week off to work on the deck and left Sierra at daycare. Muscles Palmer hard at work!
August 1 – Instead of pouring concrete footings, we decided to try out these screws that you put in deep enough to go past the frost line. The only issue that we might encounter with these is the potential to hit a rock on the way down. If you do that, you’re screwed. So we pound a four foot piece of rebar into the spot first and if we found a spot which was too rocky, we just tried another spot a foot away. Actually, I can’t remember having to change the spot too much. Overall, it was a pleasant experience other than me smashing my finger between the rebar and the sledgehammer. Ouch! These screws will hold the posts that will hold the beams for the upper portion of the deck. We figured we would put these in before we started the ground level portion.
August 2 – For the ground level, we decided to use deck blocks. Still not sure if this was the best idea, but didn’t want the deck to go past the bathroom window (seen here in the photo). So we basically had six inches to play with which kind of eliminates the option of putting cantilever beams into the design. So deck blocks is it. Time will tell if it’s a pain to level these suckers out. Here is Vero putting down the sheet to help with eventual weeds. (Update November 7 – Still don’t know if the deck blocks will be great in the end, but we did have to build out the frame more so that the deck blocks don’t stick out as much.)
August 2 – Muscles Palmer makes another appearance!
August 2 – The screws after they were all put in place for the posts. (Update as of November 7th- Turns out we didn’t use the three closest to the house…so Dad ended up unscrewing two of them to take back home to use on the carport! He said they unscrewed quite easily.)
August 13 – Working on the deck hit a few snags with a bout of the flu running through the house and then we decided to redesign a few elements of the ground level deck. Originally we were going to build a giant rectangle about 12 feet wide but then Vero pointed out that it would be smarter to go a full 16 feet long. With that idea in mind, I needed to figure out how to get 16 foot long 2×6’s back home. Rob’s truck was up to the task with a lot of straps! Check out that overhang! That thing was surprisingly solid. (Update November 7 – It would have been good to know that Rona in Embrun delivers lumbers at $20 a delivery! I found that out later on in the project).
August 19 – My setup in the garage to create the rim joist. Let it be known that Mike’s framing nailer is the greatest invention known to man!!
August 19 – Setting up the frame. I was on a roll this day. I was super excited by how well everything was working. Let me put something into context…while I feel I’m a handy guy, I also have trouble doing things for the first time without some guidance. There’s a ALOT of information on the internet to keep track of and sometimes it becomes a black hole of information. That being said, after Vero saw the frame, she said “Nice frame. So…why is it a full 16 feet long when we said we would make it 15 feet 2 inches?” OH MAN! I totally forgot about that. I was pretty upset so I left the project for the day. The next day I sawed off the joist and rebuilt the thing. What a pain! (Update November 7 – making the frame 15’2″ was a very smart idea in the end. When we extended the frame to hide the deck blocks, we could still use the 16 foot deck board on both ends. We would not have been able to do that if we had made the frame closer to 16 feet.)
August 26 – All was going good on a Saturday morning! I was excited that it was a beautiful day out and the frame was looking to be quite level. I was just making an adjustment to one last post and in the middle of my cut the blade on my mitre saw stops working. I look up and there is smoke billowing out of the motor and there is this horrid burning smell! I quickly look at my piece of wood wondering if that was what was burning, but nope. It was the motor on the mitre saw. AW MAN COME ON! This project is definitely cursed. Well, the mitre saw gave me a good life over the years of many renovation projects. The rest of Saturday was spent going out and picking up a new saw. LUCKILY Canadian Tire had a 40% off sale this week on a saw I couldn’t pass up. Sure, Dewalt and Bosch are nice, but I wasn’t going to spend $700 on one when I could get one for $400 and would work well for me (fingers crossed!). I set the saw up while Sierra slept on Saturday night. I have to say there are quite some interesting improvements on the saw…it has dual bevel which I have always wanted when working with trim. It also has less of a footprint in the back of the saw which means I can move it closer to the wall. This is handy for when I park the two cars in the garage in the winter.
