Last 2 weeks of July, boy did it go fast. July 18 - 31st

After a busy week and company, we were pretty bushed for a couple of days, so hung around home and puttered in the morning and then down at the dock for the afternoon. I brought lunch down to the dock for us.

Ray managed to get Sandmark's (next door) painter over to paint our two roof fascia boards as they were blistered from the hot sun. The rest of our paint job on the house from 2019 is still great.

Wednesday I went to Nanaimo, dropped off stuff at Jason's that they forgot from the weekend and attended my mammogram appointment and then did a big Costco shop. Didn't get back home until about 3 pm and joined Ray down at the dock.

Thursday same deal as Tuesday. lol Big job today is laundry and cleaning out my fridge :)

Friday we had a scheduled power outage here at the house from 8:30 to 1 pm as BC Hydro is servicing lines in our area. We left about 8:30 and headed to Nanaimo to spend the day. 

First up is visiting Amelia and we took her to Bowen Park to their duck pond for a couple of hours.

Playing pee-a-boo with Grandma

We dropped her back off at home for her lunch and nap at 11:30. Ray and I headed back down the highway to OJ's to meet up with our old friend Dan Hillert and his lovely partner Deb Wiggins from Sointula Island (across from Port McNeil in northern Vancouver Island). Last time we saw them was 4 years ago when we camped in Port McNeil with Jason and Kristi.

After lunch we went back to Jason's for 2:30 to look after Amelia after her nap. Jason had some errands to do. Playing with Papa building with her magnets. 

At 4:30 pm we headed back to the lake and sat out on our deck for a couple of hours. Good thing I had lots of leftovers for dinner for Ray as I'm so not into cooking tonight. lol

Saturday morning I made blueberry muffins and invited Darryl and Pat over for coffee. A great "catch up" and planning session for Ray to go out fishing with Darryl. We also planned for our next trip to the Chemainus Theatre for the play Ghost. 

Sunday is also a rather quiet day. Too cool to sit down at the dock, so we put on our fleece and sat under the gazebo for awhile in the afternoon before the sun broke through and warmed up.

Monday we woke to showers as predicted. Definitely a gloomy looking day. I spent the morning printing out all our reservations for this winter to put in a file so we have paper copies in case of no internet service or computer issues. By the afternoon it poured and continued on into the evening.

Ray took me out for lunch at Jakes for seniors day, 25% off all food.

Once we were back home we cozied up on our porch watching the rain.

Tuesday, gloomy skies but the rain stopped. Ray, Darryl and Darryl's grandson Ashton, headed out fishing in Darryl's boat at 7 am. Darryl is "practicing" before his brother arrives at the end of the week to go fishing in the lake. They ususually go salmon fishing, but it's become really expensive at the lodges so they have decided to fish our lake instead this year. 

The lads were back at 11 am before the downpour began. They only had one fish on but lost it so not a very successful day. Ashton apparently slept half the time lol

Sandmarks had some trees taken down next door last week. Here are a few pictures Ray took of the trees coming down. One by one.

Took a couple of pictures of my front garden as it's a mass of colour again. You can see the empty spot where the trees were.

You sure can see how open June's yard is now with those 5 trees taken down for their new garage. 

My Tiger Lillies have finally bloomed. I was beginning to wonder as they just kept growing taller! They are about 6 feet or more tall now.

I picked a bunch of gladiolas that fell down due to the rainstorm on Monday.

Wednesday, Happy Birthday to ME!

First up is a video call with Amelia singing me Happy Birthday. So cute!

We started out fishing at 9am for a couple of hours at the narrows. Saw a bunch of fish on the sounder, but didn't even get a bite. Oh well it was a lovely morning.

Got back home about 11:30, changed and headed out to Crofton to the Osbourne Hotel and Pub for lunch. Delicious Saltspring mussels for me and a great burger for Ray. After lunch we had a nice walk on their boardwalk. The sand there is black with sparkles, quite different looking.

Looking down at Crofton from the hill going down.

Look how tall the blackberry bushes are along the boardwalk. The berries are still green, not quite ready yet.

The black sand.

The winter storms did not do this old dock any good. The ramp to nowhere!

Back home for 3. Ray made me a margarita and we sat out on our deck for awhile. At 4:30pm I decided to make us dinner, Coquilles St. Jacques. A scallop and wine and mushroom sauce bowl with piped mashed potatoes. Delicious. I also bought a Boston Creme Cake from Country Grocer for my birthday cake. :)

Thursday, a beautiful morning that we had our coffee on the deck. The lake is calm and no wind. Tonight Ray is taking me to the Farm Table Inn for the Prime Rib night for my birthday dinner. Yumm.

I was able to get a pedicure appointment this morning, so we both drove into Duncan. Ray did some shopping while I "soaked" lol After I was done we tried out a new to us, Sushi Restaurant. Turned out to be delicious. 

Nha Trang Maki Sushi

A little more grocery shopping and we headed back home and sat on our deck again. The breeze down at the dock is a little too much. Nice and warm up here though.

