Ray's 65th Birthday week! November 13 - 21

Saturday, November 13th the torrential rain began late afternoon and continued for 48 hours. The lake came up over 3' on Sunday night! Definitely on pins and needles for possible flooding. Fortunately, we were left with about 2 feet of space when it finally quit rising Monday afternoon around 5 pm. I got up and checked every 2 hours in the wee hours of Sunday morning taking a look if we needed to deploy our "Quick Dam" sandbag system. 

These pictures were from Sunday, November 14th.

Mike and Deb's yard next door.

Pat and Darryl's yard ... they are in Puerto Vallarta right now.

Darryl's gangway under water

Water up between our yard and Mike's

Water breaching their wall.

Water coming up our stairs.

Overnight the lake came up 3 feet and continued until about 5 pm. Monday afternoon this is what it looked like!

This is at the highest. They probably only had 8 more inches of room before it went into their basement!

Good thing Ray tied up their aluminum boat.

How high the water came on our stairs.

Getting close to the last high water mark!

While we were keeping an eye on the rising water, apparently Meades Creek, a couple of kilometers up the lake washed out and sent a bunch of logs and debris down the lake in the afternoon. It looked like a log tow. Junk for as far as the eye could see. Hopefully this does not all end up on our beach.

We took a drive around town to see the flooding here.

This is Saywell Park by Jake's at the Lake which is almost in the lake!

Ray's 65th birthday, November 15th.

Best present ... we did not get flooded! The roads were so bad everywhere, I cancelled my appointment for servicing the car in Duncan as the roads were flooded in places and a mudslide on Highway 18 at Skutz Falls. So .... my plan for cooking live lobster for Ray is toast. Off to Country Grocer and he's now getting beef tenderloin steak with a white wine cream sauce with sauteed scallops. He's happy with his new meal :)

He received lots of phone calls and messages so he's a happy camper. Our granddaughter Stella, turned 18 months old today.

Tuesday morning, after checking the lake to make sure it hadn't come up any more, .... we headed up to Nanaimo for a little Costco shopping, and a birthday lunch at Nori Sushi. 

After lunch we went to visit with Jason and Amelia. Kristi is back to full time working so was in the OR at the hospital all day so we stayed until she got home shortly after 3pm.

Amelia's favourite game ... "Where's the baby?"

They gave Ray his birthday present. :)

A lovely power bar system for his shop which I forgot to take a picture of. lol

Once back home, about 4:30 pm, I checked the lake at Mike and Deb's and yes .... it is going down. The threat of flooding is over for now at least. They're stuck in Kamloops indefinitely as they were on their way back from Calgary when the flooding occurred. So, with all the highways closed to the lower mainland, they are definitely stuck for a while. Their family who look after the house if necessary are in Victoria which was also cut off from here with the Malahat closed for 2 days and now only open for alternating traffic every 30 minutes. What a storm! Glad they didn't get flooded. They finally made it back on Friday going through the states at Osoyoos and then back up to Canada.

Wednesday morning it's cold outside baby! 0C! Frost on the lawn and the lake went gone down a few more inches. Another sunny day. Makes everything seem better. I received a call from my nail salon to come today instead of tomorrow for my pedicure. She lives in Victoria and it took her 3 hours to get to work today due to the Malahat Highway being alternating traffic due to the flooding. Off I went and was able to do a little shopping after. 

I bought Ray a fresh crab and a pound of Saltspring Island mussels for dinner. Day 3 of his 65th birthday week. :)

Fresh crab ... my wine lol

Sauteed Salt Spring Island Mussels in wine and cream.

Thursday, Ray went to appointment in Duncan, so I puttered here. Day 4 of Ray's birthday week.

Ray's "ask" for today was another one of his favourites ... Braised Pork Belly with Fried Rice.

One happy guy. :)

Friday, Dave and Cheryl are coming for the weekend to help celebrate Ray's birthday. Kristi, Jason and Amelia will come tomorrow to spend the night. Ray headed back to Duncan for another appointment as the person who booked the first appointment didn't listen to what Ray wanted to do and thus got an incorrect representative. I prepped for our dinner of Seafood Paella.

He returned home by 1 pm. Dave and Cheryl were supposed to get here for around 2 pm, but with the sinkhole developing this morning in Lantzville, traffic is rerouted.  This ended up in a delay of nearly 3 hours to get through. They did not get here until 4:30 pm. What a day for them. Apparently while in the traffic jam a lady actually gave birth to a baby!

