Voting and Thanksgiving
This past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the beautifully colourful and warm long weekend with multiple get-togethers and hard work. Saturday and Sunday we worked on installing glass block windows in our basement, and then I helped Jon dig some stubborn fence post holes with a jack-hammer in rock-hard Grimsby clay on Monday morning. We ate Thanksgiving lunch in Grimsby — bringing along sweet-potato caserole, blueberry torte and 7 layer jello–three dishes I cannot do without at a Thanksgiving meal! After lunch we went to see Heidi’s cousin Lisa’s new baby Sophia, ate more dessert and then continued on to another Thanksgiving dinner with our Homechurch friends. We enjoyed getting to know these new friends better — hanging out into the evening hours with a glass of wine, watching our young children interact.
Tuesday was a day for voting! The Canadian federal election was held and after we got back from the polling centre we filled out our American absentee ballots — voting in two federal elections on the same night. We thought that was pretty cool.
Categorized as Family Events, Kooiman, house
About those glass block windows…were you replacing normal basement windows? That is something I have been contemplating but I am wondering how crazy it is to actually do. How do you get them sealed in properly? Did you use a specific resource for knowing what the heck you were doing? Thanks guys! And by the way - that bike trek was amazing. You guys are nuts but it sounded like a blast.
chloe– yes, we were replacing the old, cracked and rotted single pane windows we had in the basement. i did a little research around the internets to figure out installation methods and found info at: Pittsburgh Corning and Ask the Builder Installation Article.
the main idea is to figure out a configuration of blocks that will fit your window opening since they only come in certain sizes and cannot be cut. I built the windows before I installed them using a wooden frame, then I tore out the old window and frame and mortared the new one in place.
another option (although final installation would be similar) would be to have the windows custom made to fit your opening — although we didnt want to shell out the cash for that. we bought the blocks used for $1 each.
i’ll take some photos of our finished product and add them to this post.
I would agree, Ruebs……..blueberry torte and 7 layer jello rule:)