Let's See..................................

Let's see what's been happening around here the last week or so???????????

Not too terribly much, I'm afraid. It's been quite boring!!! I am beginning to feel like the summer is quickly coming to an end :( The days are getting shorter. It was pretty dark by 9:00 tonight. Even though the temperature reached 30 c yesterday, the weather is changing fast. It was 23 c today and the forecast is for a whopping 16 c tomorrow :( :( :( The forecast is for a relatively nice weekend though :) It is after all, the final long weekend of the summer and then it's back to school for the teachers and kids and back to the fall/winter activities like bowling. Jill, Ryan and I are going to bowl together again this year. I plan on taking it easy at first as my knee/leg have been giving me quite a bit of trouble as of late. I should be able to bowl 3 games a week though. I decided over the summer to not bowl on Monday nights this year. I really didn't enjoy the match play at all as I am not as good as I once was. I've also lost my competitiveness that I once had and that's not good in that sort of league.

We had a furious rainstorm at about 10:00 this evening. It must have been bad as Clara came in. Not like last week when she wouldn't come home during that horrid storm we had. Maybe she thought better of staying outside in it as she had last week.

I bought myself a present today, a laptop computer and printer. Bruce has been spending sooooooooooooo much time on my computer playing Texas Hold 'Em tournaments that if I wanted to go on the computer I couldn't. I got the wireless mouse installed and the printer installed too. Now I just have to figure out how to set up the internet on it. It shouldn't be that hard, I wouldn't think!!!! I have a 60 day trial for Microsoft Office to try out, so then I can see if it would be worthwhile getting. I wouldn't mind having Excel to work on. We'll see!!!!!

I suppose that's all for tonight. I wonder how Joanne and Eric are doing in their new apartment???? I wonder if her dishpan hands are any better?????????? Poor baby!!!!! That's why I say, thank god for dishwashers!!!!!!

One Heck of a Storm!!!!!

What a night we had last night!!! Around 9:30 pm I noticed that there seemed to be quite a lot of flashes of lightning in the Northeast looking out our living room window. Within the next half hour it had moved south and was flashing almost continuously right in front of us.

Bruce and I sat on the front step for a while and watched. When it got quite close to the house I came inside. Then the rain started.....and Bruce was standing right up against the door on the step to watch the storm. There were a couple of flashes of lightning that were immediately followed by cracks of thunder. Boy, do I hate those!!! Then the power went out for about 15 minutes. It was quite funny when the power went out because Bruce was outside and when the streeetlights went out he opened the door to tell me that the lightning is so bright that the sensors on the streetlights triggered the lights to turn off!!!! I said to him "The power went out. Didn't you notice that we are in darkness in the house and there is NO television on?". Mr. observant one, hadn't even noticed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The power came back on and then it went out again at about 10 to 1 am for another 15 minutes or so. Then at about 2:10 am it went out again for 1.5 hours. I didn't like it at all, and therefore did not get much sleep at all last night. I was also worried about Clara, as she was outside and wouldn't come home when I called her. She was okay though and Bruce let her in before he went to work this morning.

In other news.......Oscar was particularly affectionate today. He came and layed with me on the couch this morning, curling up in the crook of my arm on my hip!!!!! This was really strange as he doesn't normally cuddle up on me but just lays on the couch with me.

I have a streak going right now.......I am on day #16 with having at least one Tim's XL double/double. It was really funny last night, I was out so on my way home I stopped and picked up my coffee. Bruce was out playing golf and he stopped on his way home and surprised me with another coffee. I had only been home for about half an hour when he came home, so I still had about half of my coffee.

Not too much has been happening here. I had Jen and Trev and Jill and Ryan over for dinner on Saturday night. We barbequed some salmon and chicken and had farmers market vegetables with it. I made a blueberry crisp and cheesecake with blackberry sauce with some of the berries we picked in Gibson's. It was very good. Tonight I went to Gateway and looked after the 'Buckshot' for Bruce. It was the last one for a while, thank goodness.

I hope I haven't bored you too terribly much with this post. Time to close for tonight! YAWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're Back!!!!!

We made it back from the coast!!!

After returning from Las Vegas just a week ago, I did a load of wash, repacked my suitcase and Bruce and I headed off to the B.C. coast (Gibson's Landing) to visit some friends on Tuesday morning. Our trip out was rather uneventful. We did see some wildlife along the highway though, mountain sheep and goats, an elk and a coyote. We made it to Hope B.C. the first day. We probably could have gone further, but we were tired and rest seemed to be in order. We got a motel room and headed off in search for a restaurant for supper. Bruce had fish and chips and I had teryaki chicken. They were okay. While we were eating the waitress brought these 2 huge pieces of lemon meringue pie to the table behind us and Bruce heard her say that the pie was 2 for the price of one. We couldn't pass up that deal so I had lemon pie and Bruce had Coconut Cream pie. It was very good!!!!:) Then we got the bill.......$13.77. Bruce went to the waitress and said that she had made a mistake. She said that it was seniors day and that meals were half price!!!! They even gave it to near seniors!!!! Bruce thinks he should get the discount as he is 56 years old. Anyhow, the bill was actually LESS than my dinner from the menu price of $13.95.

