Ray's Birthday and Jason and Amelia come to visit - Nov 12 - 17th.

Quiet week with dreary weather. We spent most of our time getting the villages set up, in preparation for Amelia to come on Saturday. Her job is to populate them with all the little pieces and people. Ray redesigned where everything is to be put this year, so that took a couple of days to figure everything out. This village has the carnival this year. We bought a few more pieces for it this year, so that had to be figured out as well. When the house is fully decorated, I will take some pictures and video it later in the month.

I had my hair and pedicure appointment this week, so we ran into Duncan. We ate lunch at OJ's. Ray'd scheduled me for a wine tasting at Alderlea later in the afternoon. Their limited editions have just been bottled and ready for sale. 

Definitely fall in the vineyard now.

This years medal winners.

Being Ray's birthday tomorrow, we also picked up some fresh mussels and a crab for dinner tonight on the way back home as seafood is not Jason's or Amelias choice for dinner.

This is Birthday Dinner #4 for Ray's 10 days of birthday. :)

Jason and Amelia arrived at 10:30 Saturday morning, let the decorating begin. Jason did the ladder work putting up the lights on the beams so Ray didn't have to. Amelia and Papa were busy putting all the people and small things into the 3 villages. It took them about an hour and a half. Amelia's a great help.

Ta Da! Jason even has the Santa head up above the fireplace.

Amelia did a great job with placement of people this year. A couple of years from now she'll be able to do the whole display lol.

I made ham and twice baked potatoes with honey ginger carrots for Ray's actual birthday dinner. Amelia had tater tots. lol

Mike and Debra, next door, asked to come over so their granddaughter Hazel could see the villages after we ate. They brought their son and their friends, Bonnie and Rich with them. They stayed for an hour or so, more wine was drank and they really liked the shot of my special tequila (Addictivo). lol

Kitchen Party. Ray, Mike with Hazel, Jason, Bonnie, Debra and Josh.

Amelia had Rich come play with her. She also took Mike by the hand, and took him upstairs to show off her room and all her stuffies. She really has taken a liking to him, always talking with him if she sees him in his yard. Unusual as she normally plays shy. He even got a hug goodbye.

At 7:30, Amelia said she wanted to go to bed and the rest of the crew headed back next door. They still needed to have their dinner which Mike had on his Traeger. lol

No cake tonight for Amelia, so we had it before they went home Sunday morning. First up though is taking Olaf for his morning walk. Amelia rode her bike. 

After the bike ride, we had our breakfast, ham and eggs. Then it was tidy up time. She is really good about putting hers and Olaf's toys away. Jason even has her make her bed. Jason brought the Christmas Tree box upstairs by dolly so the tree is ready to go up when I get to it.

At 10am "I'm hungry" Amelia said ..... cake time! Of course Olaf is right there in case something drops. lol. I sent some ham and cake home for Kristi as she was working at the hospital.

Happy Birthday Papa!

By 10:30 they were on their way back to Nanaimo. Thanks a bunch for all your help Jason and Amelia.

The rest of Sunday, we put up a few more decorations, then Ray had a nap. Amelia wore him out with all the tickling games and chase. A lot of lifting is involved and she's 47 pounds now. 

He watched the Grey Cup later in the afternoon, Saskatchewan won! I usually make game day appetizers for Ray for Grey Cup and the Super Bowl, but I am afraid not this  year. I made a quick dinner instead. One of my frozen beef wellington's I had made earlier with mushroom gravy. He had no complaints. :)

Monday morning we worked on some more decorating. Ray got his trains running, and put up the strings of Christmas lights on the village houses.  I did the counter and unpacked some more items to find a place for.

Inside, we still have the garland and lights for the upstairs railings, the front door garland and lights and finish off the larger items on the catwalk upstairs. Ray has the house lights up on the outside, but needs to get the lights into the garden and trees. We also have the blow ups to go on the back sundeck with railing lights. A few more days of decorating, I think. lol

At 11:30 am we went out to lunch at Jake's for seniors day. I'm "on strike" from all the birthday dinners I've made for Ray the past 10 days. lol

Ray's non-alcoholic wine got delivered from Summerland, BC. Hopefully it is a good as they say, it costs the same as real wine. :) They have an interesting story. Happy to support a small BC Business.

Friends First.

In 2020, Taylor and Tyler were
living in Chris’ basement. Taylor was doing cidery work and Tyler was winding down his Okanagan winery. With a baby on the way and the alcohol lifestyle in the rearview mirror, there was still a piece missing between them and the
launch of Canada’s first non-alcoholic winery.

Enter Chris. While working as a scientist for Agriculture Canada, he had helped Tyler to build TH Wines. Chris was in on the first non-alc conversations, but his hard
work began when the challenge emerged: Is it possible to create a non-alcoholic wine from premium grapes without adding sugar or artificial sweeteners?

