Steve, Dianne and family come for the weekend. Auguest 24 - 27th

Steve and Dianne arrived at 3 pm on Thursday afternoon. After carrying in their stuff, we sat out on the deck enjoying the afternoon with our bacon wrapped pork loin going on the Traeger. I also made a chocolate tart for Steve's BD today.

Happy Birthday Steve! After dinner, more deck time. So nice to see Steve and Dianne in person, especially since they're not going south this year, so we won't see them until Christmas.

Friday morning after breakfast, Steve washed out our kayaks as they were dirty from sitting on the beach all summer. We have lots of spiders. Then Ray and Steve blew up the tube for towing behind the boat. Dianne and I prepped for dinner and I got the ribs dry rubbed for tomorrows dinner. Dianne's son, Rob, daughter-in-law, Angie and their two boys, Conner and Bryce arrived shortly after 12 noon. I think they were a little excited to have some "lake time". Once they had unpacked their stuff and took it upstairs the boys were in the water down at the dock right away. It's a little cloudy and a little cool air temp, but the boys didn't care.

They spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and rowing in our little boat and using the kayaks. At three I was up at the house putting on my brined chickens on the rotisserie. Rob and Angie brought the famous Silver Rill Farm corn, so ate that both days as our veg. Cheesy scalloped potatoes into the oven. My biggest challenge with the kids is that they are picky eaters .... fortunately all the meals I made they ate! Yeah me!

Dianne bought a cake so the kids could sing Happy Birthday to Steve.

Picture by Dianne

After dinner the boys were back in the water until dusk.

Saturday, Dianne, Steve, Ray and I were up our usual time by 6:15 am. The upstairs crew did not show up until 7 to 7:30 am. Breakfast is blueberry pancakes, Conner helped with the measuring and mixing. Thanks to my kitchen crew for all the cleanup. I never washed a dish all weekend.

It's a much warmer day, but unfortunately with smokey skies. Next up, the boys were back on the dock for the "promisesd tubing" and swimming. Ray drove them around the lake for a couple of hours with Grandpa, Rob and Angie on the tube with the boys. Hard on Ray, but he so enjoys it. Even Dianne had a go of it in the tube with Angie. I could hear them scream from the dock. lol

Rob with Bryce and Conner

When Ray towed Rob and the boys, I saw them get some really good air ...about 3 feet up over the water!

Dianne's turn.

After this whip around .... that was it for Dianne. lol

The Colibaba Clan (Bryce, Angie, Rob, Conner, Dianne and Steve and mugs full of Margaritas

One of Bryce's multiple dives.

Grandpa in the water with Bryce

I finished the prep for tonight's dinner and got the baked beans ready to turn on  All the lads went off to try waterskiing. Turned out our ski's are too big for the boys to handle. The crew spent the rest of the day down at the dock. It was 32C out so everyone swam. I got to sit down there for a while too before getting lunch made, hamburgers with the fixin's. After my kitchen crew cleaned up again, it's time to get the Pork Ribs on the Traeger and start my baked beans. With everything going, I'm able to spend some time down on the dock swimming too. Angie was my "spritzer" every 30 minutes for the ribs. Thanks. Once the tubing was done it was margarita time. Thanks Ray!

Picture by Dianne

Ray teaching Angie and Rob how to make "his" margarita.

Picture by Dianne

All of us in the water lol (Picture by Dianne)

The ribs turned out great, as did the beans. No one left the table hungry! After dinner, more swimming, especially for Bryce. I think he spent more time in the water than out all day. 

Picture by Dianne

By 9:30 us old people went to bed. The boys watched some TV and Rob and Angie enjoyed some time together out on the deck.

Goodnight from Kyles Kottage

Sunday morning it was 8am before the last of our late sleeper crew got up .... Angie lol. I made a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and toast with some help from Dianne. Once the kitchen crew finished it's time for a little more tubing. This time it's Steve and Rob running the boat. Ray bowed out as his back is really sore from yesterday.

At noon, I put weiners on the BBQ for lunch and got the fixin's together. At 12:30 lunch was served. With lunch done, Rob and Steve carried up the kayaks to put under the sundeck, and deflated the tube and brought it up to the house. Thanks for the help guys. It's time to start putting things away for the winter as we leave for the USA in 2.5 weeks! Meanwhile Dianne and Angie stripped the upstairs beds and remade them. All the towels and bedding hit the laundry room in prep for me to deal with later.  Sure were a lot of towels for 8 people lol.

The boys are going to Courtenay with Steve and Dianne for 4 days, while Rob and Angie head back to Victoria as they both work tomorrow. They were packed into Steve's car like sardines! No one could move, ready for their 2 hour drive home. Apparently the boys slept most of the way.

Conner

Bryce

Dianne

A great weekend with great friends.

