Amelia has a sleepover, and repairs completed in pantry - August 15 - 21

Friday it rained all day with only a few brief periods of just drizzle. Good for the forest fires on the island. 

Saturday we picked up Amelia at Highway 18 interchange at 11:30 to let our sleepover begin. First up, lunch at McDonald's with their play area. She looked so cute in her unicorn costume.

Then a little shopping at Walmart before heading back to the lake. Scooter rides, magnatiles, puzzles and plenty of running around the house before dinner.

New Sorry Game

Amelia woke early this morning and did not get to bed until 8:30 the night before, so she's tired. All tucked in bed by 6:30 pm after stories and brushing teeth etc. 

Surprisingly, she went right to sleep and we didn't hear from her until 5 am. She'd knocked over her water bottle and the lid came off making a puddle of water on the floor. Oh well, I fixed that, found her puppy and baby and she went right back to sleep until 6:30 am. She's in a great mood all day.

A lazy morning, then our usual making Blueberry Pancakes. After breakfast, we went for a walk up to the park in the new subdivision. Then more playing in the house and on her scooter.

Papa kept her busy while I prepped dinner.

Papa's so tired that he had a nap for an hour while Amelia and I were outside.

Jason and Kristi arrived at 4 pm, dinner served at 5 and they were on their way back home for 5:30 pm. A whirlwind 30 hours :) They are all back again next Friday overnight to visit with my cousin Gord and his wife Susana, who are coming next weekend.

Monday, still "iffy weather". Tuesday's weather included showers all day and even a couple of downpours. Wednesday we pulled the boat. Ray washed the scum off, took off the bimini top and put on the travel cover before he headed for Duncan. I stayed home and the guys came to finally fix the ductwork in the pantry. Yay! all done. Ray will put the ceiling back up tomorrow, then I can put everything back.

I made sure they sealed the exterior vent really well, so we don't have bats in the house again.

Thursday it took Ray 3 hours to get the ceiling back in the pantry. Then my job started, reloading shelves, which took 1.5 hours. A big job for such a small space. I'm especially glad to get everything out of all the rubbermaid tubs in the hallway.

Later I sat outside and watched the sunset from our deck. A beautiful warm evening.

Tomorrow company arrives.

Repair stuff, Splash Park and Gardening Aug 5 - 14th

Tuesday morning after toast and coffee. we bid Steve and Dianne goodbye. See you in September when they come again with their son Rob and family.

The technician to install the dishwasher didn't come until noon ... took him almost 2 hours. Turns out that the old dishwasher is hard wired without a junction box.  So he installed one to connect to, which took a little longer. I see why they send young, skinny people to install lol

All finished and runs without leaking .... we will test it out with a load of dishes later. At first it would not connect to the app, and would not let me switch programs. So I turned the breaker on and off and everything reset correctly ... Whew! I think it stuck in an incomplete cycle while the technician tested it after install. It is working great.

We were supposed to have the ductwork for the fans done .... but apparently just the project manager came to have a look. That isn't the plan we were told. Oh well,the other technician came to replace the thermostat and Levi then removed the ceiling in the pantry. He took some pictures so they have an idea of time and materials to schedule a date. 

Also found this cheater vent in the wall ... who knew. It's the air vent for the washing machine pumping out water so it doesn't back up with an air bubble. That explains why there is a tung and groove ceiling in the pantry for some air flow.

The culprit .... smaller bathroom vent is plumbed into the main exhaust vent for fan above the stove. Ray is busy pulling nails out of all the boards so they can be nailed back up into the ceiling.

Unfortunately Levi brought the wrong replacement thermostat, not a wifi one which is what we have, so he will have to come back  again for that. He installed the one he brought though, so he could program the heat function, as it's disconnected from the furnace so I could run the A/C for now. After he spent 2 hours testing everything, it he determined that there's a short in the thermostat wire somewhere between the furnace and the thermostat so not the thermostat, the old one was put back in. Now they have to come back and see if they can run another wire or we have to go to bluetooth which means more components. (Update... there is nothing wrong with the original thermostat. Turns out that the thermostat wire had a finishing nail through it and it finally shorted out. Levi came back and ran a new wire and everything is okeedokee now.) 

Thursday, my gardener, Penny and I spent 5 hours pulling out all my irises and splitting them and replanting. Fortunately it's a cooler day and I moved the umbrellas over us to create shade.

It's been 5 years since I planted them. Penny did the digging and I spent 3 hours pulling them apart, and trimming the leaves. Penny replanted and we have enough extras for Penny, June and Pat to take some. My flowers are now in everyones garden besides mine :) Should be a great display next spring.

By the time they were all dug out, and pulled them apart and trimmed the leaves down, the pile was a foot high and you could not see the blue tarp! Glad that is done for another 5 years.

Girl power!

Friday we did errands in Duncan and ate lunch at the new Chinese Restaurant. Of course we ordered enough so I didn't have to cook dinner. We spent the afternoon on the deck. The bistro table and bench look fabulous since Jason put the marine epoxy on them.

Saturday is a beautiful day. I spent an hour or so deadheading my front planters. The rain earlier this week really did a number on them lol. Ray's pretty sore still from clearing out the vegetation trying to regrow on the beach. Next year we'll have the lady who trims our hedge take care of that too. We sat out front to have our lunch, on the charcutterie board Jason made me.

The weather started to really warm up, so time to hit the water and sit on the dock. I floated in my lounger for a bit a couple of times to cool off. Barely any wind until around 3 pm. Tomorrow will be hotter. We are in a stretch of hot weather for the next few days.