September 9 – The first ten foot section is nearly built. I made some errors along the way that I will learn from. Example: don’t bother cutting all your joists ahead of time, because they will come up short. Also, I built it in a U-shape and then added joists and THEN added the rim joist to complete the frame. That probably wasn’t the best idea. Next time, build the outside rim joists completely and put a center joist and then add joists from that. Also, we spent WAY too much time making sure the thing was perfectly level all the way along. We should have got the joists in and then worked at leveling the thing with the deck blocks. In the end, I would cut posts to put into the deck blocks (for the frame to rest upon) and later on in the process the frame would raise somewhere and I would need to redo some posts.
My helper.
September 17 – While the first ten foot section took a month to build, the second one took a weekend to finish! We were stoked! It helped that our neighbour Claude came over one afternoon to lend a hand. He had some experience and passed along a few tips and also reassured us on a few things that I would have spent an hour fussing over wasn’t that big of a deal in the end. I feel we are on a streak…it’s been incredible weather here in September…maybe a little too hot with days feeling like 40 degrees with the humidex! But we haven’t seen a day of rain to hold us up in close to two weeks now. The wood pile is slowly going down which is great to see as well!
September 20 – Here’s a tip. When you go to Rona to pick up $500 in supplies, make sure you check to see if they will be having a tax-free weekend BEFORE you pick up the supplies. I was at the cash after putting in my lumber order and sifting through the aisles of deck hardware and I spied a flyer on the counter just as I was putting my Visa down. “Is that tax free weekend for this upcoming weekend?” “Why yes sir. Oh, I suppose I should have told you that beforehand.” I returned everything to the shelves and decided to come back on the weekend to save a few bucks.
September 22 – My friend Claude (not neighbour Claude) graciously came over on Saturday to help out. I went to Rona to pick up supplies and we settled in for hot work day. Luckily we had shade for most of the day. I’m not sure if it helped that we had a roaring fire next to us which increased the temperature by 20 degrees. 🙂 We were tackling the hot tub deck and I would say that for the most part, we didn’t run into many major issues. Vero did note that we were smart to put the rim joist with the nail heads on it facing inwards so we don’t see them on the outside. Yes….we were smart, or lucky on that one. Honestly, I didn’t even think of that and I realized that we didn’t do it for two of the other sides so we’ll have to come up with some creative solution to make it look nicer. Something to keep in mind for the next deck. I’m pretty sure without Claude there it would have took a month to build that deck, but he was a great guide in squaring things up with posts, 2×4 and whatever else we could use to help us on our quest to make a square deck. I was pretty excited after our successful day.
Always appreciated when my mentor in life can come and show me how things are done! Note that the only time he had a hammer in hand was for this photo.
September 23 – All that was left to do on Sunday was to put a couple of beams in and lay some joists. I have to say it’s way easier to build a deck with beams instead of a ground level deck where you have to hold the joists in place. With a beam, you just set the joists on top of them and they are like an extra set of hands. Vero and I were blessed with a napping baby in the morning so we managed to put in two beams using deck blocks and these adjustable pylex…thingies. What’s the term for them? Brackets? We didn’t even need to cut any posts because there were only three inches in between the pylex bracket and the beam.
Vero adjusting the beams.
After lunch, Duncan showed up to lend a hand and we put in the rest of the joists. I started running out of nails at this point not realizing how many nails 2×10 joist hangers take so we ran into Rona to pick up some lumber and supplies for the upcoming week, while saving on the tax free weekend once again! There are some 12 foot deck boards I’m eyeing up currently as they are 50% off. I’m not really ready to put deck boards in so I’m not sure if I would be jumping the gun just to save a few bucks.
Duncan lent his construction expertise to the project. He’s currently working under downtown on the Light Rail Tunnels for the O-Train. Awesome!
It’s definitely been another productive weekend. Vero’s parents are coming up in two weeks so hopefully we can finish up the upper patio door level deck when they come up. That will be the tricky one as there are some angles involved.
October 7 – The cavalry arrived in the form of Gaetan and Danielle. They came down for Thanksgiving weekend and it was a good time to tackle the toughest part of the project; the upper deck with multiple angles. I picked up all the lumber we needed on a stormy night at Home Depot (because Rona closes at 6PM in Embrun!). I had to make three trips into the store as I was running solo, but the lumber was solid and made it home safely. (Update November 7 – Yet again, I wished I would have known about the $20 delivery charge ahead of time!)
