Wasn't That A Party! - Steve and Dianne come to visit! June 22 - 25th

Finally, Steve and Dianne were able to come for a visit to the lake. We'd planned for them to visit way back at the end of April, but the timing was bad with Ray's knee surgery. We didn't want to see anyone 2 weeks before, so he wouldn't catch anything to delay surgery.

Although, the weather turned from hot and sunny, to cloudy with some rain showers, we managed to entertain ourselves. Lots of food and drinks! They arrived for lunch on Saturday about 1 pm. First up, Barbecued Pork Souvlaki with homemade Pita bread and Tzatziki.  

Let the fun begin. 

The turkey is in the Traeger cooking for dinner, so we were unable to sit on the back deck with the smoke so out to the front we went.

The turkey is done. With such a big meal to eat, I invited Roy and June next door to come help us. :) I also made my cheesecake for dessert.

Sunday's a no cooking day for me lol 

First up is a hot tub for the 3 of them. I've a huge broken blister on my big toe from dropping an electric battery for the blower on it .... so no hot tub for me lol Those rechargeable batteries have some weight to them.

At 10:30 we took Steve and Dianne for a trip to Maple Bay and Genoa Bay. It's a great choice, as it stayed cloudy with showers all day here at the lake and blue sky on the other side! 

We stopped at the Lion Rampart for a beer, then carried on to the Shipyard Restaurant at the Maple Bay Marina for lunch. Nice that Ray is the DD.

Lion Rampart

On to Maple Bay Marina. View of the houseboats.

Back in the car for the short drive to Genoa Bay. We visited this marina several years ago and there was a lot of old derelict stuff here. Now it's all gone which is good. They also have a few houseboats.

A really low tide, and I spotted a huge jellyfish.

With the low tide we saw a couple of people bringing their stuff off the boats in a wheelbarrow and had to push it up this ramp. What  a workout!

Look at this old beauty.

Back home to sit on the deck with Ray's famous margaritas!

Tonight's dinner is leftover turkey. Then back outside onto the deck. A great end to the day.

Monday we stayed home. Dianne and I spent a couple hours prepping all the veggies and stuff for my beef bourguignon that I'm making for dinner to take next door. Ray and Steve went over to the ball field to fly their drones. Ray is still learning how to run his, so no pictures or video from Ray lol. At least he didn't lose it. He found one though and through Facebook found the owner just down our street. Apparently when the kid turned it on it took off on it's own and he didn't know where it went. I will "steal Steve's video" when he posts it. :)

The sun came out for a bit and we were able to get outside on the back lawn, out of the wind.

For lunch I made chicken wings as a "Pub Lunch".

Roy and June invited the four of us over to watch the Stanley Cup hockey final in their theatre room ... 120" projector screen. 

At 4:45 pm we headed next door. What a great experience watching the game in their theatre room, it's like we physically were at the game. Thanks a bunch Roy and June for inviting us. Unfortunately the Edmonton Oilers lost this final game. It was a great game though with a 2-1 final score for the Florida Panthers.

At the first intermission we headed upstairs for our dinner.

Back home and we finished the night with strawberries and ice cream on the deck. A great end to the day.

Tuesday morning, after a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, it's time for the Colibabas to pack up and hit the road. Ray also has physio at 10 am and my housecleaner arrives at 10 am. What a great weekend. Thanks for coming guys! So nice to see you in person.

(We did find out that the A/C was not working in their bedroom or the other bedroom upstairs. Good thing it wasn't too warm outside. We experienced some power outages with surges about a month ago ...5 of them in 30 minutes. A lot of comments on the town's facebook pages with people losing some appliances etc. Hopefully that is not the case here. We do have a surge protector on our main panel. I have a technician coming Wednesday to check it out.)

Tuesday dinner was at the WhiteSpot in Duncan. We met up with Jason and Amelia on their way back to Nanaimo from Victoria. She was so happy to see us, especially her Papa.

Trip to Vancouver with Kristi and Amelia for Uncle Ken's Celebration of Life, June 13th - June 21st

Wednesday, I decided to head up to Ladysmith and buy some Spot Prawns right off the boat. I usually buy some every year to freeze. They certainly are not cheap. I waited until the price dropped from $25/pound to $20/ pound this year. Three years ago I bought them at $12/pound. The season is only one month long and then you are out of luck. Prawns are Amelia's favourite so of course we had to get some.

Thursday another not nice day.  We processed the prawns, ripping the heads off so I could freeze them in water. Needed to do it early as it's organics day and I didn't want the prawn heads in our garbage for a week. lol We had all this done before 8 am

On Friday we finally found someone to fix the panels of our fence today. One panel in particular is coming apart as it's rotten on the bottom. I worried about losing my clematis. Jason suggested Mountain Man Services. We drive by this business everytime we go into town here at Lake Cowichan. As it turned out, he put the arbor fence in 6 years ago. All fixed, panels lifted, one taken out and the bottom repaired with new wood and restained. All in probably 90 minutes! No garden destruction.

