Ray's Recovery, and Warren and Deb come to visit. May 15 - 25th

For lunch and dinner I decided to fire up my Traeger and cooked up some chicken wings. This is the first time I tried these and they turned out delicious. I'm surprised they only took about 35 minutes. After they came off, I rolled them in some teriyaki sauce. Delicious.

While Ray's doing his exercises, relaxing and reading, I briefly sat on our new patio and decided to get busy pruning a bunch of our shrubs in the front garden. The maple trees are creating too much shade for the shrubs underneath. I will have my gardener remove a maple tree and a yew tree on friday. They are too big for me to handle. 

Before picture.

I have quite the pile to be taken away.

What a difference a couple of hours of work makes. I was covered in tree bits, but it's worth it.

I finally sat down at 4 with Ray on our back deck for an hour. A surprisingly beautiful, warm day. Today is our other granddaughter's 4th birthday. Here is Stella in the dress we bought her. Apparently it is a hit.

Thursday, same stuff.

Friday a very busy day for me. First I had to head into Duncan and pick up Ray's pain medication prescription. Of course at London Drugs they are still recovering from their Cyber Attack 2 weeks ago. Talk about a gong show. I had to call our doctor's office and have the prescription refaxed as they couldn't find it. Finally an hour later I was able to do the rest of my shopping and head back home.

After our lunch, Sean, our gardener showed up at 1:30 to cut down 2 trees in the front garden. Not enough light for my purple rhododendron and orange azalea in behind. What a difference that made.

Here goes the maple tree!

Now for the Yew Tree. Look how much more open it is.

Yup, a lot of pruning :)

After he mowed our lawn and left, our friends Warren and Debbie from across the lake came over for a visit, sitting outside on our driveway patio. It's too cold on the lake side to sit on the deck. A great catch up of who did what over the winter. lol

At 5:30 we had a carpenter stop by. Our fence/arbor in the front,  have rotted posts and need to be replaced. They were never cemented in as far as I can tell. We are hoping to save the fence panels and replace the posts. If it cannot be fixed that way, we will change it out for a composite fence with metal posts. Unfortunately, my clemantis has climbed all over the fence and is blooming. Hopefully we can save most of it. The work won't be done until August anyways. There is a fence panel behind all that greenery.

Saturday woke up to a cloudy morning. It's supposed to rain today. Good for my new grass  growing in the back yard. We ended up with a pretty sunny afternoon to enjoy sitting outside on our "front patio". I planted some new shrubs in the space where the 2 trees used to reside.

Sunday, Ray took me out to Jake's for lunch, just to get him out of the house for a bit. 

Monday, not much happening around here. I put some Beef Rib Fingers on my Traeger for dinner. They turned out delicious. These are the parts between beef ribs that they cut out for Tomohawk Steaks.

Amelia has been busy at home in Nanaimo.

Helping Daddy

Tuesday, we woke to the predicted rain. Not going to be a very nice week apparently. Today is Ray's first physio appointment 13 days post op. His leg swelling went down and his exercises are going well. Definitely on the upswing. His therapist is very surprised at how far Ray came already and gave him exercises for 6 weeks post-op even though he is only just under week 2.

Wednesday, it's a beautiful day and we managed to sit out front quite a bit after our morning routines.

At 3:15 we headed out to Duncan to pick up our new car. As usual it always takes a bunch of time for all the paperwork, insurance etc, so we didn't get back home until 6 pm. A long 3 hours for Ray to sit without his leg elevated, but worth it for this! A 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander Platinum Max 500 Hybrid. Now that's a mouthful. lol

Thursday Ray had his physio appointment. He is doing great. This therapist is able to bend his leg to 118 degrees, awesome.

 Later in the afternoon I headed up to Nanaimo for a visit with the family for dinner. Boy is Olaf growing. Amelia gave me a hug and told me she missed me lots. Heart melting. :)

Olaf the shop dog lol

The kids landscaping project in their backyard is really coming along. Kristi is in gardening heaven. She has everything planted. The irrigation was finished yesterday and area with the plywood will have sod put down in the next week or so.

The three of them are always together. :) Jason always wanted a cuddly dog and Olaf sure fits the bill.

 

After dinner and a family walk, I headed back home to the lake. The new car is very comfortable. 

Home at 7:30, in time to cover the patio furniture etc in preparation for the rain tomorrow. Ray survived without me and cooked himself up some halibut for dinner.

 

Friday morning is miserable and very wet. Fortunately by 10:15 the rain quit when I took Ray into Duncan to the hospital for his xray and visit with his surgeon. Don't want the new car to get dirty lol. 

The xray confirmed that his new knee is in the correct place and Dr. Popovic is happy with his progress. 

Back home for 2:30 and we set up on our sundeck watching the showers come and go with our heaters on. I even had him hooked up to his ice machine as he's quite sore after our day.