Gaetan making sure everything lined up.
Honestly, I thought the upper deck would take the entire weekend but I was surprised to see that we finished it on the Friday!
She’s a beaut!
That left Saturday for us to finish up the rest of the frame next to the hot tub as well as finish up all around. It was quite the rainy day but it didn’t matter…the end was in sight!
That’s a long deck you have.
Around the air conditioner.
Foreman Sierra coming to inspect the work.
October 14 & 15 – We spent the weekend putting some finishing touches on the frame to get it ready for the deck boards. I put some iceguard paper on the hot tub deck and I’m not entirely convinced that it will be a benefit. I think I’ll just keep it on the hot tub deck and leave it off the other decks and use it as a science experiment to see if it made much of a difference to guard the joists from water damage. Vero spent the Sunday putting in blocking on the lower deck.
It took many months but Phase I of the project is pretty well done! The frame is built and next up is figuring out what guard rails to install and then put the deck boards on. That’s another design challenge that we didn’t spend too much time thinking about. We do have an issue where the ground level deck has one side where it’s a foot long drop to the ground and the other side is a two foot drop. We were originally hoping to put a step around but we’re not sure if that’s possible considering the difference in height from one side to another. We’ll have to figure that one out!
The race was on to see who could put the most screws in the fastest.
Working hard before the snow hits
November 7 – Well, I would say we are pretty done Phase 2 of the project which was to make sure we could get to the hot tub before the winter. Mom and Dad came up last week and we spent the week doing what we could. We put down boards on all decks while figuring out how to build the stairs. I had put posts up the week before the arrived. We are really happy with how it stands as of writing this on November 7th. It could snow tomorrow and we would be satisfied. We still have a few boards to put down but we are talking about a dozen boards. In the spring it will be time to move to Phase 3 of the project which are all the finishing touches. The guardrails, the fascia, the lattice, the step down to the lawn. A lot more work to be done in the spring but at least the majority is done!
November 11 – The final day of the year to work on the deck boards. Considering some snow had fallen it was time to get as many down as I possibly could! Man, it was cold working and cutting the pieces and I ended up having two non-square ends of the deck. Ah well, a problem for next year!
My little helper
I remember this morning to be quite cold and I had to crawl under the upper deck to screw in boards on the lower deck. At least I got a new parka to keep me warm!
By the end of Phase 2, I calculated the charges to our credit card to be around $6,331.
April – Well, the winter wasn’t too hard on the deck, but it wasn’t kind either. I was sitting in the hot tub one night and while looking the upper deck, I realized that it had heaved upwards quite a bit near the step going from the upper to the hot tub deck. Hmm…not sure what is going on there. After the spring thaw came, it went back down into place so I’m not sure if either a) we didn’t put long enough Pylex screws down…we put four foot screws and I found out from Marty that the frost line around Ottawa is six feet. So that could be the issue and may come back next winter as well b) I see that the upper deck is screwed into the lower deck. I’m wondering if there is a problem with attaching non-floating decks with floating decks. I mean…one of them is supposed to float so in theory if one floats up, it would push the other one up at the same time? Something to ponder over a beer.
Note how one deck is attached to the lower deck
May – May meant that Sierra’s birthday was approaching fast so it was time to try and make the deck relatively safe. The first mission was to figure out how to put boards down on the two ends where the frame wasn’t square.
Who will ever notice? Probably Dad.
Essentially this all boiled down to a lot of patience and thinking on how to cut a deck board on an angle. In the end, we succeeded on both fronts and I have to say we are happy with the results. Hey, are we perfect? Heck no. But did we do the best we could do with the knowledge we had? Yes sir, we did and we did a good job at it. So, the frame isn’t square which means a deck board had to be cut on an angle. I won’t be staring at it when a beer is going down my throat.
