Saturday, September 19th to September 27th 2015

As Dianne put it "Saturday was pretty much a good for nothin' kind of day...rain settled in and it poured all day". I did a little bit of shopping after Ray had his time at the pool for a hot tub. At 3:30 we asked Steve and Dianne over for cocktails and snacks and spent a couple of hours chatting. The next morning, Sunday, we woke up to find our power out and it came back on shortly after 8:00. It could have not been out for very long as we were only down 25 amps on the batteries. Ray went and picked up his Mum and we all went out for Chinese Dim Sum at Empire Garden in Walnut Grove area. Wow it was fantastic. Ray picked out 9 dishes and we could not eat it all so ate left-overs for dinner. The total bill was only $57 plus tip. All I can say is Yummmmm! www.empiregarden.ca 

After the wonderful lunch we took Mum back to Burnaby and tried to get into the T & T Market at Metrotown to pick up some liver that she had been wanting. The parking was insane ... after a few minutes we all decided to forget it and drove Mum back home. I drove us back to Fort Langley where Ray promptly went to bed with ice as he was "done". Monday it was "Beer and Burger Day" for $11 at the Big Ridge Brewing Company in Surrey. We picked up Steve and Dianne and off we went.

Tuesday is coach washing day. Ray did the very top edges for me and I washed the rest with him manning the hose. Boy I was tired after the two hours but the coach looks fabulous. That wax job we had done at Quartszite last winter sure made a big difference on how the dirt did not stick and washed easily away. Later we were sitting outside enjoying a few rays of sunshine at happy hour with Steve and Dianne when I decided to invite them over for dinner ... with the caveat that Dianne help and learn. I needed to cook my planned dinner for Ray anyways. This is what she had to say: With the work done, we sat outside enjoying happy hour with Ray and Deb. Next thing we knew, we were being invited for dinner...sweet! But there was a catch...I was to be Deb's helper in training. She's bound and determined to make a cook out of me yet! Well...it's not that I don't know how to cook, I just don't enjoy it as much as she does! Having said that, I did learn lots of little tips and tricks as she showed me how to make Jaeger Schnitzel. A fairly easy dish...see Di...you could do it all by yourself! LOL. We had a great time and everything tastes better with wine!

 

Not bad cooking area for a small house! Well done Grasshopper! Yup everyone is full and relaxed and assumed their perspective spots! 

The next morning Dianne and Steve were off to the island for a week and Ray left for his 10am dental appointment to prep his tooth for a crown. It was a 2 hour appointment in the dental chair and did not go well for him. He had to have 4 courses of freezing so he did not jump out of the dental chair. Of course this meant that his back was hooped. We'd previously planned to take Dad and Betty out for dinner at the Big Ridge Brewing Company so we arrived at their house at 4:30 for a visit and then at 6 they followed us to the pub. Ray, Betty and I really enjoyed our meals .... Dad not so much. I do not think he was feeling very well as he did not even finish his beer. Oh well we tried. 

Thursday we just hunkered down, I did laundry and Ray just poked around his lockers. I spent quite a bit of time on the computer planning our trip south. Friday we both went to the hot tub at the Langley pool and it was lovely. This is the first time I have gone this month as Walnut Grove Pool is closed until this Monday for maintenance. I found I could get lots of other things done in the coach with Ray "out of my hair" so to speak. Saturday Ray made me French Toast for breakfast. Thanks! Very seldom someone cooks for me. After breakfast he went for a short while to Walnut Grove to do his shopping and then I took my grocery list and off I went to SuperStore and Walmart. Ray cooked me dinner too! He went to Lee's Market and bought a rotisserie chicken! Sunday we actually slept in to 7am. Wow. 

Today Garrett comes for a visit with Kira. Freya will be so excited. Kristi and Jason were supposed to pass through on the way back to Kelowna and pick up Ray's Mum and bring her here for a visit. Mum was not feeling all that well on Saturday and Kristi was feeling a little under the weather as well so they made the decision yesterday to go straight through to Kelowna. All in all it has been a pretty busy week. The countdown begins before leaving for the states. We can hardly wait. Ray researched quite a list of exciting things to see and it was up to me to plan where we were going to stay. 

Sunday Update 

Well the day started out calmly ... or so I thought. Received a call from Garrett at 10 am that he was running late and would not be here until noon. At 11am received a call from Kristi ... yes they made the 11am ferry, and guess what they spoke with Grandma and she was feeling better so the plan was back on for Kristi and Jason to pick her up and bring her here for a late lunch and by the way! I have to be back in Kelowna for 7:30pm for a meeting. I immediately went to Mach 1. Lunch needed to be made which was going to be hamburgers with some salads. Everything had to be ready when they arrived as they only had 1/2 an hour to get going again. Bacon, onions and mushrooms were immediately chopped and cooked ahead to be just rewarmed as they take the longest. 2 1/2 hours later I was finished with the prep and dishes were all done. When Ray received the call that they were at the gate the burgers were thrown on the BBQ. A very quick visit including everyone stuffing their faces Kristi and Jason with the two dogs were back on their way. 

