Timber beams, trusses, graduation, and soccer games

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The week has been filled with year-end school activities, building developments at home and a weekend soccer tournament for Ian.

In spite of the rain and mosquitoes the building continued. At the beginning of the week some more concrete area was added around the building slab. By Wednesday afternoon the main structure was framed up. The beams were ready that afternoon. They were slated to go up the following day so Ian and I spend four hours that evening in the timber guy's shop staining all of the beams. It was quite a job but it was fun to do it together. Ian peetered out after a while but the thought of a DQ blizzard got him right back into it.

I'm glad we spent the time staining them while they were still down. We will need to do a second coat while they are up. That will be a whole lot harder.

By Friday afternoon the beams were all in place and the trusses up on the main part. It really starts to look like something now.

We've had quite a few staff meetings etc. during the week. There is so much to wrap up and to prepare.

On Monday night we had all the staff members from both campuses over for the year end BBQ. It is really nice to have property where there is room to have lots of people to sit around and to play games. We were glad to see it was the one day in the week without rain and with sunny skies, yet the mosquitoes decided that that was the day to come out in full force.

Thursday night was Graduation night. It was a nice ceremony, less solemn and more light hearted than the ones we have been used to yet official and meaningful. Afterwards a groups of parents took all the grads to a pre-arranged place, not known to the students, where they had activities prepared for the 'after-grad party'. They kept them busy and 'dry' all night. It ended with fireworks display.

Ian's house league soccer team had their end-of-season tournament on Friday and Saturday. Smithers has 5 teams his age group and there were another ones from Houston, Telkwa, and Hazelton. In the end Ian's team finished third, beating one of the higher ranked teams in the final game. Ian plays goal half the time. He shares duty with one of his classmates. It was real fun to see the kids active and enjoying themselves. Ian was pretty excited about it all, especially the final results.

Wilma is busy finishing report cards for her students. Her deadline is end of the coming week. We will have Tim and James and Mike H. over the second half of this week. They hope to put the Hardie board siding on the shop / garage. We're looking forward to their company.

This was also the week that Judith put her studio on-line. All the best, Judith, with your new venture.