My favourite part about cutting this board was that we spent a lot of time marking a chalk line and cutting it carefully (sidenote: I had to return the Mastercraft skillsaw last year. It didn’t even last the season. This was the first time I was disappointed in a Mastercraft product. I ended up buying a Dewalt skillsaw and have no complaints so far) but when we put the piece into the empty spot, it was cut too much! I was cursing and staring at it for awhile wondering how I could go wrong. I could sense Vero’s disappointment on the back of my neck. After 15 minutes I figured I would remeasure everything and go and cut a new piece. It wasn’t until I returned to the sawhorses that I realized that when you cut a board in two pieces, you should take the proper piece back with you! Ha ha. I had a good laugh at myself after I put the other piece into the empty spot and it fit like a glove.
It’s all about the angles
The other end of the frame had a different issue. We didn’t have to cut a deck board on an angle, but we needed to make sure the frame didn’t stick out from underneath it. This involved cutting a 4×4 on an angle so it tapered off at one end. This was an interesting exercise in cutting two separate 4x4s and making sure they aligned. It was tough but it did the job. I think we are realizing that carpentry doesn’t have to be an exact science (but that doesn’t stop us from trying!)
Vero making sure the cut ends were properly treated.
May 18 – Vero’s parents had a few days to spare before heading to Spain so we managed to put up all the rails on the upper and hot tub deck in one day! We were quite excited! It’s amazing what four people can accomplish once they have a system in place. It did take Vero and I a bit of extra time to figure out what to do with the rails on the stair handrail but after a few hours (and the help of Elise babysitting Sierra for the morning), it was done!
Boy, a deck sure looks nice before it turns grey!
I think we’ve purchased everything that needs to be purchased at this point so the revised total for the cost of the deck is $7,842. However, we haven’t even thought of what type of lighting we will add onto the deck. I’m not even sure if we should include that in the costs of an actual deck construction. We do have to purchase some fascia and lattice for around the deck so I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up around our budget of $10,000. Let’s be honest here folks…we didn’t really have a budget…we were just hoping it would come out to around $10K!
At this point, I have to say that I’m not sure if I we would ever undertake a project as large as this ever again on our own. We were definitely burnt out by the time the winter hit and we both weren’t looking forward to starting up work again. Our spirits are definitely up after the successful weekend of installing the rails though and at the time of writing this, we know that my parents are coming up in June which will probably finish up the bottom steps and the rest of the rails and we can sit and think about the lighting options and the fascia/lattice.
Another note…it took way too long to cut and burn the old deck boards. We ended up renting a UHaul trailer for $40 and went to the Limoges Dump for $70. We should have done that at the end of the year last year instead of having a pile of wood just sitting there all summer!
In the annals of rock and roll history, there are a few events that fall into the ‘until hell freezes over’ category.
First there was the Eagles reforming back in 1994 with the literal ‘hell freezes over’ theme.
Then in 2007, Led Zeppelin reformed for a one-night gig. Let’s not talk about that one, shall we?
Now, we have the joining of Slash and Axl….no one ever thought we would see the day, but here we are! They are hot on their ‘Not in this lifetime’ tour and they decided to hit up Ottawa along the way. Saweet!
Guns have a big spot in my heart. I remember countless road trips listening to Use Your Illusion in the cassette deck after Marc’s brother introduced us to it. It was a whole other world in terms of music. What are guitar solos? Why are they swearing so much? Why do I find this so freaking awesome?!
So when they got back together, it was literally a dream come true. After missing out on Zeppelin in 2007, I wasn’t letting anything stop me this time around.
On Monday, I made my way down to Lansdowne Park to pick up some merchandise. In true Guns N Roses fashion, the merchandise booth that was supposed to open up around noon ended up opening up near 2:30. I was smart and sat on a patio with a few pints of beer and just when I was leaving, they decided to open up the truck.
Sweet wheels bro.
I managed to pick up a pretty cool tour poster and a couple of t-shirts for Vero and I. Man, the GNR machine is a merchandiser’s dream…the only had like…25 different shirts to choose from!
Looking pretty clean before the crowds show up!
After heading home to have some pizza with Chantal and Maelle who were babysitting, we headed back downtown and were walking into the venue to the sounds of Our Lady Peace playing Naveed! I felt bad for my buddy Martin who hadn’t seen OLP yet and wanted to see them play Naveed but he managed to show up late. Bummer!