Sunday after Ray mowed the lawn, we headed up to Nanaimo for a Costco run and then meet up with the kids at Driftwood Chinese Buffet for noon. Unfortunately the restaurant has a power outage so we met up at Shanghi City instead. It turned out to be a Dim Sum instead of a buffet but we enjoyed it.

Now off to the Splash Park at Harewood for us and Amelia. Amelia found us a spot to sit in the shade while we watch her play.

After half an hour playing in the water it was time to warm up in the sun playing on the equipment. Amelia showed Papa all the things she liked to play on.

There's a donut food truck at the park, so of course we bought some.

Time to fly the kite in the soccer field as it's empty of players.

Unfortunately Amelia let go of the kite, so Papa ran across the field to catch the handle with the string. That's it for Papa!

After 2 hours, it's time to go back home. It's extremely hot outside at 34C. We sat for half an hour visiting with Kristi and Jason and then headed home. They were in the middle of making blueberry jelly.

Back home. we sat out on the deck for a bit with the fan on. It's still pretty warm out at 5 pm.

Monday we did some chores and then spent time on the dock. Tuesday, as it's going to be the hottest day, we planned to take the boat down the lake for the day. Unfortunately after we started, the motor started missing and losing power. After 3 tries. we decided not to chance it and came back to the dock. Ate our picnic lunch down there. It's extremely hot and we spent quite a bit of time in the water. Final temps came up to 36C by 5:30 pm. 

At 2:30 pm. we left the dock and came up to the house. The smoke from the China Creek Forest Fire is coming down the lake and within half an hour it's choking me.

This fire started on Monday night and overnight grew to 1400 hectares. Authorities evacuated the China Creek Campground and the residents of Bamfield have no power. All visitors are to leave making their way out on back roads and come through Caycuse here to Lake Cowichan while those roads are still open. The road between Bamfield and Port Alberni is closed. It is now a "Fire of Note" (By Friday morning the fire grew to over 3400 hectares.)

Ray managed to finish another puzzle. This is the last one, so off to the second hand store next time we are in Duncan to get some more.

Wednesday as Drydock Marine couldn't come to check out our boat motor, we headed into Duncan to get our portable generator serviced instead. It's brand new, but we haven't started it since last year .... now it won't start. Turns out the carbuerator is gunked up from bad fuel. The service department showed Ray there's a setting on the power switch to run it dry after testing it. He wasn't shown this setting when purchased.

On our way to Duncan, we stopped at Averill Creek Winery just off Highway 18. We've passed the winery for seven years and never stopped. 

Averill Creek was founded with our first vines planted in 2001 by former MD and wine educator Andy Johnston. Andy's passion for winemaking led him from Edmonton to vineyards around the world, before establishing Averill Creek Vineyard in the Somenos region of Cowichan Valley.

Averill Creek Vineyard wines are conceived in the vineyard, captured in the cellar and hopefully speak loudly in the glass. We like to call them neoclassical meaning they respect the traditional, old world ethos and honesty like they did 1000 years ago. But we are using modern practices to make them a little more responsibly.

Nothing is added to our wines except a little bit of sulphur just before bottling. Just as important nothing is taken away, meaning they are un-fined and unfiltered. By taking a pragmatic, low-intervention approach, we are letting the vineyard, the variety and the region shine in the glass, not any winemaker tricks.

Our techniques like wild fermentation, foot-stomping, whole-bunch fermentation, and lees aging we capture the beautiful rusticity, freshness and perfume of Vancouver Island in every bottle.

It's part of the August Wine Festival so we stopped for a tasting. What a beautiful view.

I tried the 3 wines they offered with the festival, the white one "foot stomped" and then 2 others. We came away with 3 bottles of wine. :)

They have the most gorgeous hydrangeas.

You can see some of the smoke in the air across the Cowichan Valley.

While going to our table, Ray tripped over a concrete slab holding down an umbrella and put a huge gash in his big toe. What a way to meet the owners, Andy a retired family doctor from Edmonton. lol Of course Ray's looking for his next "shot" instead of where his feet are going, as the garden surrounding the patio is beautiful. Ray's now bandaged up to not bleed everywhere. They only set up the umbrellas the day before, Andy's wife is busy moving planters around the bases so no one else would trip.

After dropping off the generator, we decided to eat lunch at Red Arrow Brewing for delicious pizza. Much nicer temps today at 26C instead of 36C. Their patio area sits under a huge maple tree. Gorgeous. They have the doors open for brewing, so Ray snapped a picture.

After a couple more errands (getting more puzzles) it's back to the lake to sit out on the deck. Ray put everything away on the dock in preparation for rain starting tomorrow afternoon. We sure need it.

Thursday, Dry Dock Marine stopped by and plugged in their computer to our outboard motor. Nothing visibly wrong with it. When he revved it up the technician heard what we did, the motor is missing. He determined that the $20 gas we purchased from the marina had water in it. We don't have a water separator on the fuel line the water has to be taken out .... nothing wrong with our motor. Ray called Dean's Marine in Duncan, and we have an appointment August 23rd, so we'll pull the boat next week. The motor is due for servicing, so we will have all that done at the same time and it will be good for another 3 years. We will also have a water/fuel separator installed.

Otherwise, we puttered around, I made tomato sauce from some of my tomatoes I picked. Ray pulled some weeds out of the lawn, otherwise a quiet day. 

Thursday afternoon, Penny came and pruned my lavender hedge. She managed to get it done just before the rain started.

The predicted rain started at 4:30 pm. It is just showery out, definitely not a downpour that is needed.