Kristi and Jason come for dinner and Joane Mahon comes to visit!

The weather this past week has not been the greatest, cloudy and windy. When the sun did come out, Ray and I were quick to take advantage of it sitting out of the wind in the yard. 

Ray spent the week working on our deck boxes while I puttered inside and outside with my gardens. 

Another new recipe tried on the Traeger, Pork Tenderloin with Apricot glaze and grilled pineapple. Yumm. Love this smoker.

Saturday, July 11th, Kristi and Jason are coming for dinner and spending the night. Tomorrow they will head off golfing and we will dog sit for them. :) Pork prime rib on the smoker this time with apple wood pellets.

Kristi and Jason with the grand puppies arrived shortly before 5 pm. We had a great evening and watched a movie.

 

Freya thrilled to have her "pack" here again.

Saturday morning we tried to sit down at the dock for awhile but the cold breeze scared us away after a while and we moved back up to the lawn.

At 11:30 Kristi and Jason headed out to golf for the day. We kept the doggo's until later when they picked them back up for the way back to Nanaimo. It was a great sunny day but very windy.

Monday morning was beautifully sunny with no wind. 

Lakeview Park was quite busy with people on the beach but they do seem to be physically distancing. 

The "Kalamity Kyle's curse" strikes again. Ray went to pick up some more wood for his deck box project and when he closed the hatchback he cracked the front window of the car. I think we will be buying a utility trailer soon. :)

Tuesday another lovely day. Joane arrived at 7 pm and after we had some seafood corn chowder we spent the rest of the evening out on the deck. Glad she got to see it before it was disassembled for painting tomorrow. She came bearing dinner for Tuesday night, lots of wine and a fabulous hostess gift, a tea towel featuring Dr. Henry.

Thanks a bunch Joane.

Wednesday morning, Eggs Benedict for breakfast.  

 

Our painters, Mona and Andrew arrived at 8 am to give our fir posts and gazebo another coat of stain to protect it. The underside of the gazebo had never been stained so it definitely needed it. We also had our patio doors done again as they take most of the winter weather.

Everything covered in plastic as Andrew sanded all of the parts of the gazebo he was going to work on.

Mona

It was such a lovely day it was no trouble staying down on the dock for the day out of the painter's way.  Ray took Joane for a boat ride while I waited for the UPS driver to come with my long awaited package for parts for our motorhome door mechanism ... ordered it mid-June!

Off they go ....

See the little "kicker" motor?

Back home ... after a wonderful boat ride, they told me that they had a bit of a disaster happen??? The little motor's mount to the boat cracked off and the motor was left in 100 feet plus of water by Youbou!. Yikes .. that's strike two of the Kalamity Kyles, I wonder what will be next? 

That little motor was my dad's years ago. It had not been used for years before we put it in storage for 5 years and then gave it to Jason for his little boat. He just recently brought it down for us to try for trolling on our boat so it really does not owe us anything. We will purchase a bit bigger motor and split the cost with Jason.

I had a bit of a lunch waiting for them on the dock when they returned.

Freya loves her Auntie Jojo.

After a whole day down on the water we came up for dinner that Joane had brought. Crab cakes and a cold Thai noodle salad. Delicious. Thanks Jojo. Lots of great conversation and laughs, it was great to catch up. So thankful the weather cooperated for her visit as so far this summer has been a bust.

Wednesday morning, Mona and Andrew arrived at 6 am to paint today. After brunch, Joane headed home to West Vancouver while Mona and Andrew finished up their painting for this summer. The gazebo will need "part 2" of the stain hopefully this fall. Ray and I spent the afternoon down on the dock in the shade. The temp came up to 28 C this afternoon with very little wind, a stellar day.

And that brings us up to date for the past 10 days.

From sunny days to clouds and showers.

July has not started out very well with the weather. The upside is that with this type of weather it will limit the amount of people coming to the lake that don't live here.

Not much happening at Kyles Kottage. Tried smoking sockeye salmon on my Traeger for the first time and it was a success. Certainly more expensive buying salmon compared to catching it (of course you must ignore the cost of the boat and all the fixxins') like we used to. lol

Our First Nations people love the salmon belly, so thought we would try it.  Waaaay too fatty for us!

Quality control ... yes it tastes great!

For our anniversary July 2nd, we drove up to Nanaimo and had dinner with Kristi and Jason with takeout sushi. 43 years we have been married, hard to believe. Forgot to take any pictures. :)

Ray is busy making deck boxes for the dock now as the plastic ones seem to leak with heavy rain so no point keeping stuff in them. These (2 of) will be heavy enough to be lag bolted to the dock so we won't have to move them or worry about them in the winter. We will have to enlist some help though to get them down to the dock when finished.

Other than that, pretty quiet here this past week after Dianne and Steve left.

