Buz trip to Europe

On our way to the Auto Summit in Munich, we stopped in Toulouse to visit one of our technology partners. We arrived on Sunday morning and had time to see a bit of the city before heading to Germany the next afternoon. Here are Seb and I in a coffee shop having cafe creme (as suggested by Janet) across from the Opera House.

What's a post without a few cats?

The boys were interrupted from their reading when I took this picture. Seb is training them to provide investment advice in hopes that we'll be able to afford to finish the house. ;-)

I lied. The view.

I can't wait to host a skating party!

The last of the Hill pictures for now

One of the advantages of ICF (insulated concrete forms) which I also refer to as Incredibly Costly Foundation, is that the resulting walls create gorgeously deep sills. This double window is in the back wall of the hall that connects the garage and the main house. You can see John's machine (bulldozer or backhoe?) parked outside.

The single set of french doors are in the master bedroom.

The close up shows the main part of the house. There is another set of windows to be installed in the "silo", they're in now, I just dont have photos yet.

And even more pictures of progress on the Hill

Still in the second floor, I'm standing where the loft will be. I didn't realize our windows in this area were so high. Only extremely tall people will be able to look out :-) These are for light, the view would be of the master bedroom roof. That's why they're so high, to accommodate the roof line of the master bedroom wing.

The french doors in the great room are in, and since this photo the transom windows above are also complete.

The double stack of windows is for the staircase "silo". The stairs will have no risers (floating stairs) so that light from this side gets in to the house.

Belated updates...

I've been chastised for not updating the blog recently. So here, finally are some fairly recent shots, they were taken a couple of weeks ago. All the windows are in and most of the doors. We also have basement stairs. Next big project is installing the steel roof but we'll probably have to shovel first. Ack! Could there be more snow?

These pictures show the view from laneway coming in, we're still missing some of the windows in the "silo" on the front of the house. The other two photos are taken on second story -- one looking into the great room below, the other looking into where the two guest rooms will go.

QNX Automotive Summit, Munich (11/28)

A bunch of us from QNX HQ met our German colleagues in Munich this past week to host our inaugural auto summit. It was a great success. The event was well attended, well organized and everyone had a fabulous time. The team also got to enjoy some time enjoying Munich food and drink!

Mystery Hill Update

As anyone local realizes, winter and snow have come early to Ottawa this year. And predictions are that this will be one of our worst winters in years. This is bad enough in itself but much worse in the context of trying to build a house. There are many major tasks on our to-do list but first and foremost is the job of getting the house closed in for the winter which is a month earlier than usual. This means the steel roof has to go on and the windows have to go in. So the guys started the windows on Thursday and will finish early this week, then it's on to the roof. Half of the windows are in now (front hall, garage, master suite and tv room). Left are the great room and second story. The windows look really great. Interesting how the openings dont look quite as big once the windows are in.

First snow of the season (too early)

Here's a picture of our back deck view in Kanata and a picture of Mystery Hill in its first coat of the white stuff.