Rock on!
I have only been to Lansdowne Park one other time and that was for AC/DC a few years ago. I really enjoy Lansdowne on a beautiful evening like this. Open air festivals rule! They also rearranged the beer tents compared to the last time we were there and I found it was a pleasant experience overall. I ended up spending more time in line getting a bottle of water for Vero than I did getting beer from the guys walking around the joint.
The guys behind us were pretty cool and offered to snap a photo of us.
I had a vague idea of where we were sitting but I was blown away by how close we actually were when we finally arrived to our seats. Total score! I also like how we paid half the price of the people sitting about five rows in front of us. Can’t complain about that!
OLP always put on a good show!
Our Lady Peace got the crowd going with a greatest hits filled setlist, along with a new tune off their new EP which was pretty good!
Look who found us!
Martin and Vero ended up scoring free tickets to the concert which was beyond amazing. They ended up about ten rows in front of us but they dropped by to party it up for the end of OLP’s set.
Slash!
Unbelievably, the band managed to show up on stage at 7:28PM instead of 3 hours late which was common practice for the band (read: Axl) for the past 30 years. I’m pretty sure him joining AC/DC for a stint smartened him up a bit.
Good stage shot.
The entire show as a dream come true. Duff, Slash and Axl back on stage together…come on. They know how to put on a show. I literally felt like I was at a Use Your Illusion tour back in 1992. They played so many songs from those albums. The previous tour which promoted Chinese Democracy had ONE song from Use Your Illusion.
The really good looking photos are from the Lansdowne official Facebook page.
In terms of vocal ability, I would have to say Axl is around 80% there. He definitely got better as the night went on and he has definitely said that he needs his voice to warm up (hence those 3 hour long delays in years gone by). But for the most part, he could really nail those notes and there were only a few songs near the beginning where I was cringing a little.
Slash during his 3 hour long guitar solo.
But Slash….SLASH! We all know the guy can play, but when you have three hours in front of him, you really gain an appreciation for what he can do. That guy can just set his guitar to vertical and play that thing all night long. It’s magical!
I had no idea what was really going on here. Camera vs. video mode is hard to tell sometimes!
Good night!
We were definitely not disappointed with the show. It was a perfect night, beers were flowing well and we sang our hearts out. Go see them on this tour, you won’t be disappointed!
Setlist
It’s So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Chinese Democracy (this was a little strange seeing Slash play on guitar…he definitely seemed out of place with this song)
Welcome to the Jungle
Double Talking’ Jive
Better (pretty good rendition of this Chinese Democracy tune! They changed it a bit to fit more the guitar style)
Estranged
Live and Let Die
Rocket Queen
You Could Be Mine
New Rose
This I Love (Axl was nailing this one!)
Civil War
Yesterdays
Coma (OH MY GOD THEY PLAYED COMA. All time favourite tune. Amazing to see live!)
Slash’s 20 minute guitar solo including some Johnny B. Goode and Godfather theme)
Sweet Child O’ Mine
Used to Love Her
My Michelle
Wish You Were Here (no vocals, just an awesome duet on guitar)
November Rain (with Layla piano exit)
Black Hole Sun (quite appropriate for the solar eclipse that afternoon!)
For months I have seen some construction going on across the street from work at the new Zibi condo site. We’re talking dynamite, we’re talking lots of dump trucks. Turns out it not only was in preparation for the new Zibi condo site, but for the Cirque du Soleil production called Volta!
I decided to go to it as the big top tent kept staring at me every day I took a walk.
I have to say I was blown away by the event. I can’t really remember if I had ever been to a Cirque du Soleil production before. I don’t believe so. I have a feeling I’ll be going back! I’m not exactly sure why it was such a moving experience for me but I was inspired to write and record music again. Granted, I need to find time to do so! But it was good to feel that fire within my musical soul again.
I managed to nab some 25% off tickets and I have a feeling I know why. My view of the screens were obstructed slightly. However, I had amazing seats along an aisle with plenty of leg room and a great view of the stage so I think it’s well worth the price I paid. There probably isn’t a bad seat in the house.
