The roof is finally done and another week goes by.

For those of you that are interested in our travels this is not it! This is Blah, blah, blah about not travelling at the moment. Hopefully we will be on the road again early September.

Thursday, July 13th.

Well the roof is finally finished, all flashing and new skylights put in and the garbage bins have been taken away. It sure looks fantastic. The roofers said when they were taking off the shingles, they were surprised that it had not leaked yet and certainly would have next winter.

Remember ... the old roof looked like this!

Not much happening this week other than visiting Ray's Mum and finalizing her wheelchair ... the electric one was given back. She was a danger to herself running into walls and not taking her hand off the controls to stop the forward motion of the chair and screaming ow, ow. Her doctor has upped her pain medication and she is to get a brace for her flacid left arm to help with her pain they hope. She still is only drinking liquids and turning down any soft food except icecream.

Ray's sister and husband came up from Tacoma on Saturday to visit with her. We met them at the care home for a short visit with mum and then went with them for  an early lunch at Whitespot on Kingsway. Ray and I went home after and they went back to spend some more time with Mum. It was great to see them.

Later on Saturday we met up with our friends Gerry and FranCeen at Moby Dick's in White Rock for a beer with fish and chips. to catch up. We last saw them at the end of May. The evening was warm and sunny so they came back to Dad's to spend time sitting out in "our front yard".




Saturday night at 7 pm, we received a call from the care home that Mum had fallen out of bed onto the floor. This had happened 2 hours earlier and the doctor was brought in to check her out. She seems to be okay, nothing broken. I am sure it will be apparent in a few days when her bruising starts which parts of her body hit the floor first. She was hallucinating again that she was in her old apartment and needed to get up to go to the bathroom. Mum has been confused a few times regarding where she is over the last 2 months, probably somewhat due to the pain medication we think. I cannot believe she actually got out of bed as she seems so weak and can hardly move everytime we have been in to visit. Apparently she has a new "bed sore" from the fall, splitting open her backside. Poor Mum. They have engaged the alarm on her bed now so if she is moving too much the alarm will alert the staff to prevent any more falls.

Sunday, Ray was off to visit Mum to check on her and I spent the day at home as it was my day to look after Dad. Country Ribs in my Instant Pot was on the menu for tonight as well as Georgia Peach Pie. with fresh peaches. It all turned out pretty good.

Monday, July 17th

We met up with our friends Steve and Dianne for lunch at the Big Ridge Brewery for their Monday special. They were in town from Tunkwa Lake to take their truck in for servicing for the umpteenth time. After lunch they followed us back to Dad's and we had a lovely visit sitting in the sunshine. They do not get back to Vancouver until September 11th and we will be leaving hopefully on September 7th so we will probably not catch up to them until Utah this winter. :( Word is the truck has a little more "pep" but they wont' know if the exhaust brake is fixed until they are towing again.)

It's Tuesday again! The time seems to be flying by even though we are not travelling. I've planned a week away next week, to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary and both Ray's and my 60th birthdays this year. We leave next Tuesday ... Yeah!

Larny and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon getting ready for the Garage Sale on Saturday to get rid of some more stuff. There actually was less stuff than I thought but it needs to go. Betty must of bought a dozen or more brand new picture frames that have never been used with the original price tags in a box tucked away. After the sale is done it, will be time to get another garbage bin from the bagster to get rid of the last of the junk from the old shed etc.

Next after the garage sale it will be time for Larny, Mark and I to drag all of the pruned branches in the back yard (cut by Garrett, Mark and some of it done by Ray) over the last 2 months, to the front yard where we can rent the Country Woods Association wood chipper to get rid of that mess as well. There are piles of branches everywhere in the back yard. Here are some pictures taken summer of 2013 to show the overgrowth in the front and back yard. (Of course this all grew more in the past 4 years!)

Before

After

Before

After, now you can see a little of the house behind the yard with the shed gone.

Before

After, showing our "White Rock"

As you can see, Dad's gardener has been slacking for the past few years as the lawn is horrible! He is just now using moss killer, fertilizing and aerating the lawn as per Ray's instructions. This should have all been done early spring. The lawn is just now finally starting to grow with us watering it as much as we can given Surrey's limited watering schedule (Tues, Thurs and Sat 4 - 9 AM)

Wednesday, July 19th

Ray's brother Ryan, is coming over today from the island to visit Mum, hopefully their visit goes well. (It did not go well, Mum was quite out if it and not making very much sense. He only stayed a short while then left as he could not stand seeing her that way.) Ray knows the feeling.

Our friend Gerry, is a retired contractor, and when he was here on Saturday he saw the cracked floor in the family room. He told Dad that he could fix the broken tiles in the family room and fix the gyproc in the bathroom skylight ceiling from a previous roof leak. He sent us a quote yesterday which was extremely reasonable and will start the work tomorrow. When we were clearing out the garage Ray found about 30 extra tiles so it will be more than enough to get that job done. We had ants crawling in through the cracks earlier this spring so I will be glad to have that done.

And so ends another week.