Dianne comes to the lake to recover from knee surgery. - May 20 - 31st

My 65th birthday roses from Roy and June made it another year.

Tuesday, our buddy Dianne, has her second knee surgery today. We'll be waiting to greet her tomorrow when she arrives with Steve, so she can recover in our basement suite. No stairs to navigate. 

Her surgery was successful and they arrived at 4 pm to settle in. We had a short visit and left them to settle in for the evening.

Picture by Steve

Our friend, Laurel, in Austrailia, had spinal surgery on Wednesday. She is doing well she says, but of course in a lot of pain. She had the same surgery Ray experienced three times, fusing spine. Laurel will have a much longer recovery than Dianne.

The rest of the week we popped downstairs periodically, mostly for happy hour. I cooked a bunch of dinner so Steve didn't have to.

Saturday turned out warm enough for everyone to sit outside, Dianne managed an hour before back to the lazyboy recliner.

Earlier in the morning the boys even managed to go out fishing for a bit. It was flat calm. No fish though.

When they got back, Steve helped Ray with a "dump run" to Meades Creek. They also did a walk down to Spring Beach, a Forest Service Recreation Site.

A very busy spot on hot days in the summer.

While Dianne is resting downstairs, I wandered around my gardens.  My Iris's are all blooming and they are gorgeous.

Sunday is a cloudy and windy day. The forecasted rain started at dinner time. I'd made pork ribs on my Traeger, paired with baked beans and a corn salad, for dinner for the 4 of us tonight. Turned out yummy. I also made a tomato and swiss chard tart for lunch for us all. My swiss chard needed harvesting. After cooking for a good part of the day, I'm on strike tomorrow. Steve is on his own. lol 

Monday although cloudy the lake was calm so we got Steve moving early and the boys left for trying their luck fishing at 8 am. The were frustrated, they could see a dozen or so fish at the mouth of Shaw Creek, but other than Steve having one on briefly and a couple of other strikes, no fish in the boat.

Tuesday's a beautiful day and we managed to sit on the back lawn for a bit in the afternoon, so Dianne could get outside too. She is now a week into her recovery and doing well.  While we were out on the lawn we saw a "dragon boat" go by. I think there was a field trip from Duncan with kids.

They all merrily waved at us.

We ordered pizza for dinner as this is their last night here. Steve picked up the tab. Thanks a bunch!

Wednesday, another sunny flat calm start to the day. I have a hair appointment for 10 am, so gave the Colibabas a hug goodbye as they would be on their way back to Courtenay before I got back home. They were here 8 days for her knee recovery.  They handed us a thank you card with a gift certicate to our favourite sushi restaurant in Nanaimo. Thanks a bunch guys!

We spent most of the afternoon on the sundeck under the gazebo. Although sunny, it's quite windy and hot.

Thursday and a very rainy morning. Ray headed to Duncan early for a dental appointment and then shopping for some fishing gear in preparation for our fishing trip next month. By afternoon the sun came out and it's quite hot outside. Ray's busy doing some painting of trim on the stairs and around the house. Spots where the red paint had been banged. He got so hot he actually jumped into the lake!

Outta the water! Straight into our hot tub.

Friday we headed to Cowichan Bay for lunch at the Cook and Butcher before picking up our spot prawns from the boat.

We shared a seafood platter. Delicious.

The prawn boat was late, so I sat on our cooler and waited with a bunch of other people. Ray wandered through the stores and had a huge (6") ice cream cone. Finally at 2:30 the boat showed up. It's a very low tide so quite the crawl down the ramp to the dock.

Back home we sat outside on the deck. Another beautiful day. In the evening, I got an invite next door to Mike and Deb's for a short visit with Debra and her mom, Lolly. Nice catching up.

Saturday morning we woke up to rain. Good for the gardens, but not nice to hang out in. Glad we chose Cowichan Bay yesterday instead of today.

That's two weeks gone. Boy is the time flying by. June 1st tomorrow.