July 10 - 19 Beautiful sunny but windy days.

So far the past few days have been "same old, same old". lol Chores in the morning and then sitting down on the dock for the afternoon. Sometimes warm enough to go swimming. A nice lazy summer.

Since we've not been too impressed with the restaurants here in town, I made this for Ray for lunch. I used some potatoes Nadine, Jason's mom, gave me and made homemade potato chips. They turned out great.

Also had a dental cleaning appointment ... as you can see they are still very conscious of Covid! The treatment rooms are plasticated the same way to prevent spread airflow from one room to another.

My front garden is doing really well. My first cut flowers this season. The deer left them alone this year!

Ray took some pictures of all the growth of my planters. Wow.

More time down on the dock. The neigbour's were partying all weekend with lots of visiting boats. Lots for Freya to keep an eye on. :)

We helped with a "boat rescue" again. When they started the motor, they forgot some kind of plug and the engine compartment filled with water. They came to our dock and Ray grabbed our hot tub pump and they were able to pump out the compartment. 

Then Roy from next door, towed them back to the marina so they could fix their problem. We saw them back on the water an hour later, problem solved.

Ray's deck boxes are finally redone and put back together. Finally, the rams are installed so no having to hold the lids up while filling or emptying stuff. Yeah! Hopefully they still look as good by next year. Fingers crossed.

We even had a Harbour Air charter come to the marina to either pick up someone or drop off. Busy times on the lake. 

The subdivision across from us is busy with excavations happening for houses. Apparently all the lots have been sold, so I imagine that marina will be busy next summer. Lots for us to watch from our dock. lol. There was a boat at the marina for the last week, then an RCMP officer came to inspect it.  Hours later someone else showed up and posted a notice on the boat's window.  The next day, the owners showed up and motored away.

The subdivision behind us stopped all work since last November. I think there were 70 lots ... apparently they thought they could send all their storm water into our system for our strata. NOPE. So now they have to either sell the property to someone who will dig it all up for storm sewers or do the work themselves. Either way it will be very expensive since all the services have all been put in except storm sewers. Roads were prepped for pavement.

Tuesday, Ray picked our boat back up from Nanaimo. It seemed to be a quick fix, just a tightening of a screw 1/4 turn to stop the air leak in the hydraulic rams ... who knew! So just a service call in $. They did not want the $$, but Ray figured they were so good to us figuring it all out and insisted we pay for the work as that is what the boat was there for.  We will sure continue to use them.

My new barbecue finally arrived yesterday. I have been waiting over two weeks for it to come from North Vancouver. Ray started the assembly Wednesday morning. I think it will take a few days as Ray can only work for short periods of time and there are lots of parts. lol

Jim, from Southshore Cabinetry, came by this afternoon to install my pull out drawers under my island. They built the kitchen. That cupboard is really deep and is where I store all my larger appliances. It's getting harder and harder to get on my knees and drag out the appropriate appliance under the lip of the counter so, this way it will be much easier. :)

Here's Jim fitting the new drawers. Look at all the stuff on the counter that fits into that cupboard. lol

I also had a spice drawer that has not been working properly since we bought the house. Jim fixed that for me too. Southshore Cabinetry has a life-time warranty on their product. Helps also that Roy is our neighbour. :)

Thursday morning Ray went into Duncan to visit Adam's Tools and was able to take a couple of pictures of the warehouse fire that happened the day before across from Adam's store. Wow. Adam actually had surveillance video showing on the screen behind they're counter, that was paused at 4:53:18 showing someone entering the building and the fire started shortly after. While he was there, an RCMP officer showed up to gather the evidence for investigation.

Thursday we drove up to Nanaimo to spend a few days at Kristi and Jason's to help out as they had appointments to go to. A lovely time "my baby and me". lol We did a bit of shopping first though, which included lunch at our favourite sushi restaurant, Nori Sushi.

Friday morning, Ray, Kristi and I went out for breakfast a great meal. Amelia was awake and happy the whole time.

Then it was bath time. :)

Happy Baby

Later in the afternoon, Ray decided to go home with Freya as he managed to cut his arm, so his plan of helping with some gardening collapsed. No point both of us just sitting.

The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet with me getting lots of baby cuddles. She is so cute. Ray picked me up on Sunday morning and after I made us some lunch, we spent the afternoon down on the dock.

Is he meditating or snoozing?

Even though it seems I mostly sit and hold the baby at Kristi's, I usually get less sleep. I get up early to take the baby, so they can sleep so am definitely ready to come home. :) A lovely visit.