When they finally arrived, we handed them a cold beer and a glass of wine in the driveway before they even got into the house. lol

Dave taking a picture of the Seafood Paella

Picture by Dave

They kept us up well past our normal bedtime, imagine us up to 11 pm! Lots of catching up and laughs. Not to mention the wine Cheryl and I drank lol

Saturday morning it's French Toast. After the kitchen crew finished dishes etc. Ray took them out for a drive while I prepared the "birthday dinner" of prime rib, yorkies, gravy, potatoes and honey roasted carrots, with a "side of peas" for Jason and Amelia.

Once they were back we had time to sit out on the deck with the heaters on. This is Dianne's (Colibaba) favourite thing to do so I wanted to "share" her experience. lol Lots of fun. Ray also made them his famous margarita's. (After they finished their beer and wine lol))

The kids arrived at 3 pm, so after that we were inside with "everything baby". Cheryl laughed at me as my world stops and all I do is play with Amelia. :) Good thing dinner was prepped and the roast was on the BBQ rotisserie.

Ray's Big Birthday Dinner. Prime Rib and Yorkshire Puddings with all the fixin's.

Dave's picture of the "amazing yorkshire" puddings. lol

Amelia got to try yorkshire puddings for the first time ... it was a hit. She ate about 4 pieces. :)

Notice Zeus is keeping track of Grandpa and what he is eating. :)

Sharing Amelia with Cheryl.

Sunday morning Amelia woke the kids up about 5:45 am which is fine by us as we were up too. lol Not Dave and Cheryl though. :) Got lots of baby snuggles and then she wanted down on the floor again.

I fed Amelia her breakfast at 7 am and at 8:30 made Eggs Benedict for the rest of us. 

Picture by Dave

We had a great visit with everyone and by 10:30 the house was quiet again. The kids left early to get home as Kristi works tomorrow and Jason is taking the opportunity to get other things done while he doesn't have to look after Amelia. Dave and Cheryl left early in hopes that there won't be any delays going through Lantzville after Friday night's fiasco.

Left overs now for the next 2 days. That sums up Ray's 65th Birthday Week. Maybe not a big party with Covid but I think he enjoyed himself anyways. (Ray here... thanks for all your work Deb).

PS. The water has gone down significantly in the lake, almost to the bottom of the stairs. Good thing as we are due for rain for the next couple of days and on Thursday or so another Atmospheric River is going to hit the south coast again. I sure worry about the lower mainland as they are still flooded in the Sumas Prairie. BC is in a state of emergency. The Federal Government has sent, as of yesterday, 500 troops to help with the flooding and get our distribution system working again with highways and rail lines as we are cut off from the rest of Canada at the moment for good and services. They have also implemented gas rationing. Essential travel only. What a Fall so far. We are getting a small taste what the war years might have been like a bit, with rationing and essential travel restrictions and of course on top of this expectations of the 5th wave of Covid. Ray says what's next .... locusts?

Early November "doings" ... November 1 - 12

 November 1st

We met Kristi and Jason at the Highway 18 junction and picked up Zeus. The kids carried on to Victoria in preparation for Amelia's cast change tomorrow. Unfortunately being this little, they have to put her under general anesthetic to get it done. The rest of the day we played on our computers dreaming about places to see next year in the USA.

Zeus settled in, but was disappointed Freya isn't here. He ran into the house all excited and then deflated when he realized she it.

Grandma, where is Freya?

Treat ball ... yeah!

Tuesday morning, we received the news everything is going well with Amelia's hip and she now sports a new cast angled a bit differently to finish healing. Six more weeks and she will be out of the cast for Christmas.

Sporting her new cast that is blue this time.

Wednesday we were out the door at 8:45 am heading to Victoria for Ray's eye appointment checkup from his surgery in August. We met up with Kristi at the Superstore and returned Zeus. lol Fortunately the rain held off mostly for the drive. Ray received good news his eye healed perfectly and he is not ready to have cataract surgery as his lenses still are quite good. 

After lunch at J & J's Wonton Noodle House, which is fortunately a couple of blocks away, we headed back  home. They serve excellent food and is a popular place.

Thursday, quiet day at home puttering. Biggest thing is making Lunner (lunch/dinner) lol. I decided to make a big meal at 3 pm instead of 5 lol

Lake level is back up where it was last week. 

