Communication breakdown

Hi everyone, it has been too long between blogs! We have had so much trouble with the communication over the last two months, but we are now set up and back on line.
There are so many people striking in BC at the moment, you have the teachers (the new school year commences this week), wharfies who unload shipping containers (Migrant workers, who make up the majority of this workforce are protesting that they are not paid accordingly when compared to Canadain wharfies - fair enough I reckon), Boeing workers, and the phone company, which is a real inconvenience. They are protesting for greater job security and a pay rise since they haven't gotten one in over 5 years and in that time a couple of CEO's have had their pays increase by 60% and 88% to $6.5 mill/year each, while increasing profits to record levels and sacking thousands of workers. I can see the TElus workers point and the near stand still in service provision is completely unacceptable for consumers, but Telus, the phone company, is not budging. I don't know who is likely to crack first, the CEO's are still getting paid a fortune and Telus is still making a killing, but the protestors are only making $200/week on the picket line - makes you wonder. Anyway enough of that. We got possession of our house on the 1st August and spent the next gruelling and crazy two weeks renovating; we moved in on the 15th Aug. In the pictures to follow, you will see the before and after shots, remember that we accomplished all this in only two weeks. We are still amazed at how we could have pulled this off. The painters were actually still doing the final touch ups as the furniture was being moved in. People who saw it before and after are quite amazed, since they were convinced that our plans were quite unrealistic, knowing this of course makes us feel good too. Since moving in, we have not felt like going to far from our house, it has been a long time coming and we just want to settle in and enjoy our own space and some privacy. It was wierd on the first couple of days, since we had become used to being quite in the morning so as not to disturb other people who were living in close proximity. I suggest you scoll down through the pictures, because there are more entries than appear listed within the right hand side mini browser. Happy browsing!