Amelia has hand surgery, and another e-bike adventure March 1 -8

Hard to believe March is here already. Today is Amelia's hand surgery, which proved successful. Poor little tyke's both hands are in a soft cast for a 3 to 4 weeks. Saw her on video last night and she told us all about, it holding her bandaged hands up and babbling away. Hopefully she heals quickly.

Reading books with Mommy

I spent the afternoon making a ham with potatoes au gratin and braised carrots for dinner. Trying to eat down my stockpile of meat in the freezer. :) 

Zeus is pretty happy here with all of the treats we have for him and all of his walks with Grandpa.

Treat ball ... yumm

Wednesday, still raining and the clouds right down to lake level. Today we went to Nanaimo to see Amelia and return Zeus. Our little darling is doing well. Hardly any tears as long as she stays close to her mommy. She holds her hands up to us and babbles like crazy telling us the story. We spent the morning there, ate lunch and then came back home once Amelia went down for her nap. I think the rest of their household is going for a nap too, as they all looked totally worn out. Only person out of their jammies is the baby. lol

Kristi modified socks to cover her bandages, as she was chewing on them with those little teeth.

Thursday the rain finally quit, at least for now. Cold out though, with the clouds parted at 0C. Tomorrow we should get a stretch of sunny weather again. By 10:30 the sun came out, so we started a campfire just to spend some time outside and ate our lunch looking at our view of the lake. Beautiful, we never tire of this.

Later n the afternoon it clouded up so we went inside. Ray managed a picture of a rainbow.

Painted Hills

Amelia seems to be doing ok with her hands bandaged up from her surgery. She is managing to stand by herself. This picture is in her room looking out the windows. So cute. Jason pushed the bed tight against the wall so when she falls she doesn't hurt herself. They are trying to keep her entertained while keeping her from crawling too much putting pressure on those hands.

Friday once it warmed up, with clear skies and warm temps of 10C. After morning chores, we managed to sit down at our dock for the first time in months. The construction across the lake quit early this afternoon so it's quiet and the lake too. With the recent rains, the lake rose about a foot, nothing to worry about though. We want it to be full for the summer, just not overfull. :) With the lack of any major precipitation in February, it did go down somewhat.

Saturday we went on an e-bike adventure on another section of the Cowichan Valley Trail. This time we started out at Skutz Falls and biked to the 66 Mile Trestle and the 64.7 Mile Trestle. (Mileage from the start of the old rail line in Victoria.) A lovely sunny but cool day under the trees on the trail. We did 9.1 km. We stopped several times for Ray to take pictures. Good thing to work out the "numb bum". lol

66 Mile Trestle.

Warming up in the sunshine while Ray is off taking pictures.

Frosty deck

Looking down at the Cowichan River

The Cowichan Valley Trail is very well-maintained. Nice and wide. We only saw about 6 other people using the trail.

Back on the bikes to the 64.7 Mile Trestle. This is the creek the trestle goes over.

Ray taking a trail down to the river to get the next picture.

We turned around at this point and headed back to the car. Once we loaded up the bikes, it's back to town and lunch at Jake's on the Lake.

A great adventure again. Once we were back home, the stiffness began to set in. We both went for a hot tub and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing.

Sunday started out clear and then the fog developed, but by 10 it's clear and sunny. We attempted to sit down at the dock at noon, but the neighbours on both sides of us were cleaning up their beaches and burning the wood. Totally smelly smoke. :) Don't blame them though, it needed to be done and as they all still work, the weekend is the time. Then we tried to sit out in the front, but the other neighbours had their wood stove going and unfortunately the smoke is drifting down onto our driveway. We retreated back into the house and looked at the lovely day through the windows while I did our laundry. Not my first pick of spending our day. lol

I noticed this on our wall .... we have a coating on our window to provide some privacy. Great temporary wall art. :)

Monday, high cloud, Ray planned to go fishing in his little boat, but the wind is up, so very cold outside. Amelia got her casts off today and healed so well that other than putting Vaseline on her hands and socks on at night, her hands are bare. She apparently heals very quickly like her Dad.

Tuesday we went up to Nanaimo for a visit with Jason and Amelia. Seeing her on the google duo video yesterday, she was trying to get to us on the phone to hug us, so we are going up there in person. We arrived just as she was waking up from her first nap. Lots of hugs and cuddles for me. Kristi is working from her office so is able to eat lunch with us before heading back to the hospital, so that is an extra perk.

While we were there Amelia took her first steps and a new word "Bye". 

Walking to Grandpa

While we were commenting on her walking, I received a text from Kristi in her office down the hall. "You better be filming this". lol I did.

Grandpa playing "catch me if you can". 

Story time.

Ray picked up sushi take-out for lunch. Yumm.

We enjoyed a great 3 hours with Amelia and after I fed her the bottle and Jason put her down for a nap, we headed back home to the lake. A spectacular visit.