 How are we leaving with a yard that's completely level and a kitty cat in our yard? I don't know. 18 hour drive to go from Nova Scotia to Ontario. For the last three years we have filmed almost everything through the ups and the downs from where it all began in our van to the massive project of renovating our abandoned cabin. And this week we are planning to go somewhere new and take you along with us. One hour to the airport. And an hour until we see the gals that make you smile. Get yourself some friends who don't just talk about it, they do it. Euro trip for the girls. I'm so excited to see their faces. In this very moment we had no idea that we weren't going to film this trip. But we put the camera down and this is what happened. This is Thailand Mads, our dear friends. The four of us met in Mexico and made a pact to visit a new pride parade each year together. We hopped across the ocean to the Netherlands where we celebrated in the European streets with over 400,000 others. The city was alive with love and community. This year old trip couldn't end without some sunshine. So naturally we landed on the beautiful island of Hvar in Croatia. This place was the relaxing getaway our bodies needed. With a healthy dose of the sea and pasta. Each day we tackled the white stone stairs as the Croatians do, stopped to pat the local pups and enjoyed every moment being present with our friends. It's the moments like these that remind us happiness is sweetest when shared. While the moments in Europe became memories, we happily reunited with our gals. Squeezed in time with family and zipped on back home to our little cabin in the vast woods. We're home! Home sweet home. Home sweet cabin. Feels so good to be back. So good to be back in the woods. It's so quiet. I feel like we're yelling. I know. That we're really not. Oh, what first? What first? I'm going to finish this. I know it's first. You're going to the greenhouse. I'm checking out the blue skin. Do you think it stayed? Is it holding up? I think. I think it's good. Is it a success? I believe it's a success. Yes! Everything's had time to settle while we're gone. I think it's a good thing that we actually left and took a little bit of a break because the ground was able to settle. Now it's ready for topsoil. It's ready for grass. The blue skin is sticking. So we know that in later dates, nothing's going to go wrong. Normally we just go, go, go, go. Kind of like this. We're learning. I don't know if he thinks of you around here, right? I have been thinking about these plants and this greenhouse forever, every single day they're on my mind. Look at this to be almost. Just wait till you see these plants. They are thriving. Everything is so happy. I've never seen a parsley this big, the sage, all the herbs, the basil. Oh my gosh, it's screaming pesto. It's so beautiful. Wow, the kale is ready to be eaten. The green onions. Oh my gosh, everything is so, so alive. I could not be happier coming back to this beautiful thriving greenhouse. Look at this parsley. This is so big. Let me tell you, we are going to have a delicious home-cooked meal today. I don't think we've ate a home-cooked meal in 18 days because we've been away from the cabin for 18 days, everyone. Uh-oh. It's not uh-oh. The aphids. They already know. The aphids are back. They bug me, those things. The aphids or aphids or whatever the heck they are. I'm going to go literally get some tape right now and take them off. This is annoying. But guess what y'all, thank you to all of your comments in our real life tour. We just ordered 500 ladybugs. Let us know if that's enough or if we need to order more. Are you ready to eat? I'm waiting for this moment. Look at this. Almost filled in. Jack and the bean stock. It's so pretty. It tastes so good. Look at this guy. Bean's galore. Look at this one. It's a cookie man. Our first tomatoes. Tomatoes are a 10 out of 10. Good job, Garner. I can't tell you how excited we are to see our gardens producing and thriving at the homestead for really the first time ever. It's very exciting to be able to walk through here, especially with clear eyes. After taking a step back and being away for about 18 days, which is wild to think, so much has changed. Everything looks so different. Everything is fully grown in. Sometimes taking a step back is so special because walking back into this space looks and feels so different. It's so exciting. Every little detail, every little plant, every little tomato. Such a good feeling. We love the cabin so much. And it feels so good to have somewhere that is truly, truly home and to miss so much. I never thought I would love a place as much as I love this land. It's home. Who I'm most excited to see? Clementine. I missed you. That's a sign. Where did it go? Where did Summer go? Summer didn't even come, girl. I can't even believe it. Summer didn't even come. We really didn't get it in Nova Scotia. Oh my gosh. There's three leaves. It's not a fluke. There's a few. