The Merry Good Son

So we had a lovely Xmas day after Robbie (yes, the dog) woke us up at 4am, I made him wait until 5am and finally got up and took him outside. Robbie really loves Xmas morning presents so he tends to wake us up early (perhaps we shouldn't tell him which night Santa is coming).

We had just finished our Turkey supper and were relaxing on our computers when I saw headlights go out up the hill but parking lights could still be seen. Odd. Anyway didn't think too much of it because Mark sometimes sits on the hill texting or whatever before coming down to his trailer.

The truck drove down the hill and we assumed it was Mark but then it parked backwards in the parking lot. (Military training) Brad was going out to see what was going on and I told him to leave it because its not our business for another week. He went anyway and when he saw the silhouette of the driver, he knew -but I was still inside blissfully unaware, watching a video.

He snuck up on this intruder and surprised him. They both then snuck into the RV and surprised me!! Was not expecting to see my oldest son, especially on Xmas day!

Robbie absolutely LOVES Lee and the two of them always have a great time together.

(Lee doesn't like having his picture taken)

We had a great visit last night catching up but Lee was tired after the trip so we had an early night. This morning we went for breakfast to The TreeHouse Cafe but it was closed, as was Salt Spring Inn so we drove over to Harbour House Hotel and they had a buffet that was exceptionally good. Only one cook, one waitress (that we saw) and they were working very hard to keep up with the demand.

Lee and Brad at the buffet

The place wasn't packed but it was very very busy, there are still a lot of people without power on the island and this was the only place open that we saw when driving around.

Lee is due at his Father's for Turkey supper tonight (also in BC) so he was only in for the night. A long way to go just for one night but I guess this is how much he loves his Mummy! LOL 

He has just left in order to make it to the noon ferry back to the mainland.

What a good son to come all this way from Saskatchewan to surprise us! xxxoooxxx

Windstorm of the Century

Having finally recovered from my death defying Woman flu, it was bagging day. One of the local grocery stores arranges with local groups to have people do the bagging (4 per 2 hour shift x 2 shifts/group) to earn $300 for your group. I was on the morning shift. Very quiet at first but man was it fun and definitely over too soon. This same store allows Customers to put their receipts into a large selection of numbered boxes (Pickleball is #128) and at the end of the cycle (don't know how long a cycle is) they pay 1% of the receipt totals to the group. You can see the receipt boxes in the distance just to the right of my head as people exit the store (white).

Pickle bagger extraordinaire (again, thanks Mum)

It has been raining cats and dogs here for several days and Friday we had a major windstorm. The combination, of course, is deadly. The power was out all across Vancouver island, Gulf Spring Islands and into the interior of BC there were widespread power outages. They are calling it the storm of the century, apparently it is a rare occurrence in these parts, we'll see about that.

Susan & Reuben had a tree fall on Susan's car. We went to visit them after speaking to Susan on the phone and she sounded so distraught so we took their gifts to them - which we had planned to give them today (they've invited us for supper tonight), in an effort to cheer them up and we stayed and chatted for an hour or so. Hope it helped. When we were leaving I was looking at this tree on her car, which just grazed the house enough to take down the gutters but doesn't appear to have damaged the house at all and I realized, if the car hadn't been there the tree would most definitely have damaged the house.

Susan's former car with their current home on the right

Salt Spring Island was a right state. Trees were down everywhere, a lot of them had fallen on power lines, I took a sampling of pics to show this and roads were covered with limb debris.

Using a snow blade to scrape the tree bits off the roads

One of the couples in the campground are building a tiny house on the south side of the island so we drove down there to see if they were okay or needed any help but no one was there. Took plenty of pictures of what crews were having to deal with along the way.

A lot of trees in several clumps had to be cut to clear the roadways

All along the roadways there are downed trees to be seen everywhere

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Tree on a power line

Our power went out Friday at noon, and we discovered after a couple of hours that our Generator needs servicing, fortunately we have a large battery bank and we were able to just unplug a few things and once the genny died we ran the engine to recharge the batteries. Fortunately our power was restored last night (9pm ish) by these hard working heroes who are still hard at it getting everyone back 'online'. 

The Power Heroes

Today I am going across to do the laundry by myself, I have some last minute Xmas shopping to do and I'm praying that everyone else has theirs done so I can have the stores all to myself.... What?,  it could happen. LOL

Well 2018 didn't go as planned...

This time last year we were buying a spot in a schwanky resort in California where we spent the winter, leaving April 6th to head home to Canada.

Rancho RV Resort

The plan was simple: We had rented an RV site in Alberta for the summer from readers we had met along the way. (Still feel terrible about that whole mess, we haven't heard from them since.) We would drive the (Yellow) Jeep out to Saskatoon to see family every few weeks or so before heading south again in November to the Resort.

Easy, Simple, Sorted.

