Saturday, January 06, 2007

More Adventures in Victoria










The photos arrived in back-assward mode here,as I have to use a rather awkward system to upload them, so pardon the random confused mess.
Last night started off fairly normal, until Annette noticed a small patch of wet on her bedroom rug. Yes, it was pouring rain out,and yes, it was windy as ever, but who would have thought after all of these dry years in this house, that the tiny wet spot was the result of water pouring into Annette's bedroom from under the wall. The only option was to rip out the carpetting to see where it was originating from. Under the carpet was the underlay...soaking up the water like a huge sponge. Out it came in pieces and straight to a garbage bag.

The water was streaming in from under the baseboard. Sonia brought down towels and a mop and Steve brought in the shop vac. We cleared all of the bedroom out, that Annette had so nicely set up only days ago. She was clearly upset, given that it has taken weeks to get everything out of boxes. Her bed ended up in the rec room, along with the majority of everything in her bedroom.

Steve headed outdoors in the downpour to see what was what with the drains. The problem was that they were filled with mud and overflowing with water. When he stuck his hand down the drain,all he could feel was roots from the nearby ceders and shrubs.
Fortunately, he cleared the drain enuf to get it to take water again,and at about the same time,the rain stopped. Within another hour or two, we had no more water to mop. Meanwhile Sonia had called all of the Roto-rooter guys in town,and they were so swamped with calls, they said it would be next week until they could come out.

Steve did the job himself this morning,when he dug up all of the weeping tiles alongside the house and pulled out what seemed to be one large tangle of roots and muck ( the sideways photo). By the end of today, he had replaced all of the old tiles with new drainage pipe. The bedroom has a fan going in it to dry it out,and Annette is camping in the rec room.

Emil and I took our grandaughters up to Eileen and Austin's for a little post Christmas visit. It was great to see them again. Eileen called up her son to bring her grandkids over so they could all have a visit. Robin and Michael came upstairs for a hello...hadn't seen them in an age also. Eileen put out all kinds of appies and best of all was a lovely cheese ball, essentially made from a carton of Imperial cheese, a large package of cream cheese and a half cup of real butter...all mixed together with a dash of Worchester sauce.You line a bowl with saran wrap, turn the cheese mixture into the bowl and let it set overnight, then turn it out of the bowl when rready to use,and decorate it with slivered almonds. Serve with crackers. Other herbs or smoked salmon could be added to the cheese mixture, but this was delicious as is. I had to have several helpings! Thanks to Eileen and Robin for the recipe!

We returned home just as Steve's load of gravel arrived and then the phone rang. It was Nadine to say that her and Dick were in the neighbourhood and would pop in with little Georgia before they went out for dinner to his sister's. The timing was perfect and little Georgia was a sweetie, chasing the "Ruff-Ruff" and playing the piano with Maddie. We had a short but sweet visit...again it was nice they made the effort and gave us all a chance to see their little cutie.

After they left, we returned to our plans to go out for dinner at Jason and Richard's new Fish and Chip restaurant out in Langford... YUMMMMMMEEEY!!!!! Emil and I had the captain's plate with scallops and oysters and shrimp and halibut done to perfection! Everyone else had variations on the halibut theme and we all came away totally in fishy heaven!

The night wasn't over until we engaged the kids in a wild game of Train. Maddie has to be commended for her wits as she ended the game by lying down her whole deal of tiles and made the rest of us count up a bunch. Lets just say , I was in the losing end of the game points...
Tomorrow, Sonia is off to day shift and Emil and I are off to the States. We'll try to catch the Coho which will take us to Port Angeles. From there we hope to go to Astoria, then toodle up to Long Beach Washington the next day for a few nights. They were under a severe weather watch that we hope will be over by the time we arrive.