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. No. Fall is pretty, so don't think I'm knocking fall, y'all. I just didn't get summer. Thankfully we had it in Croatia. Yeah, I missed those 34 degree weather. Hot days. Coffee and crystal. Is that you happy to be home? I love it. Are you happy? Do you love it? I love it. I love it. Yay. I love you. Bella. Oh my gosh. I love my coming. I love my coming. Well, well, well. Shall we change the attire? Did I miss these boots? Ben has come out to play. So have we. Is he's been spending the last 18 days with her grandma? You've been in there for an hour. I want to go back and live with my grandma. She gives me all the treats in the world. I gained three pounds while I was with grandma. What are you doing, dog? Let's go. Come on. Want to go for a run? Our mailbox was overflowing. Thanks, neighbors. Oh, Izzy, you're locked in. Go swimming, Izzy. Go for a swim. This thing was a gift when we moved first here to the cabin. And we were doing all kinds of trimming and brush cutting and chainsawing. To tame back the land. Wow, we've done a heck of a lot of that. As you can see behind me, this is our beautiful, beautiful, long driveway that I love so much. Like I said earlier, taking a step back certainly does give you a new set of eyes. And Larry was right. This driveway needs some trimming. Sorry, Larry. Sorry, Larry. Larry's our dump truck driver and our friend. And his truck is quite big and quite tall. And when you come down, it's starting to scratch on the limbs. So let's cut some limbs. Let's cut some limbs. Get out of my way. You've got some mighty long limbs here to be twimmed. Thanks for coming out, limb trimmer. I'm pulling the wound. Yes, that limb trimmer told me to tell you my story. My favorite memories traveling abroad were the ones where I was finally able to communicate with the locals. I was 17. I was living in Spain as a nanny. And my Spanish was finally starting to work. This was an incredible feeling. And it's changed my travels ever since. You've been able to make friends with the locals, communicate effectively when ordering or trying to get places, help others, but most importantly travel confidently to off the beaten path places. And with all the good vibes. And how many days are you here? A huge thank you to our partner Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone prepares you for real life conversations with real people. From your very first lesson, you will learn practical phrases that you can put to use. You will not be memorizing translations. Instead, you will learn naturally with Rosetta Stone's immersion approach. Lessons are less than 10 minutes and you can do them from anywhere in the world or in between classes or on breaks from your phone as the app is top notch. Rosetta Stone is offering you a lifetime subscription. No renewal fees. It is a one and done. You will have access to all languages for life and it's at a 50% discount for our viewers. You can use the link in the description to access all whole bunch of languages. Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, and the list goes on. Almost at Sabahar. Yes, that limb trimmer is telling us in Spanish to get to work. I've got the cameras on. I'm getting it. Weep. It's tall. I think you already needed that tall girl. Nah. I've done this before. Say my first rodeo. This has been a pie in the butt for our pal Larry. It's time for us to get to the root of the problem. I guess we've been beating around the bush as it's already September. Did you use that thing once or twice? Come on. Don't be late. Believe it in like yesterday. All right. Jasmine Stern, I'm going out on a limb here and I'm going to say this is giving a whole new meaning to living in the sticks. We good? See? The cabin looks so cute from here because of the archway. Yeah. Well, we cut it to be like circular. So when you're walking down the driveway, you can see the gorgeous little cabin underneath the trees. Do you see it? Clean up. Perfect. Look at it. Next chore. This is equally as exciting as getting my first lawnmower. If you all remember that. This is my first lawnmower. I'm proud. What method do you have? Turns out when you leave your cabin, you come back to a lot of work. You haven't done this before? No, never. You've laid a metal roof, but you haven't used a weed walker? Only Crystal. Up on weed walking. I am never going to get the weed walker out of her hand. She's absolutely obsessed with it. I was going to say, as you can tell, I'm having fun because you just haven't been going. I haven't been having real fun. What are you going to do? I'm going to make a path, baby. Let's see it. Crystal just said, I'm only going to do the fruit tree path and then I'm