It’s truly amazing to see acrobats and dancers across the stage for a few hours. I still can’t fully understand how someone can be so adept on a unicycle, or a BMX bike. I’m watching the trapeze artists and am wondering “Where do they even practice a routine like this?”
I highly recommend everyone check out Volta (in Gatineau for another week and heading to Toronto next) and any other Cirque du Soleil production in the future!
Let the world know that as of 4:23PM on July 28, 2017, Sierra successfully navigated her first flight of stairs upwards!
She started out with one step, then back down. Then one step, then back down. Then about five steps, but then decided to come back down. It was a riveting show of ‘will she or won’t she do it?’
In the end, she did it! She got up half way and I figured she would head back down, but she just kept trekking up to the landing. I also had left the gate open so she went up two extra steps and boom! She’s in the kitchen!
Like any other champion, I smothered her with kisses which she denied.
Vero’s sister Andréane wrote a novel which is available in bookstores in Hearst (or we can obtain a copy for you if you would like!). It’s an entertaining read so far, but I have to say I’m only on Chapter 4 after a few months because it’s in the French language! The iPad is quite handy to translate words on the fly for me.
Anyhow, she was hinting about having a promotional video for it so I whipped this one up for her.
All is well around these parts but it started out with a hiccup!
Our daycare provider’s mother unfortunately passed away so we had to make alternative arrangements for the month of July for Sierra. I thought she was old enough to stay at home but Vero had other ideas.
Luckily, a hero emerged in the form of Danielle. Gaetan, Danielle and Andreane were coming back from Portugal and Danielle offered to look after Sierra for a couple of weeks during July. This was a gift sent from the Gods and while I understand that she had a great time getting to spend one-on-one time with Sierra, we benefited from this visit greatly and we thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping us out. It was great having her here and I liked it for other reasons other than the babysitting. It was great to get to know Danielle outside of visits for a few days. Once you’re in a house for weeks on end with a person, you need to not interrupt your own life. So we watched some Star Trek while I was on the elliptical, we shared our common love for adventure games (wait until I get her into Gabriel Knight!) and we had fun going around town to see the Canada 150 events! Merci encore Danielle!
Sierra has become a walking machine nowadays this past month. She rarely falls down anymore. It’s great to have a little person walking beside me down the path of life. She’s also at a great point in her life where she can’t run full tilt down the driveway towards the road so I at least have a few minutes to grab her. Why is it that kids seek out adventure down at the end of the driveway instead of closer to the house? I can’t fault her for having an adventurer’s spirit!
As of writing this entry on July 28, 2017, she is now drinking 3.25% milk instead of formula. She was intolerant/allergic to it when she was little so we stopped giving it to her completely. Around the one year mark it was suggested we try and introduce her to it again. It started out with a 10%/90% split between milk and formula. Then upwards and upwards to a milk only diet. So far, so good…we haven’t seen any adverse reactions like we saw before (crying for hours on end, interesting things found in diapers) but we aren’t going to get our hopes up until a month after. Andreane says things like intolerances/allergies may take awhile to rear their ugly head. After that, I guess we will try products with soy in them!
Sierra likes going into the drawer with the pots and pans this month.
Sierra is, for the most part, a great kid in our opinion. Everywhere we go we hear stories of how much she smiles. We’re not sure if people are just saying that or she generally is on the upper echelons of the smile factor. Every kid is different so I guess it’s better than a kid with a scowl.
Sierra likes running around the yard and is trying to figure out if she likes cold water from sprinklers and splash pads. While she doesn’t cry around them, she doesn’t scream in delight either.
She likes taking rides in her car around the block and she LOVES the swing set and slide at the park.
Onto the pictures!
I’m not sure who is happier? Gaetan, Danielle and Andreane arrived back from Portugal in fine spirits. Gaetan was definitely better as his sciatic nerve wasn’t hurting as much as when he left the country. The poor fellow even needed a wheelchair for part of the trip!
Sierra got a backpack from Portugal to carry her comic books around!
Andreane with her favourite niece.
Sierra with Grand-maman. Danielle tried for two weeks for Sierra to say ‘grand-maman’. She said them the moment Danielle left for Hearst! (I am kidding. She still has yet to say it).