Garrett and Mum remained and we enjoyed sitting in the sun while Garrett played the guitar for us. At 5pm Ray suggested that Garrett drive Mum home as he was getting ready to shoot pictures of the lunar eclipse tonight. Ray drove them to Garrett's SUV just outside the park and came back to get his stuff all together. 40 minutes later we received a call from Garrett, Mum had left her purse in our car and could not get into her apartment. Oh no... now what. It turned out that Garrett was able to get a hold of the maintenance people for the complex on the emergency number and eventually someone came to let Mum in. Fortunately she has a spare key and cash so we will return her purse on Tuesday on the way to Garrett's for dinner. Ray's photo shoot turned out to be a frustrating bust! The poor guy. His camera would not operate correctly with his lenses and he missed the whole eclipse. While he was monkeying around with the camera his lens fell out of his glasses as well. When he came back to the coach he was fit to be tied! After fixing his glasses he took me back to where you could see the moon on the water. It was very beautiful. Too bad for Ray, the next blood moon is not until 2033. On the bright side he will now have it all figured out I am sure before we leave for the states as this is not the first time the camera has locked up. We think it is a setting problem that he does not understand yet as the camera body is a new one since August and has more options than his last one.

September 18th, 2015 Fort Camping

We had some interesting neighbours show up Friday night. Apparently there is an old car club meeting at the Best Western in Langley and these 2 rigs decided to camp here at Fort Camping. The green car is a 1914 Model T and the black one a 1927. Very cool. Felt bad for the couple in the green car as the cab is totally open and it poured rain all weekend so they were pretty wet and cold anytime they drove.

                                                                   1914 Model T

1927 Model T

Woke up Sunday morning to pouring rain and no power... hopefully it will come back on later this morning.

September 16th, 2015 - Made a fabulous dinner for the Colibaba's

September 16th, 2015 - Made a fabulous dinner for the Colibaba's

We decided to invite Steve and Dianne over for dinner. I've missed being creative in the kitchen and with rain in the forecast it's a great day to take some meat out of the freezer that needed to be used up before our trip into the states early next month.  Three hours later the dinner is prepared in advance and ready to be cooked later. For fun I gave them the menu.  Fortunately the weather smartened up and we were able to sit outside for happy hour with the dogs.

After dinner Steve and Dianne did all the dishes up for me as Kristi and Jason were expected later and Dianne did not want me to worry about the mess. Thanks a bunch guys.  (We had looked after Kristi's 2 dogs all afternoon.)

Dianne dancing with Zeus

Dianne's dessert was great. We must have had a sugar high to start dancing to Ray's selected music on the iPod. Even Zeus wanted to dance with Dianne.

Shortly after dishes were done Kristi and Jason arrived to spend the night so Dianne and Steve went back to their unit next door. Kristi was really tired from being on call the day before so by 10pm it was lights out and we had the privilege of 3 dogs all curled up on our bedroom floor! Jason and Kristi with dogs in tow left at 8:15 the next morning to catch the ferry to Nanaimo. What a whirlwind day. Love it.

10 am Thursday morning Dianne and I left for our "girls day out" and had a wonderful time checking out different stores and then stopped for a late lunch before returning to the coach at 4pm.

From Dianne's blog:

Our neighbours, Deb and Ray, invited us over for dinner and I offered to make dessert. Deb is a fabulous cook...she finds it therapeutic, so she is trying a new recipe and "cooking up a storm" for us today. Sweet! We love being her "guinea pigs"!

We chatted while enjoying Deb's homemade salsa...she also presented the menu for tonight. Sounds yummy!

And then it was time to head inside their motorhome so the cook could continue with the final preparations for dinner...

Deb...in her "happy place"...

 Looking good!

She plated our dinner...looks exquisite! And it tasted wonderful. Well done, Deb, it was delicious!

After dinner...and dessert (which tasted pretty good too!), we sat chatting some more. Ray had a great selection of music so Deb and I just had to get up and have a little dance...with the dogs. They have a couple of guest dogs visiting just for the day...Kristie and Jason (Ray and Deb's daughter and son-in-law) dropped them off this morning and will be back tonight. This is Zeus and Athena...

We had a great time Dianne.