done. Guilty. Are you still going? I'm going to cut these. Nice. Here you go. Thank you. And here you go. Every job starts with clementine. Oh, man. Leave it to the professionals, right? No, Tyler and Todd. No, we are professionals. So proud of clementine for starting up first try. We just left her for a while. What a gem. She is a machine, though, so it makes sense. We're about to build stairs again. Last year. We built those beautiful stairs. And we even made the stringers homemade. This is incredibly rough. I don't get this at all. How do you do stairs? However, our deck allows us to buy these stringers. Things should go much more snippety quick than last time. It's a very awkward way to walk up right now. This rock has been coming in handy for the two of us. But anytime we have any guests, the over 50-year-olds ain't so fun for them. They don't like it. They're telling us to get more railings. They're telling us to get more stairs. And they're right. Maybe we should make it a bit wider than this. Why? Maybe it's nice two people can walk up and walk up the stairs. Can you look at this first before you just decide? Yeah, that's a normal amount of stairs. You want enough that two people can walk up nice. Or like groceries and stuff, yeah. I think this is an idea. Like this was just a side step. It's like three feet long. It's very small. Look at this. This is what you have going on right now. I'm five-six, girl. Five-six. Let's do it. We're going to use these all the time. We're parking here bringing the groceries up. No. I will be. I'll be using the front entrance. Four feet and five-six. Same thing. Now time to bring in some stone. That's it. That's nothing. I didn't really get it. I didn't really get it. There's just one more stringer left. You think that's fine? Yeah. It's just one more stringer, right? So I've got more. Put it on, girl. I just delivered you a stringer. Where's the delivery package? Wow, the grunts look pretty. Oh my goodness. See, I don't need that much material. That little load. It might look funny, but it's all we need. I hope. It's one shovel. I just ran inside to get a battery. And it looks like someone's still on the European cultural market, girl. Siesta time. What the heck, girl? Okay, now, lady. Sleeping? We're not having olives on the ocean anymore. We're back in Canada. North America. I'll take the mallet. What? I'll take the mallet. I know how to get you up. Start the tractor. I knew that would get you up. Why are you so sleepy? I don't know. You want to be back on the European time zone? The European children? The siesta naps. That we prioritize sitting on a patio, eating olives, drinking wine. You like that lifestyle? I can't believe how fast these are leveled. Can you? And the stringers are already cut. What a wonderful thing. I actually like making stringers. I know. Because someone didn't put them on the charger. Remember that? Who's that? My AP apprentice. You got to go to work so you don't fall asleep. Is that what you said I'm on? You look so funny right now. It's just like the tractor in the background with the solar. You're just like a true farmer girl that's so tired. Look at those eyes. Look at those eyes. She's so tired. What a bed. I don't want to. Okay. What are you using there? A stair hanger. I love these things. How many did I buy? I was like, I'm going to build a bunch of stairs this summer. So we have lots of stair hangers. You should tell everyone when we woke up this morning. We weren't planning on building stairs but here we are building stairs. I was planning on building stairs. I was planning on building stairs. Whole day. I didn't know that. I've been wanting to build stairs. Why do you think I bought these stringers? I think I bought these. Why do you think I bought these? I got more stringers coming. We're building stairs everywhere girl. Over there. Over there. Why are you just laughing over there? I learned last year. That these hangers take a lot of nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails, nails. Holy smokes. Come on. So what did I do this year? All screws, screws, screws, screws, screws, screws. Okay. Crystal won't allow me to use my screws because she says the head is going to hit the back of the stringer. Stringer, she's probably right, but I can use the screws on every other point. There's not where it meets like this. See what I'm saying? Like this. It's just a big goodbye and get high, high, high, high, high. Oh, it can't be all the way to the top. What? A step. What? A step. You're putting, we have to know how big our decking board is. It has to go down. Ha ha ha. You know it's been a while building stairs when you forget to account for the step. I say it's pretty good. We figure that out on the first stringer. Imagine we did them all? Building stairs are fun. These are going great too, right? Yeah, it's so