Kristi, Jason and Amelia come for the weekend. August 16 - 23

Wednesday, we're pretty tired after our fast trip and early mornings to Vancouver so we took the day off and mostly relaxed down at the dock. It's 38C feeling like 43C. Certainly too warm to do much outside but swim. 

Thursday it's back to morning chores and I a little shopping at Country Grocer. They have some beef ribs in their display. but they were really cut thin. I asked Ryan, my go to meat guy, and he said he could cut me a bigger rack. Turned out that Prime Rib's on special and he needed to cut more steaks anyways. Wow what a cut of meat, just like the barbecue joints. I put the Beef Ribs on the Traeger. Boy did they turn out fabulous.

Ready for their 6 hour smoke.

After the cook. Yummy.

Friday and another lovely day, but much cooler. We puttered getting the house ready for Amelia ... baby gates installed etc. The kids arrived at 4 pm and we sat out on the deck until dinner. We'd bought her a bubble machine and of course she spilt it and after washing the deck she just sat in the water lol.

Here are some pictures our friend Fran and Gerry sent us from their house in Kelowna. After they took  these, they were evacuated as well from West Kelowna. After several tense days, the fire did not burn up their brand new house and they were back home on Tuesday with an evacuation alert still on.

Our dinner tonight is Prime Rib and yorkshire puddings. Jason bought a few of these roasts on sale last spring for me to cook for them, and this was the last one. My barbecue rotisserie does a fabulous job and the meat, very tender. This lasted us for two dinners.

Relaxing after dinner with Daddy.

Amelia's feeling a little under the weather. Everyone slept poorly overnight and Amelia has a low grade fever. Trash truck time on TV.

Ray saw this "mean trike" walking through the campsite next door.

With the smoke from the wildfires coming into the valley, we mostly stayed inside for the weekend. So kind of a boring start to the kids holidays.

Fortunately we were able to take Amelia to Roy and June's next door to play on their swing set and into the new subdivision where there's no one with her being sick. She broke out in a rash, so Kristi's quite sure Amelia has the foot and mouth virus. Main symptom fussiness! and boy was she cranky for the 3 days. So unusual.

Roy and June's

The play park in the new subdivision up the hill from us is little known and rarely used so we felt comfortable taking her there.

On Sunday afternoon we went to Cobble Hill. Kristi and Jason wanted to check out a Golden Retriever breeder for the possiblity of getting a dog next spring. Beautiful dogs, I was even tempted to get a puppy ...

Back in the truck to come home, we stopped at another play park at the school for Amelia to play as there was nobody there. She is feeling better today by the afternoon.

Ray wandered around taking pictures of the huge trees on the school property.

Monday the kids left right after Amelia's nap to make it for her doctor's appointment. in Nanaimo where it's confirmed ... foot and mouth disease.  Apparently she slept better in her own bed Monday night so the kids slept better too. Quite the visit. Fortunately this virus does not usually affect adults. 

Tuesday, we spent the day putting our house back together, picking up toys, taking down baby gates etc. and doing laundry. It's quite cool outside with a breeze off the lake. No smoke though. We did manage to sit outside for a bit with our heaters on.

Wednesday, a cloudy start to the day. Definitely feels like fall with cloudy skies and cool temperatures. A technican came this morning from BMT Group in Victoria, to finish replacing the fabric on our drivers side slide topper and our big awning. They did get the big slide topper done, but unfortunately they did not bring the attaching fabric for the big awning, only the awning material so they will have to come back! Again, poor communication between their front office and the technicians. The rotten piece attaching the awning was the biggest problem. 

Ray spent the morning doing some work on the MH, bleaching the water tank etc and some silicone caulking in the kitchen while I did some shopping, then showed our gardener what stuff needs to be done this fall when we are gone. Hard to believe that 3 weeks tomorrow our winter vacation begins.

More company arrives tomorrow for the weekend.

Motorhome is back! A quick visit to Vancouver August 8 - 15

Tuesday and it's time to get our motorhome back onto our driveway. We headed out to Sidney Airport area at 8 am. After not getting a call back last week, we're unsure if it's ready to go as promised. Turned out that Josh expected us. After nine weeks, the work is done except for new material for the slide toppers and big awning. Originally, we asked them to replace the window awnings, but they didn't have any matching material on hand and with the usual broken supply chain who knew when an order would arrive. What they did have is black fabric for the slide toppers and big awning only. Ray told BMT to go ahead with the black material a month ago but stupidly they lost that communication. Josh says they can do everything today, so we waited. 

We figured it's a good time to call up our friends Malc and Kathy. Fortunately, we managed to hook up with them for lunch at the Waddling Dog Pub, a short way up the highway from us. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures. Here is one of theirs. lol

After saying goodbye, we went for a stroll on the Sidney Waterfront. 