After many, many trials they
launched ONES in 2022. With hundreds of thousands of bottles sold since then, it’s safe to say the answer is YES: you can stop drinking wine and find a clean alternative with no sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Rapid growth has kept the trio (and their families) on their toes. Though they all wear many hats, Taylor is the Community Builder, Chris is the Navigator, and Tyler is the Winemaker.

Ray's first order.

Remembrance Day in Lake Cowichan - November 1 - 11th

Saturday through Tuesday, not very much happening here at the lake, besides rain. We've had tons of it, so the lake's now, pretty close to full. 

We ate lunch at Jake's and you can see that the water's right over the top of the weir.

Ray finished his puzzle, so Christmas decorating can begin.

Both of us are starting to putter inside getting ready for the Christmas Villages. They take quite a while to put together with all the houses and trains. I had to move my coffee center to the island from the buffet.

Ray's decided to make a design change this year with making the buffet village taller and the one behind the couch shorter. This needs some planning, so it needs some time, whether that means more foam painting and sculpting.

I spent some time upstairs wrapping Christmas presents. Still lots to do. :) Amelia and Jason are coming on the 15th for Ray's Birthday. I want the presents wrapped so Amelia doesn't inadvertently go into the closet where I have the stuff stored. She likes playing hide and seek.

Jason will be doing the ladder work to get the lights up on the beams and the large pieces up against the walls. Amelia's job will be helping putting the people in the villages, so this is why we started early. Jason has a huge list of things to do at home, so we don't want him to have to come down another time to help us. He gives us heck if we don't let him do that stuff for us, keeping Ray off ladders as that kills his knees and back. :)

It's begun! On Monday we had a nice day, so that was when Ray used the wagon (thus avoiding stairs) to bring all the stuff from the basement up into the livingroom.

The weather's been pretty wet and cool first thing in the mornings. Lots of fog on the lake. We did get a bit of sunshine on one of the afternoons. That allowed Ray to mow the lawn, hopefully for the last time this year.

Ray's birthday is on the 15th of November so I'm cooking him several of his favourite dishes over the next ten days. He says that's the best birthday present ever. lol

Wor Wonton Soup with our prawns that I froze, noodles, veggies and pork wontons. Delicious.

Tuesday, I made him Beef Wellington, with pate, mushroom duxelle and a bourbon cream sauce with roasted maple brussels and carrots. Turned out delicious too. :)

Pretty quite in our neighbourhood. Some neighbours are in Puerto Vallarta for a month and others are in Hawaii for a couple of weeks. Here, we've been having waves of Atmospheric Rivers .....

Wednesday, Nov 5th another big storm came in, as well as another one tomorrow. Lots more rain and wind forecasted. Fortunately it'd quit before we left for Duncan for our "date night"

I booked a show at the Cowichan Performing Arts called O Christmas Tea. First though, we ate dinner at the Old Firehouse Bar and Grill. We've walked by this place multiple times and never went before. Probably as it's only open 4 to late and we are never still in Duncan at that time of day.

They make everything from scratch and it's delicious. They even have great mocktails for Ray.

Off to the show. 

O Christmas Tea

A British Comedy

Fans of Monty Python, Mr. Bean, and Dr. Seuss… Grab your teacups!

---

Combining British propriety with an unabashed love for the unexpected, London’s 3-time Impresario Award-winning duo steep an outrageously funny and brilliantly inventive show reminiscent of classic British pantos.

Rich in wordplay, comic physicality, and cleverly crafted interactive elements, O Christmas Tea is uproarious fun, yet it is the duo’s boundless imagination and endearing chemistry that provide the real magic and heart of this play.

We found it to be quite funny. They do have a lot of audience participation, so if you don't want to be given a costume and being dragged up onto the stage .... don't sit in the first row. lol 

Thuirsday, Ray had a doctor's appointment in Nanaimo and is gone for part of the day. I puttered a bit and watched some saved shows he doesn't like to watch. He ate lunch at Sushi Wara in Ladysmith before coming home. That turned out to be a bad decision days later, if you know what that means! lol

Friday, it's back to business, I prepped another "birthday dinner" for Ray and wrapped the rest of the presents. Ray spent a good part of the day figuring out his village, starting to put pieces out. He's feeding all the light cords through holes in the foam.

Saturday, my wine fridge finally arrived. Took 5 weeks instead of 1 week as I was originally told. Now product from our end of September wine tour has a place to live, instead of boxes.

Sunday more work on the Christmas Village for us. All the houses are out of their boxes and mostly placed.

Monday, I managed a dental appointment to get my crown glued, which came out over the weekend, back on. Then we met up with Warren and Deb, from across the lake, at Red Arrow Brewing for lunch. Their burgers are delicious.We usually have only eaten there in the summer on their patio. They seat about 35 people inside too, which I didn't know.

They say hi Gerry & Fran!

After lunch we dropped a few groceries off at home, then headed over to their house across the lake to visit some more.