At 5:15 we left for the Farm Table Inn. Dinner was served in their garden.

Unfortunately it took over an hour to be served our dinner and it wasn't that great. I could have cooked the "beast" better myself. We didn't order an appetizer as they used to put fresh bread on every table but apparently with the food costs they don't do that now, so Ray was really hungry. They really charge a ton too. Oh well it was nice spending time with my guy.

After we got back home we invited Roy and June over for birthday cake and they brought over a bottle of Prosecco to help me celebrate. Thanks guys.

The next morning if we were not awake at 8 am we would have been. One of our neighbours flies a helicopter and he made three passes over our houses before landing for a few minutes and taking off again. lol

Right over our tree

Friday, we were supposed to pick up the motorhome today from Victora, but they are having trouble sourcing material to replace the slide toppers. We decided at 9 am to go down there anyways to check on the work that has been done. Out the door and on the road by 9:30.

Traffic was pretty good getting there. We just missed getting into a traffic jam due to an accident as it was just ahead of our turn off to the Pac Bay Highway. Listening to the news last night we found out it was a vehicle fire. I'm sure that jammed up traffic a lot. The traffic coming from Victoria towards Mill Bay was horrendous. Stop and go from Goldstream park right back to the traffic lights where the Highway branches into two lanes.

Arrived 90 minutes later to BMT Group Maintenance. Josh took us up in the easy lift to view our roof, where they had removed our satellite dish and put on a new King dome on our roof which is considerbly smaller and lighter for our roof. Hopefully it works well. They did not inform us of the change .... but they felt it was a lot less expensive than ripping off the roof from the outside and rebuilding the roof structure and redoing a section of the roof as we have so many things attached to the roof. (lots of solar panels, vents etc.) They did add another aluminum roof truss from the inside to get rid of the "dip" in the roof. They also redid all of the joints for the solar panels making them waterproof. 

A bit of a shamble at the moment.

I also instructed them to put in new ceiling panels so none of the water damage shows .... but they are not doing that either as they would have to take the cupboards down. I had talked to them about that on our drop off day as I told Josh I had emptied out the cupboards for that very reason??? He said their detailer can clean everything up so we shall see. They are installing new hdmi cables for the 2 tv's forward with the ceiling opened up which will be good. Once the ceiling is put back up they will check out the heat pumps and sensors and make sure all of that is in working condition. Hopefully there are no more wiring issues due to water damage. That work should be finished by Tuesday next week.

The slide trays in the basement are fixed, the paint job on the scratches on the exterior looks wonderful. The service on the motor and generator is done. Also they repaired under the fridge slide as the material separated.

BMT also replaced the rubber slide gaskets on the two rear slide outs as they were worn and were letting water in they said. The 2 forward slide gaskets were already replaced a couple of years ago.

They are waiting on two replacement lights for side rear parking lights that were filled with water and the material for the slide toppers. The plan is to pick up the coach Tuesday, August 8th after the long weekend. Fingers crossed the work is complete. We feel much better checking out what has been done so far.

Coming back home we decided to take the Brentwood Bay Ferry and miss the back up of traffic going on the Malahat. We arrived an hour and 15 before the next sailing. I asked the attendent if we would make it on and she said yes .... we were one of the last four cars on. While waiting for the ferry we were able to have lunch at the Seahorse Cafe right beside the ferry ramp. Great burger for me and fish tacos for Ray. We would definitely go there again.

Brentwood Bay

Ray and arrived back home at 3 pm. Tried to sit down at the dock, but it got way too windy again. The rest of the afternoon was up on our deck.

Saturday turned out to be cloudy and breezy ... no fishing this morning. Darryl's brother is here for a few days and they went fishing this morning in spite of the wind, but came home empty handed.

Day of relaxing and laundry. All our galavanting about has Ray's back really sore, so a day off it is. Made blueberry pancakes for breakfast to cheer up my guy. 

Sunday another windy day ... geez. Definitely a different year here at the lake with all the wind. Usually it's calm in the morning and then at 1 pm or so the wind comes up until 5 and then it's calm again. This year it is windy when we get up and doesn't stop all day.

Tonight we were invited for dinner at Pat and Darryl's to meet some of their family and friends. A great barbecued chicken dinner with all the fixin's. Lots of bevies and great laughs.

Darryl, his nephew Greg, and Pat's mom Betty.

Darryl's brother Jim and his son Greg.

Great spread.

Betty, Pat's 93 year old mom and Pat's friends camping at the park. Phil, Luke and Anita.

Darryl, Ray and Greg, Darryl's nephew.

Lots of bevies ... the boys are melting into their seats!

A great evening.

Monday, I finally dug into my deep freezer and reorganized it seeing what had to be used up. I found some chicken thighs, italian sausage and a pint of prawns that the lid was trying to come off of..... What to make, Paella. Ray said it's the best one I've made. 

So July is a wrap! Next up August with predicted warm and dry weather. Hard to believe in 6 weeks we will be leaving for our winter adventure in the USA.