November 4th, just up to the first step.

Friday a short trip into Duncan for some grocery shopping. Imagine our surprise getting over the hill down to Duncan and the sun is shining. Haven't seen that orange glow in days! Came back home for noon and back into cloud and rain. 

Saturday morning we were out the door early to go to Jason and Kristi's. With Kristi at the hospital on call, I was babysitting Amelia while Ray and Jason went to a fishing and hunting swap meet. She was asleep when we got there but boy did I get a wonderful smile when I went into her bedroom to get her.

 I enjoyed a lovely few hours with Amelia, she is such a happy baby. Jason and Ray were back by 11 and we stayed for a few more hours having lunch, until it was nap time again for the baby. Kristi managed to slip home for an hour so we saw her too. 

I like your phone Grandma ... can I bite it. lol

Grandma's beads, still a hit.

Back home by 1:30. Went out and checked the lake level. It only rose a little more. Yeah ... but more rain in forecast for days. Basically it didn't rise very much this week in spite of all the rain. Those 3 days of sunshine really helped last week.

Just over the first step on the way to the lawn. About a 6" rise in the water.

Our neighbour, Pat and Darryl's yard.

Sunday morning ... time change. Yuck. I don't adjust well to time changes, it usually takes me a week or so. This time was not great for Ray either. We both were awake at 3:50 am !!! Tried for 40 minutes to fall back asleep, but NO!

Oh well, at least we are not in the "working force" anymore, so if we have a nap in the afternoon there is no one to bother. lol 

As it turned out, while it poured all day, we decided to start decorating for Christmas. We usually don't start until after November 11th, Remembrance Day, but as Ray's 65th birthday is November 15 and we are having company the following weekend, I wanted the house decorated in advance. Another reason is with supply chain problems, if we needed some extra lights etc., I wanted to make sure they were still available. I am betting by December 1st a lot of Christmas stuff will be pretty picked over. (I have all my Christmas presents purchased already.) We managed to get about 1/3 of it done in between me doing our laundry. We need to spread out the decorating as Ray's back gets very sore from ladder work.

Monday, although cloudy, it actually quit raining for the day. After a quick shopping trip to Country Grocer, I decided to make an apple pie and Seafood Paella. Once I prepped the ingredients for the Paella and saw how much I was making, we decided to invite Roy and June from next door, over for dinner. They said "yes please", lol There's not really been a chance to sit down and chat since the summer of 2020 when they came over for drinks on our sundeck. Everyone pretty much stayed in their own bubble. Their daughter and family (2 little ones too) lived with them for 7 months during this past year, so very busy lives. It was nice to catch up. I finally managed to stay awake until 10 pm. Of course I forgot to take a picture. :)

Tuesday morning we managed to stay in bed until 6:15 am. Definitely an improvement over 3:48 am lol Was pretty stiff so jumped in the hot tub first thing. Good thing I went when I did. The wind came up and then the rain, pretty miserable outside. A quiet day inside but stormy day outside. The news reported quite a few power outages with the wind, but we did not have any problems.

Wednesday we decided to take a trip up to Nanaimo as the sun was actually out!!! After doing a little shopping and a quick lunch, we stopped in to visit Amelia for an hour. She is actually crawling now, dragging her cast behind her. Such a change in only 3 days. Christmas will need more "baby proofing", here at the lake as her cast comes of December 16 and she will be on the move.

Chewing on Grandma's beads.

Once back home, Ray put the finishing touches on his Christmas Village and I finished the stuff in our hallway.

Thursday morning we watched the Remembrance Day Celebration on Global BC from Vancouver. Thankful for the Vets that it did not rain for the ceremony. As always very moving moments, listening to the Last Post and the 2 minutes of silence. We always remember Ray's Dad on this day. William Verner Kyle. Ray dug out his Dad's service record and as his Dad didn't talk at all about his service Ray saw he earned two medals.  He then spent a couple hours researching the various patches and the two medals and now intends on finding replacements.

After that both we did a little more decorating at our slow pace. lol

The predicted rain started shortly after 12 noon. We stayed hunkered down the rest of the day.

Friday morning, the calm before the next storm rolls in tomorrow. We decided to make a run into Duncan for some shopping, then to the Chemainus Christmas Store and then ate lunch at the Osbourne Bay Pub in Crofton. A delicious meal. The start of Ray's birthday week. :)

Saltspring Island Mussels for an appie.