Summer heat wave continues and we are fully vaccinated! ... June 29 - July 9th

Tuesday morning, it was a little cooler first thing in the morning as the wind was up from down the lake instead of coming from town. Ray and I spent an hour emptying out some of the stuff from the motorhome. He headed to town for a dental appointment and I spent the rest of the morning doing laundry. Did not mind staying inside in the A/C. lol 

After lunch, Freya and I went down onto the dock. I wore my bathing suit, but realized pretty quick it was cool enough just sitting in the shade as the wind blew. lol There was even white caps on the water and the wind tried to knock over our side tables. Oh well, it was nice to be sitting down there anyways. Ray came home and joined me, but after 20 minutes we all came back up to the house and sat on the sundeck in the breeze instead.

Wednesday we woke up to 17C, wind and clouds. Seems so weird not to see the sun after this stretch of hot, hot weather. Cool enough today that we can get back to finish unloading the motorhome. I still need to do the "cleaning" so it is ready for our next trip. It was so hot at Pedder Bay my usual clean before travelling was not done this time. I still have the freezer to empty. I left it full to help keep the fridge cold during this heat wave. My appliance guy said an empty fridge is harder to keep cool.

After doing our chores, we sat outside on the deck for a few hours before I started our prime rib on the rotisserie. Not too hot out so a good day to barbecue.

Happy Canada Day

With the tragic discoveries of all those poor Indigenous Children buried from the residential schools, I don't believe most people want big celebrations, instead a day of family time and reflection seems to be on the menu. Ray and I are spending the day at home just reflecting on the current state of affairs. It certainly has been a year. The continuation of the Covid Pandemic, then our unrelenting heat wave this past week and now a terrible forest fire where the town of Lytton has burned to the ground yesterday in the Interior of BC. Those poor people losing everything. Temperatures in that area are still sweltering at 39C as of yesterday. They hit the hot spot in Canada 3 days running, finishing at 49.6C before this fire. Ray and I are very thankful that our families are all safe and sound and managed through this heat wave. 

This morning it is only 20C, with a high layer of marine cloud that should burn off later this afternoon. A great day for some gardening before it heats up again. Both of us puttered around and then decided to go out for lunch at the Riverside Pub. It has been having mixed reviews but we thought we would give it a try .... nope reviews are correct, crap food. Oh well an outing anyways.

View from the Riverside Pub Patio

Once we got back we decided to sit down on our beach in the shade, as it was a little too windy on the dock and too hot on the deck. Sent Freya in for a swim. A great place to spend a couple of hours.

July 2nd ... Happy Anniversary to us! 44 years wow. Messages from our granddaughter Stella.

Today we finally get our second Covid vaccination. A great present. :) Ray made reservations for us at the Farm Table Inn for dinner tonight on their patio. It will be nice to go somewhere nice and sit down for a meal instead of take-out for the past 16 months.

Vaccination done at 2:30 pm and then back home to get ready for our dinner. Ray took our picture together. :)

We had a 5:30pm reservation and were the first diners there for this evening. What a pleasant setting sitting in their garden with "Big Red" the rooster and their cat wandering around.

Big Red

They built a "house" for Big Red as he is no longer the boss of the farmyard and is picked on by the other rooster. Some of the regular guests were feeding him lettuce.

We spent a lovely 2 hours dining. Their menu was quite limited, but we were able to have some tasty choices. The downside was I got bit up by some bugs on my ankles and the back of my neck. (Still scratching 3 days later). lol I am unused to this as we don't have bugs at the lake.

Back home we sat on the deck for a bit and then it was bedtime. 

My friend Dianne Colibaba messaged me, they have been evacuated out of Tunkwa Provincial Park. They were given notice and were trying to pack up their trailer quickly, but then it became more urgent and they had to leave everything behind other than their truck and car which they drove out in.  So their home, as they are fulltimers, their boat and their quads all left behind. Yikes. They were able to find the last room at the Best Western in Merritt for the night but had to leave the next morning and headed to Coquitlam to stay with their son and family. Fingers Crossed! everything will be ok.

Saturday morning Ray was up early enough to capture this beautiful sunrise.

WARNING ... LOT'S OF BABY PICTURES. LOL

This morning Jason, Kristi and Amelia came and also their friends Ross, Layla, Layla's mom and their 1 year old baby, Nova. It was time to put the babies into the water. Kristi had purchased a cool little float with a sunshade for Amelia, she loved it and stayed in the water for at least 15 minutes floating.

Here she is in her new bathing suit.

Ross and Nova

Jason and Amelia

The babies together.

Ross, Layla and Nova

Layla's mom, Katherine.

After their swim it was time for lunch. Jason grilled wieners for our hot dogs. After lunch Layla attempted to put Nova down for her nap on Kristi's bed downstairs.

Kristi with Amelia, Ray, Jason, Ross and Katherine. Of course Zeus and Freya are in the mix.