Fort Camping, September 6th to 10th, 2015

Sunday we went to Dad and Betty's and they took us out for dinner. Betty made peach jam from the peaches we brought for her from Kelowna. Yummm. They unfortunately lost their 11 year old cat, Opie. They think that he was taken by a Coyote or Racoon as he never came home about 10 days ago after being let out at 5pm in the evening. I am sure glad he didn't take off like that on my watch in May. That cat was very stubborn and would not come for me when I called him.

Monday we got all the stuff into the car for the trip back to storage on the island and generally rested up for the trip to the island on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning we left early to avoid the first day of school traffic and were at Garrett's apartment at 6:45 to drop off Freya for the night. We got to the ferry in plenty of time and arrived in Nanaimo by 10am. We did a little bit of window shopping and then our doctor appointments. Ryan and Paul's were the next destination and we picked up some KFC to bring for a late lunch. Paul regained his weight and they both look good.

We spent a couple of hours yakking and then it was off to the heated storage to exchange summer stuff for Christmas bins.

I used Hotwire and managed to get a hotel room at the Northgate Best Western. We were pleasantly surprised how nice the room is. They even have a hot tub. After checking in, Ray went and picked up our prescriptions while I unpacked.

Dinner is at the Cactus Club with Gary and Janice, and John and Sue. We were still somewhat full from the KFC so we just ordered 3 different appys. It is a very long, long day for Ray so I don't think we will be able to do that much in one go again. We probably will have to stay 2 nights to spread things out.

After Ray's second doctor's appointment Wednesday morning, we were back on the ferry to Vancouver. Unfortunately the 1:10 ferry was full and we had to wait for the 3pm sailing. We arrived at Garrett's at 5:45 pm. Garrett put together a celebratory dinner to celebrate his new job. Yeah! We met Kat , who is very nice and helped Garrett make dinner. It was nice to just sit and visit with them doing the work. Lol. We got back to the campsite by 9:45pm. Another long day.

Thursday we spent just puttering around recovering from our busy week. Tonight, Friday, Steve and Dianne arrive here at Fort Camping for a month and we are all going out for dinner at the Fort Pub. Garrett is supposed to come tomorrow and wash the roof of the coach as the weather is good for the weekend. Ray will be so happy to have all of the spots removed.

Garrett and his girlfriend came on Saturday morning as promised and spent several hours scrubbing the coach roof to remove all of the spots and then washed the roof in preparation for waxing it tomorrow. They worked really hard and it was quite hot Saturday and Garrett got quite light headed from the acetone. After cooling him down with ice water and giving him my hat he was back at it to finish. Kat was a great help and did a lot of the scrubbing as Garrett is still recovering from his knee surgery on July 28th.

Garrett and his Girlfriend Kat

Here is a picture of the finished product including Ray's shadow. The roof is now a thing of beauty!

As a thank you to the kids I made fried chicken with twice baked potatoes and fresh local corn. Kat was moaning while eating and doing her "happy dance" so I think the food was well received.

The coach is supposed to go in to First Truck on Monday for an oil change and a generator oil change. Our appointment was for 12 noon. We dropped it off at 10:30 am and told the girl that it was "our home" and needed it back late afternoon. Ray phoned at 3pm and they had not even started it and it was not slated until start at 4pm for return to us at 9pm. Totally unacceptable! so we just picked it up without the work being done and will have it done in the States along our way.

Fort Camping, Fort Langley - September 3, 2015

Fort Camping, Fort Langley - September 3, 2015

We left Lake Country and drove through Kelowna to catch the connector to Merritt and then down Highway 5 to Fort Langley. With bathroom breaks and lunch we arrived at 3pm, both of us quite tired. There was what looked like an accident with a fatality on the other side of the highway going in the opposite direction to us. Fortunately, we were not one of the many people stuck in the 10km line-up waiting to move on the highway. Once we arrived at the park, we managed to park and open up the slides pretty quickly and then called it a day. Ray took morphine as he was pretty sore and his back was spasming again even with the ice.

Friday morning I left early and went to Dad's to drop off the fruit for Betty and did a little grocery shopping. It was pretty much a quiet day.

Saturday at Fort Camping we partook in their pancake breakfast with 2 large pancakes and a sausage patty for $2, such a deal. In the afternoon they also had ice cream sundaes for $2 ... of course Ray had to partake. For dinner they offered free hamburgers and some live entertainment. It's been a great day for me not to have to cook.

The pool is never open when we have been here in the past!

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Lots of people in line for free hamburgers and hot dogs.

The Elvis entertainer. This was his 10th year here and this is the biggest crowd ever. A great couple of hours.

 

All of the kids dancing for a chance at winning a teddy bear.