good. Look at them go. It's awesome. It's honestly so easy with these pre-made stringers. A-ba-da-boom-ba-da-bing. No math, no rise or run, this, that, yada, yada, yada. She's strong. She was standing with you, feels like the heart in a maze. Last one. Time for a little measure twice and make sure it's perfect. And then decking board time. Oh my gosh, go. That's all. Why thank you, Clementine. Anyone ask for a miter saw? I got one question for you, Pac. Can't hear you. All righty, let's go. Hammer time. It amazes me. The second time you do something, you just do it so much more faster and efficiently because you've tried the first time. Things just get easier when you keep on trying. I'm happy and I'm impressed. I'm absolutely itching to get down these stairs, long before they were built actually, and even more now. I'm so, so, so excited. I've been asking you guys to go down them for about 10 minutes now. So we're going to put this camera on the tripod so I can walk down my stairs already. No one's walking down the stairs. This will be your first reaction, see? Our first reaction. I can't wait. I love them. Me too. Yay. Yeah, they are. What is this? What the heck? Come on. She's happy with it. Is he coming? Is he's going the old way? Oh, where is that? You don't like to change up your routine, do you? Well, teach me. Yes, yes, yes. Love it. Although you had a plan this morning to wake up and build stairs, I didn't. Now I got stairs. Street time for the dogs. Oh my God. Oh my God, Morgan's in the stairs. You're so good now. Okay. Oops. Stay, stay. How grateful are you to have this space? I love it. And I miss my knives. I miss cooking with you. Nothing like a home cook meal after being away. All you do is crave your favorite egg. Oh, onion, garlic, and ginger. Who knew there was a better combo than onion? It smells so good. Yeah, good point. Who knew there was a better combo than just onion, garlic, the ginger? We had a canal dinner date in Amsterdam. The best. The best ramen, the best food I've ever tasted in my life. So we're going to try here. What do you look at that? New path to the grocery store. I'm on the right track, it's in love. Wow. Wow, are we well? Looks so good. Do you like this? Yep. It's just getting better and better. It's so good, right? Follow me. Phenomenal. Smells very good. Fresh bag. Told you. Let me right here are our two big projects we're working on simultaneously right now. One, the yard, and two, the siding. However, there are very important steps that we need to do before we can get to the transformation station time. Like when you're laying in the grass and all that. And it's quite fun. Wish I had friends. I think if we do little bits at a time, it won't be that bad. Okay, hear me out. What if we made this like a game to make it way more fun? And I have an idea. I am going to basically spray paint a checkered board on our yard and we need to pick up this mat or rocks every day before Porter gets back because then we're that much closer to the grand reveal. You have to stick to it. I challenge us. Ready? Free. This is obviously the most fun ever. You're missing out on a great time. I'm kidding. Got a long ways to go. These are top tier rock pickers here. Go team. This gives a whole new meaning to DI. Why? But at least we'll be ready for the top soil and have a beautiful lawn of grass again. We made it to the line. Wow, that actually went a lot faster than I thought. To be honest, I wasn't crazy about Jasmine's idea about spray painting us a square. But it is motivating because you know where the end is and you want to get there. We did the whole square. I went out of the boundaries. This task will prepare us for siding. Just need to fire up the paint gun. Got an itchy cheek if you could itch it. Oh my God. Please, I'm gonna look at my hands. Sealing the wood and some tubes is an aesthetic but important step before the transformative siding install. Looks so good already. Take a look at it from far away. From all of your view. Pretty. Getting me excited for the siding. Wow. The whole place is gonna change. We got carried away. Puttin' around the yard. It felt good. Just organizing everything. I could still even let this on. Is it hot enough? Yeah. It's hot enough. It feels so good to be home at the cabin to just be settling back into this beautiful, quiet space in the woods. And it did feel so good to go away and literally not film a single thing. Not gonna lie, I struggled with it. It wasn't easy. I wanted to film so much but it was the right decision. Yeah, it felt really good to put it down and just take a step back from everything and come back with fresh eyes like we discussed earlier. We are gonna be here. Having a nice Sunday chatting with all of you. In the comments. Happy Sunday, everyone. Thank you all for watching. See you next week. Love you, Pat. Oh my God.