This big guy was munching on some grass, just before the turnoff to our subdivision. Look at that rack, he's huge!

Tuesday, Remembrance Day.

Ray's Dad served. Here is a picture of him in uniform. We miss you Dad.

Last year, Ray requested his Dad's service record and got it framed. He also found a print of the plane he flew on as a Wireless Air Gunner and had that framed with his medals.

The weather cooperated with a beautiful morning here for the service, much better than the usual rain we get this day.

We  headed out at 10 am to get parked, so we didn't have far to walk to the cenotaph and watch the parade. The town had just painted the crosswalk in Remembrance.

Here comes the parade.

In the video, you can hear Ray say thank you to the vets. He gives a big thank you to anyone in uniform or he knows served. They really appreciate it and het gets a smile and a your welcome back.

We even had a bit of a flyover.

After the service at the Cenotaph, we walked up to the Legion for their celebration. They provided a huge lunch for a minimum $10 donation with ham, turkey and all the fixin's. They even bought a round of drinks for the house. 

Small world. This is Steve and Cheryl, who are ATV'ers and who had met up with our best friends Steve and Dianne, in Quartzsite in 2022. Steve served for many years and retired as a Petty Officer class 1. He's an avid fisher, so Ray got his contact info for next year.

We had great seats to hear the pipers.

Here is the video of the Pipers at the Legion Hall after the service (this is Ray's favourite part). Ray here... Amazing Grace is the last piece they played (not this video). There is something magical about this piece on the pipes and there were quite a few in the house (specially those who served and me) with tears in their eyes. 

They also featured Dave Darling, from our local OK Tire Store, singing for an hour, mostly Frank Sinatra. Even some dancing. We'd no idea Dave is this talented!

We left at 2 before the "canned music" started. A great day. Nice meeting some new people here in town too.

Halloween Train at the Forest Discovery Centre. Oct 24 - 31st

Friday we went to Nanaimo early (left 7:15 am) to look after Amelia for the day. Daycare's closed for a ProD day and Jason's still working hard on Kristi's office renovation. Kristi's on call at the hospital from 8am Thursday to 8am Friday morning. She will be sleeping for a a good part of the morning into the afternoon.

I kept Amelia busy with games, cards and colouring a present, while Ray went shopping. 

At 11, Kristi just got up, couldn't sleep. She'd managed to get 4 hours sleep overnight, so wasn't too tired. We took them out for lunch at the Driftwood Chinese Buffet.

We were able to leave after that and were home by 1:30 pm.

Saturday morning Ray headed into Duncan to do some shopping. I am getting over a cold, so stayed home. This afternoon it's time to head back into Duncan to the Forest Discovery Centre. I purchased family tickets for the Halloween Train. Although sprinkling with rain, we enjoyed a great 1.5 hour adventure with Jason, Kristi and Amelia. We chose the 4 pm ride, as we didn't know how Amelia would react to the scary stuff in the dark.

The Forestry Lookout

Look at the worm gears on the wheels!

Inside you first go through a haunted house.

Cutout's for kids pictures.

Back outside for other exhibits.

Time for the train ride.

After wandering around, it's time for food. We met up across the highway at our go to Chinese food restaurant in Duncan, Amelia's choice of food for dinner. :)

Sunday and other than usual chores, laundry etc. It's a quiet day with rain most of the day. Monday, I emptied the hot tub and cleaned it Tuesday. I'd been waiting for the lake to come up, so we aren't on water restrictions before changing the water. No problem now with all the rain over the past 2 weeks. lol

Ray's now come down with my cold, poor guy.

Wednesday morning, Ray went into the tub and the filter shot out of it like "Mount Vesuvius". Turned out the ring that holds the filter down has some broken "rings" to screw down. Off I went to Duncan to order a replacement. 

Other than 1 day earlier in the week, it's done nothing but rain on and off all week. The lake is rising substantially.

Our yard all put away for winter. We actually have a clear day. Last blue sky for days lol Next storm starts Friday, Oct 31st.

Friday morning we got our Covid and Flu vaccinations at the Health Unit. Glad to get that done. In the afternoon I went to Nanaimo for Halloween. Ray's still recovering from his cold, so he will stay home.

I will be manning Jason and Kristi's door while they take Amelia and a couple of her friends trick or treating. It'll be a really wet drive there, but fortunately it quit in time for trick or treating.  

Amelia showing me her dragon costume she wore to daycare today.

They had some friends with their kids arrive for dinner at 4:30 before they all headed out. Katherine, their grandma, stayed behind to help me out.

The gang ready to go.

Katherine, Layla's mom.

Amelia's haul of candy.

They gang returned by 7, so I left for the lake while it isn't raining. Fortunately no puddles left from this afternoon. I must have hit 6 huge ones on the way to Nanaimo and didn't want to go through in the dark as you are in them before you see them. A long day, but fun.