Nova did not go to sleep so Ross and Layla decided to go home so she would sleep in the car. The rest of us retired down to the dock for a bit. We definitely have our "lake baby". :)

Our Lake Baby

It was lovely entertaining again. We all were fully vaccinated which also was great. Ross and Layla have been in Kristi and Jason's bubble the whole time so it was nice to finally see them again.

Sunday, we had a young fellow, Tyler Harding, come and do the sanding of Ray's deck boxes that was too hard for Ray to do. He spent 5 hours today and is doing a great job. He will come back tomorrow to finish the sanding and then they will be stained.

We have a few small planes come and go here on the lake too.

While this was happening I was smoking pork belly on my Traeger smoker. Ray asked for pork belly a few days ago and since I was stuck inside, hiding from all the noise, I decided to get dinner going early.

I smoked it for 2 1/2 hours and then cut it into chunks and smother it with apricot BBQ sauce and put it in the Traeger for another hour. Served with Mexican Corn, Elote.

One happy guy. :)

Monday, we woke to marine fog and a little breezy. Should clear off though and be another sunny day. I headed to Duncan for a shopping trip and Ray stayed home to supervise more sanding of his dock boxes. A longer shop today as I had not been to Duncan for over 3 weeks.

I got back home about 1 pm. Tyler was still working down on the dock and it was too hot anywhere else in the yard, so I stayed up on the deck for awhile under the gazebo until around 4 when the sun came around to heat up.

Tuesday marine cloud again to start but by 7:30 it was already burning off. Freya is really struggling with her left hind leg that she is mostly dragging. I will have to take her to the vet to up her pain meds, I think. So sad to watch, but she seems to still be happy for the most part and is eating and wagging her tail, so the big decision is not here yet. She has a vet appointment on Friday to assess her pain meds.

Tyler finished staining the deck boxes and lifted back the rocks on our retaining wall that had fallen down with the high water this winter. Nice to have that done as well. 

Ray and I spent the afternoon down on the dock swimming. It sure was a warm one at 28C but feels like 32C. Heard yesterday that one of Lake Cowichan's fire trucks, #2 tanker and 2 fire fighters have been deployed to the Lone Butte area of the interior, near the Deka Lake fire to protect structures. Nice that our community could help out. The fire department put their older truck back into service here for our protection in the mean time.

At 4:30 we came back up to the house and relaxed inside. It was way to hot on the sundeck to hang out there. I made a Prawn Pesto Bucatini with my fresh cherry tomatoes. Ray was moaning over it still by bed time as it turned out so tasty. Now I have enough for dinner tomorrow as we have a busy day.

Had my first float in my lounger today. The water was quite warm, at least on the surface.

Wednesday we were up early at 5 am so we would have time for coffee, and showers before heading to Nanaimo at 7am. Ray is taking the big boat up to Nanaimo to have the big motor serviced under warranty. It appears that the hydraulics to lift and lower the motor has a leak ... right from the get go 3 years ago. Monti's Marine, where we purchased the new boat and motor, told us at that time it just is the way it is! Turns out that is not correct and that the hydraulics are leaking into the motor which is bad as there is no residue being left on the ground so we don't know how much damage has actually been done.

We dropped off the boat and the owner, Steve, is on holidays for a week so it looks like the boat will be there for a couple of weeks. :(. Also, if major parts are needed the supply is limited due to Covid.

A visit to Nanaimo also means "Amelia time". lol  Reading time with Grandpa.

Once Amelia went back down for her nap, we headed back to the lake. Both Ray and I got busy with some chores before relaxing on the sundeck for the afternoon. Too breezy down at the dock.

Thursday, both of us got busy fairly early and then Ray took me out for lunch at the Youbou Bar and Grill. Lovely lunch on their patio. They make great fish and chips.

Oops took the picture before he smiled. lol

Friday woke to a little breeze and marine cloud again. It's to burn off soon though and be a warm sunny day of 28C.

Off first thing to the vet with Freya. As expected more meds and a change of dog food. Apparently she does not have a dislocated hip just bad knees on both back legs. So as a senior just making changes in meds to keep her comfortable and no stairs if possible is all we can do. She is basically still happy so her expiry date has been lengthened thankfully. :)

After her appointment a quick stop at Home Hardware for stainless screws and then home. Dropped Freya off, a quick bite to eat and then off to my haircut appointment. My stylist sold the building her salon was in and set up again at her home in Honeymoon Bay. Very Cute.

By the time I came back to town, picked up new dogfood for Freya, her new meds and some freshly made sausage rolls from our Deep Fried Ice cream place it was 1:45 pm. Finally into the lake for a dip at 2pm. A rather long day for me. :) A lovely couple of hours enjoying the dock and then up to the house for the evening.