A little post about cabins and life

As Christmas is just around the corner I realise I have not blogged this past month, it seems like time has just flown by me! The cabins are coming along. The roofing has been put on all 3 cabins, and they have been wrapped up in Tyvec to help keep them from the elements. The windows are in and doors on, which is good on the really cold days to keep the wind out. Electrical has been roughed in to two of the cabins and plumbing is going in the cabins now. They are starting drywall soon in one of the cabins while the other one continues to have the plumbing worked on. There is a big group scheduled in for the end of January which requires the use of all camper cabins we have, including the two cabins that are currently temporary housing for staff as they wait for the cabins to be completed to move in stage. With -37 weather for almost a week it slowed down progress a bit, it is a bit tough to work when it is so cold out. A few prayer requests concerning the cabins would be that weather cooperates so work can be as productive as possible and that donations continue to come in to cover the cost of building these cabins.

We had an interesting Saturday a few weekends ago. The power went out in the morning to the whole Nordegg area and we were without power for 5 hours with -32 outside. We spent the morning under a duvet and playing forts to try and keep Liam and Joelle warm, Mckaleigh slept most of the morning bundled up in her snowsuit, toque and mittens. The house was chilly but not as cold as outside. Tory and some of the other guys worked hard to get the generator going to run power to the lodge to prevent the waterlines from freezing since all our waterlines run through that building. They came up with a system to rotate power to the houses for 1 hour at a time and switch, the whole time running power to the lodge. As they were about to set that plan into motion the power was back on to the whole camp. I was so thankful for the power company crew that worked hard to find the problem and fix it.

 

Pictures of the progress on the cabins to follow soon!

Cabin Update with photos

These are pictures from the work bee weekend on October 19th and a few from the week after. A big THANK YOU to all who helped out that weekend!  



Family Photos

A wonderful thing about living at camp is you get  the chance to meet many talented and amazing people. Over thanksgiving weekend Sophie was busy taking photos for three different families at camp. She is a photo journalist and is heading back home to South Africa next week, here are some of the family photos she took for us. We are going to miss Sophie and Cam.



 

 

Thankful

After spending the Thanksgiving weekend surrounded by the awesome people who work here at Frontier Lodge I began to think of all the things I have to be thankful for this past year.  There is probably a million more things I have been thankful for this past year but here are a few that came to mind.

It was this time last fall that God called us to come and work at Frontier Lodge. Through the relatively short time we were hired and began to pack up everything and decided it was best to move right after Christmas, which in hind sight was a bit on the crazy side. While we were moving I was pregnant and God protected our precious Mckaleigh. Thankfulness that she was protected.  When we arrived at the camp there was one of the German guys that was on the maintenance spending Christmas here he spent those first few days we were here thawing the frozen pipe lines. Thankfulness over that for having someone here when we arrived to an unknown place and knowing someone was looking after the water problem.

We are so thankful for our house selling this summer, such a blessing not to be worrying about what is going on with renters or having the house empty and waiting for someone to come along and fall in love with it and decide they want to call it home.

Thankfulness for Joelle and Liam adjusting to camp life faster than expected and honestly faster than I did. I am so thankful for this community of caring people that I have been blessed to be a part of.   

On the note of the caring community I was so thankful for them when Mckaleigh was born, in the middle of the night we needed to go to the hospital and we found David who was up to do the night shift watching the pumps, he spent the night hanging out in our house so when the kids woke up there would be someone here. So thankful that we arrived at the hospital and Mckaleigh was born there and not in the car somewhere along the way. Thank you God for answering that prayer for us. Oh so much thankfulness that she arrived safely and is beautiful and healthy. My heart is so thankful for three beautiful, healthy children that I can kiss good night every night. My heart has broken too many times over the last year for friends and people I know who have spent nights in the hospital with really sick babies or have lost that precious life of their child. It humbles and convicts me to hug them each a little tighter  and a little longer and just let the house work wait because each of those moments are a gift that if you let pass by you never get back and you never know how many of them you will be gifted with.

I have been challenged over the last few days to start a list of thankfulness just to remind me that we have things to be thankful for every day, big ones or small ones there is always something to be thankful for.

Cabin Project

Now that the summer has come to an end and the business of September is over the camp is beginning to feel like it did when we first moved out here in December. The only thing that is different is Troy is now really busy with the cabin projects. In September all the ground work happened and the foundations for the cabins were poured. They had a concrete truck come for an afternoon and a crew of guys took wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of concrete and poured them into the sono tubes.

 Loading up the wheelbarrows with concrete

 Silas, Allen, Cam and Ben pouring the concrete into the sono tube

 Sam and Issac waiting to fill the sono tubes

 Issac, Silas and Cam filling the sono tube

 Troy and Adam

 Allen and Adam



 

 Over the last two weeks the trenching of the utilities have been going on, Liam is in awe with watching what he calls “big big digger” I have also been calling it the big digger and was informed that the proper name of the “digger” is track hoe. Now I am trying to do my best at calling it the proper name so the kids learn the right names of the equipment.  There is still a ways to go with the cabin project in terms of building them and getting enough donations of money, time and materials to make the rest of the project happen on time. If you are interested in donating to this project in any way email Troy at maintenance@frontierlodge.ca to get more information on how you can help.

 Art in the "Big Digger"

 Troy, Cam and Adam

 Art digging the trench

Troy and Adam moving in the water lines

 Troy and Adam

 "Big Big Diggers"

 Liam loving the "big digger"

 Joelle and Liam soo excited to be so close to the "big purple digger"

 Joelle, Liam and Josiah checking out the "big digger"

 We have been blessed by Art who has donated his time and skills to help trench in the utilities

 

A prayer request for this project would be for Troy and the guys who are working on them that they don’t get discouraged during the project. Lots of things can come up in ministry projects like this to cause them to take a bit longer than expected. We are still praying for more money and donations of materials to come in for the cabins.