NOT.

While driving to the rented resort in Alberta, the 4X in the Jeep fell out of Neutral somehow we still don't understand and we blew the engine out of her in southern Utah! Most obvious solution: my brother. So we change routes and head to Saskatoon with her in tow. After a month of repairing her every chance he got, we thought she was fixed but she had other plans....

Jeep engine rebuild

While all of this is going on my Dad AND his wife were in and out of hospital in Ontario adding to the stress level of the entire family (they are both doing relatively okay now).

Meanwhile not knowing when we would ever get to Alberta, we decided to cancel the resort we had booked. Turned out just as well because we had to buy a new Jeep (Black), Brad's Mum went away on a couple of holidays and we house sat for her for 2 months, putting the RV in storage.

Brad's Mum's garden

Our house in Hell sold and we were ecstatic to be rid of that problem... We flew out for a few days to remove our things. Unfortunately, after we returned the deal fell through because it turned out we never had clear title of it since we purchased it in 2010.... more to come on that next year, I presume.

The house we built ourselves

Once Brad's Mum returned home, sitting around in an RV in the middle of a Saskatchewan campground in 30+C (90F) temperatures for a couple of weeks while everyone we knew was working and dealing with their own stuff was incredibly boring and expensive, so we needed something to do...

Saskatchewan campground

Bing Bang Boom before you know it we were workamping in AB for a couple of months and now here we are in BC running a 50 site campground beginning January 1st. Wish us luck.

Bow Valley Campground, Alberta

Mowhinna Creek Campground, BC

Only 7 full hookup sites, so book early (after the New Year :D )

We did manage to sell our site at the Resort because I was concerned about the all the 'Canadian' Shite Trump was spewing all summer long. Made a tidy sum on it too. At least something went our way this year.

Wow what a whirlwind. This is our life. All prayers for a better year next year are welcome :D

On the up side of this year, we were able to spend time with family, old friends and new acquaintances, in no particular order...

Brent & Lisa, California

Bob & Barb, Utah

Brad's Mum

Linda & Larry, Ontario

My good son, with his wife and my 3 Grandkids

My grandkids with my other good son 

(yes, I have only 2 sons and yes they are both the good son)

Some of the Bow Valley Crew

Brenda & Phil, Alberta

Kenny and Marla, California

Tom & Bea, British Columbia

Susan & Reuben, British Columbia

Mark, British Columbia

California friends

Ray & Deb, British Columbia

Karen & Dave, California

Big thanks to you all for helping us get through this difficult year!

Victoria Holiday

As mentioned previously, Ray & Deb were going to Victoria and they invited us to join up with them there. It was a great little holiday since I haven't been to Victoria since I was roughly 6 years old and Brad was raised there. We checked out a couple of his old haunts...

Brad's 2nd house in Colwood that his Dad built.

Great views

1st house in Colwood

Tudor pub

Arriving at our hotel we had a fantastic view of the harbour (those are floating homes beside the apartment building)

Daylight view of the harbour from our room

A seal swimming in the harbour

Oak Bay Marina

Some of the famous totem poles

Ray & Deb of Kastle's Journey

We met up at the Royal BC Museum

The Egyptians were in town

After the Egyptian display comes ...

Robbie's Great-great-great-great...... he was confused by this

What would you take from finding a bunch of stuff from your childhood in a museum display?>>> 

Seriously wasn't THAT long ago

Double Decker buses

An American cruise ship entering the harbour

Okay so this toilet/bidet contraption is quite the joke. Absolutely ridiculous to my mind. And I was so looking forward to a soaker bath but found only the 1960's cast iron standby... I guess they probably stand up better to abuse but gheesh I was disappointed.

We went for supper with Ray & Deb in Chinatown 

I had called the front desk of the hotel to arrange for an extra night since there was still so many things I wanted to see. When I woke up the next morning to find the bill under the door I knew something was up. Sure enough the guy didn't put the extension in the system so we decided to head home anyway since I wasn't feeling completely up to snuff.

We stopped for lunch somewhere along the Malahat

Brad has been receiving complaints that there aren't enough pictures of me on the Blog so now he takes pics as often as he can.... even when I look like shite! Thanks Mum.

Went to Ray & Deb's on the way home, they invited us to stay but since I was clearly coming down with something I didn't want to stay at their place too long and get everyone sick. They have a fantastic house that they are doing many many renovations to. As I'm sure most are following them anyway, I won't repeat it all,. For more info: Kastle's Journey 

Back yard - Good gig if you can get it! Wow

Freya

Brad, Deb & Ray

Deb went to town with fixin' some snacks, I wasn't feeling well so just couldn't bring myself to munch on them like I would normally do. Fair warning Deb: I'll eat all that and more if you let me haha!

A gift from Ray & Deb

This is the bestest prezzie ever, we love it