Today was also big breakfast day for Ray. I had some fresh berries to use up that didn't make it on my cheesecake last week.

Later on is our Lobster Feast at Roy and June's next door. It was a "Black and White Dinner" and we were supposed to dress up. Some of us missed the memo lol. 

They flew in 25 pounds of lobster from Nova Scotia for our neighbour dinner. Yummy! This is really for us to celebrate June's birthday. Thanks for hosting this guys. The lobster is delicious.

All 20 of them!

As usual, I'm in the kitchen helping. :)

Ray assuming his position. :)

Donna and June

Mike all dressed up. lol

Roy serving Donna, look at our butter bath. lol

Mike, Debra, Darryl, Ray, Deb, June, Roy, Ron and Donna and Pat taking the picture.

Darryl, Ron, Pat and Donna

All bundled up.

Debra, Mike and Roy

At 9 pm we all called it a night. What a great evening.

Saturday morning and I'm out the door early heading to Nanaimo at 6:45 am. It's my Uncle Ken's Celebration of Life today in New Westminster. I picked up Kristi and Amelia and then we were on the 9:05 ferry to Vancouver. Amelia was a good little girl all day. Kristi and I spent most of the day feeding her lol. She had 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners and multiple snacks in between lol.

It was a very moving service listening to my cousin Gord give the eulogy. The slide show was awesome with a lot of pictures of Ken and Norma visiting us in the Charlottes and Port Alberni. I ended up giving a bit of a speech as well, regarding a bunch of memories. A few tears later it was time to go to the tea.

Amelia had a great time with her cousin Stella at the tea service, running around. It was nice to see her, my son Garrett and partner Kat. 

Long day for me ... 15 hours door to door but so worth it.

On the ferry to Vancouver.

Of course I didn't think to take pictures at the beginning so only managed a few before everyone was leaving.

Stella being chased by Amelia.

Amelia catching up.

L to R My cousin Pam's son Jackson with his girlfriend, My cousin Wendy from San Francisco, My cousin Gord, Ken's son, and Gord's son Connor and my son Garrett.

My cousin Pam, long blonde hair, Ken's daughter. Kristi in the far back talking to Gord's wife Suzana.

Back to the ferry lineup to head back to Nanaimo. After a quick snack at Trollers Pub, there's time to play at the park before heading back to the car.

The new car works well for Amelia to play in while we wait to get on the ferry. She's dusting Papa's car. lol

We were so lucky, Kristi and I with the weather. We saw very little rain even though it had been raining everywhere we'd been. When we had lunch before the service in New Westminster, apparently we missed a hail storm and rain. By the time we left and walked the 4 blocks back to the Funeral home the sun was out again. Ray said it poured off and on all day at the lake.

Arrived at Kristi's to drop them off at 8:30 pm. We had one very tired little girl especially since ii was an hour and a half past her regular bedtime. Back on the road to the lake arriving at 9:30 pm.

Sunday, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Amelia made a card for Papa on the ferry which I gave him and he received a video of Stella saying Happy Father's Day and a text from Kristi. I think today will be a quiet day here as the weather still is not great.

Today I bought Ray a Boston Creme Cake and made him homemade Chow Mein for his special dinner.

Monday and Tuesday we stayed home and did some chores. For some reason my left knee is protesting ... sympathy pains for Ray lol Mostly cloudy both days. We decided to take out the Yew trees against the fence. They were getting too big. This also allows Ray to build two more tiered gardens for me for next year's herbs and flowers. :)

Wednesday the sun finally came out and is a beautiful day. I did a major shop in Duncan for groceries and then made my way back home. We spent the afternoon on our deck. It's so nice out that I actually stayed outside until 10:30 pm. There's no wind and the lake is flat calm.

Thursday another gorgeous day. the car was picked up by a Toyota employee to get it's full detail done that was promised when we purchased the car last month. Also, we're having front and rear recording dash camera's installed. They will have the car for two days, so are dropping off a demo car for us to use while they have it. They gave us a Rav4 to drive. Boy did it seem small and cramped compared to our new car.

Friday, first full day of summer. Another beautiful warm day. I spent the morning prepping food, making a cheesecake etc. for Steve and Dianne's visit tomorrow. The afternoon was spent on the sundeck with a fan on. Ray's knee and back is sore so we decided not to walk down to the dock.

Liam, our sales guy, brought our car was back at 5:30 pm, all nice and shiney. 

The Oiler's hockey team won again in game 6 against the Floriday Panthers. One more game to go and they might hoist the Stanley Cup!

At 8:30 pm we were invited over to Roy and June's for dessert and a campfire. A lovely way to end the day. Ron and Donna, our other neighbours were there as well. At first the blackfies were terrible. I have never seen so many, but must have been from the hot weather a few weeks ago and then cooler wet weather, and then warm again hatched them. Fortunately, as the temperature became cooler, they disappeared. 

Tomorrow Steve and Dianne arrive!