My shirt matches the flowers lol

We were back at BMT Fleet Maintenance around 2'oclock and began our wait. Turned out that they were only able to do two of the four slide toppers and didn't touch the big awning while we waited until 5 pm..... Now they are going to come up to Lake Cowichan to finish the job a week from now as a thankyou for us putting up with all their miscommunication. All the other work we asked for and more is done, including Ray's wonky side mirror and new slide rubber for the rear slides. We gave them quite the list, but the main item is the leak in the roof which is taken care of. BMTconstructed an aluminum support and welded it into the roof structure and placed new insulation. All the fittings on the roof have all been resealed to prevent any leaking, especially our solar panels which they said were mounted poorly. They also installed a new satellite dish. The leak came from the old satellite dish installation that was done badly and created the dip in the roof.  All fixed now. All wiring issues dealt with, TV, stereo and the three heat pumps all function properly. They replaced a bent leveler hydraulic shaft. What a relief. They also fixed Rays' scratches and dents repainted. Looks like a new rig. With having a full-service shop we had our motor and generator serviced too.  Now we're ready for our next excursion to the USA starting September 15th.

We are happy with the quality of their work. Our problem is that they are horrible to get ahold of, to find out what is going on and no one calls you back, including one of the owners ....They seem to be better this week???? 

After a very long day we arrived home at 7 pm. We just drove straight in the driveway and will worry about backing it in properly tomorrow. It'd just started to sprinkle. Glad to be parked before the roads were wet and dirtying up the coach.

It rained overnight, but the sun came out for a few hours in the morning, This enabled me to start putting stuff back in the cupboards. I was given some "magic scratch" stuff to try on our wood trim inside the MH. Boy did it work great. You can hardly see the scratches in the wood. I did the forward cabin today and will do more after it is parked with the slides open. Now the inside looks new too. At noon the showers began so I closed up the rig and that's it for today out there.

Thursday we were out the door early at 7:45 am to attend our dental appointments. A cloudy start to the day. The sun came out briefly in Duncan. After our appointments and a bit of shopping we decided on an early lunch at Brunch on Third. Delicious. Ray ordered their Nook and Cranny, a Belgian waffle with sauteed peaches, butter & grand marnier sauce, vanilla ice cream & icing sugar

One happy camper!

I ordered their Cluck, Buttermilk battered chicken thigh, house slaw, swiss and basil aioli.

Back home for a relaxing afternoon. It clouded up all afternoon until about 5 pm.

Friday we spent the morning puttering and getting stuff back into the MH. Then we moved it back to the correct side of the driveway. Ray went to move the utility trailer out of the way and right where he placed his hand on the front of the trailer's lip, is a wasp's nest we didn't know about! He ran like a mad person into the house with 3 wasp stings, 2 on his arm and one under his chin. I ran the other way as they were all chasing him. Ray went for our wasp bomb spray and took care of that really quick. There must have been a whole cup of dead wasps within minutes after spraying. I got Ray to take some benydrl as a precaution. Good thing this wasn't Kristi as she is deathly allergic to them and one close to the throat like that is very dangerous.

Ray trying out his new chair ... it fits :)

Saturday and Sunday we just hung out enjoying the lake. Monday morning we were out the door very early to catch the 7:45 am ferry out of Duke Point to Tsawwassen. My aunt is in hospital for 5 weeks and doesn't look like she is getting out soon. She suffers from really poor kidney function and her aortic heart valve is leaking pretty good.  It was important to me to visit her before we left on our winter vacation.

We arrived at my Uncle Ken's at 11 am, where we're staying overnight. We took him out for lunch at his favourite pub, John B's in Coquitlam, then headed to the hospital to visit Norma for a couple of hours. Uncle Ken's not very mobile so we dropped him off at the entrance, got a wheel chair and went up to her room.

Ray with his (very messy) Salmon Burger. Ken and I shared a Seafood Clubhouse.

Norma is looking pretty good and being well taken care of at Eagleridge Hospital.

Ken is managing being on his own for breakfast and lunch but either Gord or Pam, or both are there every evening to cook him dinner and take him to the hospital for a short visit. This sure is hard on my cousins with no end in sight. They both work full-time as well. I don't envy them and the decisions that have to be made going forward.

Fortunately my cousin Pam lives in the house next door to Ken and Norma and can get there quickly if there is a problem. Pam cooked up a great meal of barbecued shish kabobs and corn with grilled veggies. 

We've had many family meals at this table since I was very little.

Ray, Ken, Gord and his wife Susana.

We all had a nice visit and at 9 everyone headed out and we all went to bed. A long day for us. Thank goodness Ken and Norma put in A/C last year so it was comfortable to sleep.

Tuesday morning we were out the door early again, to catch the ferry back to the island. It;s another hot day. Sure was windy going across the strait, almost got blown away walking to and from the car. We ended up being right in front and spent the trip sitting in the car. Here's the view out our window.

Back home by 1:30 and straight down to the dock to swim. The temps went to about 38C today. We went swimming every 20 minutes to stay cool.

That was our week. Not very exciting. :) One more month and we will leave for our winter adventures.