Freya can't decide which "lamb chop" to play with. lol

Dave, Leslie, Dave and Cheryl had a great meet up in Alberta at Dave and Cheryl's. They sent me this picture via messenger. Miss you guys.

I stole this one. lol

Sunday was a beautiful day on the lake. Our neighbours, Roy and June had all of their kids and grandchildren over for the day and wake boarding was on the menu ... apparently the first time for 

several years.

We even saw a shark. lol Love this little dogs life jacket.

The rest of the week was quiet. I did try another brisket on the Traeger ....

 Fifteen hours later....

It's amazing when you do all this work how tender and juicy it ends up being instead of dried out slathered in barbecue sauce when you order it out. Even though I put it on a 5:45 AM ... it was not done until 8:30 PM and had to rest an hour before sampling. Now that I know the Traeger works well all on it's own and don't have to monitor it, I will put the brisket on overnight instead. lol

Steve and Dianne come to visit!!!! Yeah

Thursday, June 25th

Wow what an awesome day. The first day that it really felt like summer. First time in bathing suits down at the dock. 

I started out the morning going kayaking down to the marina and back. Absolutely gorgeous day.

By 12:30, I was down at the dock for the afternoon.

Ray was in and out of the water in a hurry! Move it Freya!

Did not come back to the house until 5:30 pm dinner time. Had to enjoy this day as the weather goes downhill tomorrow for a day or so and the temps will not be near as warm for the next week.

Friday, busy day with preparations and shopping for Steve and Dianne to come for the weekend. Yeah.

Saturday busy prepping for today's meals. Also Freya got a bath before Steve and Dianne arrive. lol She loves to swim and get's really smelly. :)

Steve and Dianne arrived in time for lunch ... Steve does not miss meals if I am cooking ! lol Chicken wings on the menu with ranch dip.

All the pictures of their visit is a compilation of all three cell phones taking pictures. :)

We were able to sit outside out of the wind as more sun came out than anticipated. We did have to move locations a few times though. lol

So glad to see them after near 5 months.

Ribs for dinner off the Traeger were appreciated. Lots of laughs and conversation. All of us in bed by 9 pm.

Dianne and Steve are an awesome cleanup crew which I greatly appreciate. Ray helped a lot as well with the cleanup, putting away all the leftovers.

Ray preparing our dessert. :)

After dinner we went back outside to the deck for an hour or so before we all went to bed.

Sunday morning after Eggs Benedict for breakfast, the boys went out to try some fishing but were skunked. 

The weather was much better than anticipated for the day. We spent a lot of time down on the dock and went for a boat ride.

It was hot enough for me to go for a swim. Dianne was still pretty hesitant!

Dianne actually got quite sunburnt.

Even Freya relaxed in a floaty!

By late afternoon the wind had come up so we moved up to the deck where I had the roast beast on the barbecue.

And yes I made Yorkshire Puddings. :)

Another fabulous day and in bed again around 9 ... we watched a little TV and Steve and Dianne watched a movie on their iPad all happy to be in bed. lol

I was able to talk Dianne and Steve into staying for another day as Monday was supposed to be the best weather of the weekend. Did not take too much arm twisting. :)

After a quick coffee, the boys headed out fishing early around 7 as the lake was flat calm and you could see the fish rising. Dianne and I stayed out on the deck under the gazebo with the heaters on enjoying the morning. Steve managed to catch a "small trout", so we count that as a successful trip. lol

Again, we all sat down at the dock until the wind came up. I made beef dip for lunch with the leftover roast.

After lunch Ray set up the chairs on the lawn as it was quite windy and we played some Mooseball. Both Steve and Dianne beat Ray and I.

After our game the wind had died down and it got really hot so back down to the dock. Managed to get Dianne into a "floaty" this time in the lake. :) The wind on the lake is on and off again all the time so it is fortunate we have so many places to sit to enjoy the outside but stay warm. lol

We managed to stay out there for half an hour before our butts were too cold. lol

After another lovely afternoon on the water it back up to the deck where I was smoking chicken quarters for dinner and were able to use up the rest of the leftovers from the other 2 meals. lol

Again my cleanup crew did a fabulous job with the dishes and we sat outside on the deck for dessert. another great day.

Tuesday morning, Dianne and Steve were out the door by 8 am to catch the ferry back to the mainland with chicken sandwiches packed for lunch on the ferry. One of our neighbours has a burst waterline getting fixed this morning so the water would be turned off at 8:15 ... that spurred everyone to have their showers early. :)

So this weekend's theme was eat, drink, relax, swim, fish and go for a boat ride ... rinse and repeat. We had a great time visiting with them and hope they come back to our lake house soon.

Here are a couple of "Stella" pictures. :)

Kat's mom "Grana" with Stella

What are you saying?

Kat's brother Phil, with Stella

That was our "long weekend".