So that will be about all the blogging I can do until we return home at the end of the week....unless I happen upon a computer!
In the meantime, we are having the time of our life...so much fun with our grandkids and so nice to see Sonia and Steve and Annette...all under one roof. Silky hates little Spike, so we keep them separated. Like Co-Co, Spike wants to be a close friend to old Silky, and she wants nothing to do with him. Snappy old B*tch!

"The Creator"

We Made it!







As you might imagine ,it was a trip of many adventures...mostly having to do with snow. Our first challenge was to make to Kelowna with our all season tires. Yep. it pretty much snowed or was snowy the whole way with the worst being over the Blueberry Paulson and the entire road from Rock Creek to Beaverdale. We just took it easy and for the most part,there was very little traffic which at least gave you peace of mind that someone wasn't going to plow into you,should you spin out. Our new Saturn did well, with very little slipslidey going on, and we didn't really notice the all wheel drive feature kicking in. I think driving at less than normal speeds was the key factor.
We left at eight,and made a few stops along the way and by 1:00 we were crusing into Kelowna, in time for our appointment at 1:30 to get the new winter tires put on. The dealership is so good there, they had a car waiting for us to borrow while they did a complimentary first oil change and also put on the new winter tires.(not complimentary)
We took advantage of the hour and a half to go visit our dear neighbour, Heavy Duty Bill, who just underwent a serious operation for cancer, where the doctors removed 2/3rds of his stomach and his spleen and part of his Pancreas.
Amazingly, he looked very good for just five days after his big surgery, and he was so pleased to see us. We spent some quality time visiting and assuring him that all he was missing was a big dump of snow.
He was greatful to have good neighbour support and family support during this ordeal. Us too, as now Peter will be doing snow removal for three houses and we were lucky enough to have Emil's co-worker, Janice, house sit and watch the cat for us.

Once we had the winter tires on, we had a laugh, because the sun was out and the roads were bare!
We drove up to Vernon to John and Rondas. They were all ready for us with a lovely dinner and a toast to our upcoming anniversary, complete with chocolates and a Trojan on our bed pillow that night...(mmmm...I wonder where that came from!)
Yep, January 4th was our 38th year of being married. Seems like a long time in numbers, but it all went by so quick, that our memory recalls the best and the worst times and forgets many of those "moments" that floated by as though it was a wave in an ocean of happenings.
We had a few laughs on the drive up...glad we didn't invest in a dry cleaning business one time, nor chose not to sell Redkin products for Maureen, and pretty happy that we didn't buy that huge truck with the dual wheels on back. We did say we loved the amount of happiness our tent trailer brought us, with every so many camping trips to all the little lakes around in the Kootenays,as well as a many a summer spent at Shuswap, or in Saskatchewan. Like a turtle,we had our home with us wherever we went.And so we reminisced.

Back to John and Rondas...we played a new game,called Sequence. Wow! It kept us amused and nearly blinded for hours. A great game for many or few players, involving cards in a Pente like game where you use tokens to get five in a row. Two fives and your team wins. Simple, but hard on the eyes as you san the board over and over for a place to play your token that will improve your row of five tokens, or block the opponents chances. Good Game...Highly reccommended!
The next morning, John Suggested that we take the road to Vernon, then the bypass that goes to Merrit. Probably less chance of snowy roads,than taking 97c...the coneector, from Kelowna. He was right and those roads were frosty, but snow free. Yippee.
The situation changed when we crwled up the Coquilhalla. At first, there was no snow, than one snowfree lane,and pretty soon,after the big Larson hill, snow and snowing and general whiteout. First vehicle off the road was a large van that hit the corner too fast and slid into the snowy lane and flipped when it hit the snowbank. No one appeared top be hurt. We kept motoring along, thankful for the new winter tires as the roads got worse and worse as we neared the toll booth.
That is the photo that is all white.
On the other side of the toll booth,the slush was a foot deep and traffic was dense and both lanes were not good. Before you know it, we were heading downhill. Emil paseed one slow poke and another,and then were alone on the road. Again, thanks to good snowtires, we could travel along, just being careful as one lane was shear ice and the other a half foot of slop. We chose to drive in the slop lane after a rock smacked our windsheild from oncoming cars close to the shear ice lane.
Just before the first tunnel, we could see two guys hopping around near the road trying to keep warm,as their budget Rent a truck was overturned on the side of the road. No stopping as it was ttoo dangerous. The roads were a mess and we were heading into the first snowshed. The ambulance and police were screaming up the other side of the hill to attende one or both of the overturns.
By now, I could have kissed the winter tires.
As we got down in elevastion,t he snow flakes turned to rain and the roads went from ice to slop to bare roads...Yippeee.
We left John and Rondas at 8:00 am and here it was noon, and we were filling up with gas in Hope. I don't recommend driving the Coq in winter, but if you have to, take it slow and have good tires.
We took the shortcut from Costco in Aldergrove,along Vye and turning onto 16th which takes you into Whiterock. In an hour we were at the LAdner and Highway 10 intersection. Great shortcut,thanks to Annette and Trina. It cuts off over an hour to get to the ferries.

