Touring Tsawwassen

Monday, July 3rd

The roofers were back at 9 am to do another section of the roof. Only 3 guys today as 2 of them took another day off with the long-weekend. So far only 1/3 of the roof is done. I think it will take them to Friday to finish completely including taking down the rotten shed in the back yard.

In the morning I did a few errands driving into Langley. Came back at noon for a bite to eat and then off to get a long overdue haircut. While I was gone Ray did a little more pruning in the yard. Every day he does a few minutes here and there. He loves getting out into the yard but can only do a little at a time which he finds a bit frustrating. Once the roofers are done we will have the people who did the pruning in the front yard come back to chip all of the piles of branches that have been accumulating. After we get that done we will have to organize a garage sale to get rid of a bunch of stuff that we have cleared out of the house. Finally, we will get Bagster.com to pick up another bag of garbage that we have cleared out of the yard ... old plant pots, metal shelving etc. By the time all of this is done at the end of summer, we will be able to go back on the road if Mum and Dad are stable and in reasonably good health. Fingers crossed.

We got a surprise visit in the afternoon. Garrett and Kat were in the area and stopped by to visit Dad and us for an hour or so. Great to see them.

Tuesday, July 4th

Another sunny day. Today I will go off to the carehome as Mum is supposed to get her electric wheelchair today. There could be a lot of waiting involved so I am going instead of Ray. Mum had asked me to make her some homemade soup so yesterday I made a batch of chicken soup to take with me to the carehome. As it turned out the new wheelchair is not coming until Thursday. Oh well, mum loved the small cream cheese and cucumber sandwich I made her and she did eat some of the soup for lunch. Her pain was quite bad when I first got there but after her shot she perked up and was able to get into her manual tilt wheelchair for lunch. Two of her friends came to visit so I left at noon to come back home. She was sporting a new haircut that had received the day before.

As you can see, they are trying to keep her well-hydrated since she does not eat very much.

The roofers spent a long day from 8:30 am to 7 pm working on the house. At 4pm more crew showed up to help so a total of about 8 guys. The back of the house is cleared of old shingles and now is sheeted with plywood and the new synthetic membrane applied ready for shingles. They have filled one bin full of old roof and are getting another bin to take the rest. With all of the dust and bits falling on the driveway my poor floors in the motorhome are filthy every day after I clean them from the dog. Oh well they should be done by the end of the week.

The back half done.

Wednesday, July 5th

Ray and I woke up at 3:30 am to the CO detector going off again. Usually you can just reset it but not this time. We actually had to get wire cutters to stop it from beeping. We've known it needs replacing for the last month but have been too busy. Well the time has come now. Took a while to fall back to sleep but we managed.

Another gorgeous day. Ray's brother is coming over from the island to see Mum today so we have a break from that. I have stuff to do here anyway. Tomorrow I will go there to meet the guy bringing the new wheelchair at 11 am.

Today the roofers are taking out the old skylights and covering the holes with plywood until the end of the job when they will be flashed and the new skylights put in.

The weather being so beautiful I was in need of a "beach fix". So by 10 am Ray packed his camera gear and I packed a small picnic. We headed off to Tsawassen as we had never actually driven into town ... just passed the turn off from going to and from the island ferry. First stop was Centenial Beach.

There are lovely walking and biking trails. You can even walk or bike down the main Dyke Trail that goes 16.4 km one way.

The tide is way out there.

The tide was way out so we only did a short walk allowing Ray to snap a few pictures and then it was onto the Beach Drive and happened upon a little city park called Diefenbaker Park.

Lots of carp in the pond

A short walking path

Real funky tree

Water Park for the kids

They also have a coverd picnic area but we did not take a picture as it was full of people. The park sits in a big bowl,  Ray didn't take a picture of it but the back side of the park has quite a steep hill. I am sure that last winter with the snow, the kids had a blast tobagganing.

We continued down the road near the beach on the other side of the spit but there were only houses and no access that we could see so after an hour driving around, it was time to go to our primary location, the Tswassen Ferry Terminal Beach. I found us a parking spot where we could set up right there so no lugging the chairs etc. right at the end of the road and near the out houses. We spent about 1 1/2 hours reclining in our chairs enjoying the day, watching the ferries come and go.  Freya enjoyed swimming too. The tide was coming in so quite a few boats launched to set their crab traps. The road in is certainly bumpy but I just drove in really slow.