Check out this fabulous creation found down the road from us!
Chilling out on Canada Day with Jonas and Maelle
JF and Victor Von Dubé taking it all in
Great Canada Day BBQ with the kids!
It’s easier to win the lottery than to get a photo with all kids looking forwards.
Who’s her favourite guy in the world other than her Dad? Note: this was the only time of Canada Day 150 that there was enough sun to go outside. What a rainy day! We had a bunch of people over and it was quite the loud party with us all stuck in the house!
The next day we decided to head down to the Mosaic Garden which had opened up in Gatineau. We found a unicorn along the way!
I’ve travelled the world and have seen many great sights. But I was blown away by this Mosaic Garden they set up for Canada 150. I couldn’t believe some of the floral/plant sculptures they had created! You must go see this.
On the way there, Danielle said something like “Oh, it’s nice to get out and just go visit a garden for a few minutes.” A 45-minute line in the sun awaited us. Luckily Sierra was in good spirits!
The RCMP were on our tail!
This fisherman had a nice catch!
The gentleman behind us was searching for gold.
The sculpture in this picture was donated by China in honour of Canada 150.
Joe Muffaraw!
This piece of art was the best at the garden. The woman in green wasn’t that bad either!
Another view of the final sculpture. This one literally took my breath away. I felt I was in Middle-Earth.
Gardens need water and boy, did they get some water. Torrential downpours came down on us on the walk back to the car!
Sierra eyeing up someone’s poutine at St-Albert Cheese Factory.
I think Sierra may take after her old man in terms of loving fruit.
Etienne, Andree and I enjoying the Ottawa river at lunch
She was getting the hang of walking.
Vero was somewhere in this Bluesfest crowd watching Pink on stage. What a crowd!
Bluesfest fun times
Great times were had on the final night of Bluesfest with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers! It felt like a night around a campfire singing tunes with friends.
Rob and Janice were kind enough to take care of Sierra while Vero and I went to Bluesfest for a few nights. Sierra LOVED her time with them and she especially loved the trampoline! Thanks again guys! We definitely appreciated it.
Jenna and Sierra having fun.
Having fun at the park with Rob.
Vero had to take the third week of July off to take care of Sierra so I decided to take the Monday off and go check out this fry stand in Orleans that Jonathan had told us about. It wasn’t bad! Sierra enjoyed walking amongst the picnic tables trying to steal people’s fries.
I couldn’t resist the temptation of letting Sierra roam around the toy store. She’s at an age where her attention span is the size of a mosquito so even if she cries when we took her away from this toy, she stopped three seconds later once seeing another one.
My work picnic lunch. We got rained out a little bit, but our team managed to win the trivia challenge! Go Team Stella!
Who doesn’t love how she tries to get into the basket?
Sierra and Vero hung out at the splash pad one day. Sierra seems to be on the fence with splash pads. She isn’t overjoyed with them but she isn’t sad either.
Just wandering around
Andree’s going away party. That was a killer good day until the bill came and I realized our manager took the day off and I was acting manager along with Etienne. 🙂
After a visit to the park, it’s time to wash those feet in the sink!
Trying out the lifejacket before we headed to Calypso Water Park.
A big gang showed up at our place for a few days…Anne-Marie, Steve, Evan, Jenny and Kayley (Kayleigh?)! It was a great party.
Everyone was having a great time at Calypso!
Including yours truly!
Evan showing off his Friday night dance moves.
Older cousins are meant to crawl over
I swear I have other photos from the weekend but I guess that’s it for now. We made t-shirts of whatever design the kid wanted. They thought it was the coolest thing ever. Evan wanted to promote his new YouTube channel called EASS. We also went on a scavenger hunt around the house which was great fun to set up! We were really happy to have everyone up for a few days.
The fourth week of July had me look after Sierra. On the Tuesday I headed up to Perth for lunch and hung out with Sierra’s two favourite people – Lynn and Sue!
We also enjoyed time at the park!
And rides around town!
And slides!
And visits with Ethan and Ellie!
Another month gone by and I’m pretty sure I’m missing quite a few pictures from Vero’s phone. I’ll be updating this soon enough!