We were at the ferry terminal before 2:30 and easiily made the three ferry.
Ok...time to eat breakfast. We had an eventful day at Sonia dn Steves, plus I got my hair done yesterday and visited Annette at her new job. I'll try to post a few more pics before we depart tomorrow morning for Astoria and then to Long Beach.


We
"The Creator"

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Happy New Year!

















As you can see, a fun time was had by all on New Year's eve and for our Polar Beer Dip on New Year's Day.
We started the pre party at our house with linda and Peter and Elli and her mom and Gord and Janice. We checked out the music on the new Sirius radio and had a toast or two to the new year before proceeding over to Anne and Dick's house. The music was blasting and the table was full of munchies. We added our efforts to the array of foods and before we could hardly get dancing, everyone dug into the yummies and sampled the wings and sausage rolls and crackers and cheese and dips and veggies and so on. A whole table full. It is always hard to walk away from something that grand!
However, Dick had satellite radio playing, and alternated between that and his collection of a hundred cd's,all in one player.
Witht he tunes going, everyone got into the swing of things and started to dance up a storm. Anne organized four winter boots in the middle of the floor for us to dance around, when a scottish tune came on,complete with bagpipews playing. That was Anne dancing in the photo with her dress hoisted up!
T'wasn't long before Anne donned her New Years Butt shorts and wrapped a scarf around her head and put on the shades. We all roared as she pranced around showing off her "Sweet Cheeks!"
All was in good fun as we counted down the seconds and watched the big ball drop ,in Times Square..then we all hugged and gave each other our colds and flu.
Anne was a little under the weather at this point,and had to make a departure to bed, and Emil and Dick and Richard, shut the party down at some wee hour in the morning. I came home before that and hit the hay as I was pooped and my sinuses have been giving me hell,thus a Sudafed was in order.

On New Year's Day ,the crew re-assembled for the big Polar Beer Dip. At first it was to be Lynn B. showing the way with Anne and I following and at one point, Dick and his son Richard were all aboard. By 2:00 on dipping day, the only one sporting a bathing suit was Lynn...and it was snowing like crazy. Emil dutifully made the hot rums and was ready for her to emerge from the lake. I was ready with the camera and towels and in less than a minute, Brave Lynn was in, dipping, and out again. Her feet were freezing and she was all ashiver! We wrapped her up and got her boots on and led her back up to the hot tub, with her hot rum toddy! I have the best video of her whole dip, so I will try try try to upload it to YouTube so we can see it on the blog. So, I will try to do that now. If it doesn't work, then I will have to figure it all out when we return from our little vacation. So no more emails or jokes for a week or so,and I shall return with tall tales...take er easy.
Fancy that ...we have to drive to Kelowna to get our winter tires...keep your fingers crossed.According to the highway cams, the rest of the roads in the province looked bare. I have a link to highway cameras on my sidebar after recipes.
"The Creator"