Up the next morning, not too early as we thought it would be best to avoid the morning commuters into Vancouver, with a stop for gas and Tim's in Chilliwack and then off to Horseshoe Bay to try and get the noon ferry across to Gibson's. We just made it!!!! We were the very LAST car to get on the ferry. It was looking a bit bleak at getting on, but the guy on the ferry radioed saying "Ralph, send in the PT Cruiser in front of you!". We arrived in Gibson's and had a terrible time getting hold of Betty on the phone. We were using a payphone and each time Bruce dialed it said that the number could not be completed at this time. We decided to get some lunch and attempt to get hold of Betty after we ate. To make a LOOOOOOONG story short, Bruce finally had our friend Vern (in Medicine Hat) call Betty and she met us and we were able to begin our visit. Betty and Brenda had moved since the last time we were there so we didn't have their address.

We did some eating out, some shopping and we went and picked Blackberries and Blueberries. I have never seen so much fruit on bushes as there was on the blackberry and blueberry bushes. We brought home 2 ice cream pails of blackberries and 1 pail of blueberries. They're frozen so when I take them out I will have to do something with them all at once. If you were to compare the 'Edmonton' grocery store price to the amount of berries we brought back, I'm sure it would have been close to $200.00 worth of free fruit! The peoples yards that we picked the fruit in, don't want it!!!!! Betty goes quite often and picks the fruit and makes jams and jellies to sell at the market. That was what we did on Saturday. We helped Betty out at the market. Each week she and Brenda bake cookies (chocolate chip, peanut butter, ginger snaps and coconut macaroons), banana bread and lemon pound cake, and muffins plus they sell jams and jellies. It was quite slow at the market on Saturday but usually they sell between $300 and $400 dollars worth of stuff. It was fun. There were vendors selling fresh produce and some artisans with their wares. I bought a few pieces of pottery and a stained glass piece and some homemade spice mixtures and catnip (which the kitties love!!!!!!! :) :) meow).

We were hoping to bring back a salmon but we couldn't because we would have needed a second cooler as we didn't want to transfer odors from a fish to our berries. Saturday was the end of the salmon run there!!! We did, however, barbeque a salmon on Saturday night with some friends of Betty and Brenda. It was a good time.

We were up early Sunday morning to get packed and ready for the trip back home. After breakfast of yummy pancakes, we headed to the ferry to get on our way. We stopped in Chilliwack again to fill up the 'Cruiser' and headed off down the highway. Just on this side of Kamloops we stopped for a late lunch at this little restaurant in a town called 'Rayleigh'. We were only there for about an hour, and headed off again. Bruce thought that we might make it to Jasper......but that wasn't meant to be!!! We got about 30 km when traffic was STOPPED on the highway. There had been a fatal accident a bit of a ways ahead. A motorcyclist was killed and the police had traffic stopped and it would probably be 3 to 4 hours wait. We turned around and headed back to Kamloops for the night. We had a terrible time finding our way around to where the motels were and eventually after about an hour we found a place and checked in. After a bit of a rest we headed out to find a bar to play KENO in. B.C. lotteries has Keno and Bruce loved to play that whenever we were in a pub. We played that for a while had some dry ribs and I had a ginger ale and Bruce had a couple of beers before heading back to the motel for an early night.

Yesterday, we headed out a 7 am after getting our morning Tim's coffee and arrived home about 5:30 pm. We traveled around 2600 kilometers in total. We are already talking about doing another trip next summer. Bruce even said that he might take 2 weeks off together!!! Maybe even going into the Okanogan on the way back.

I suppose I should go and unpack the suitcase now and put away our stuff. I was too tired last night to even attempt it. I think the kitties are very happy that mommy is home with them today!!!! Even though they are pretty independent creatures they seemed to really miss us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back Home From Vegas With.....

All my gambling money!!!! I managed to bring home all my gambling money from my trip. I turned $22 into $404 on one 5 cent slot machine on Saturday. That was very exciting!!!!!!!!! I spent the whole 3 days at New York New York. It was sooooo hot and because my knee and back were bothering me, I didn't do the tourist thing this time. It was still fun, though!!! I had time with the girls, Ryan and Eric and I didn't stop them from doing all the things that they wanted to do or slow them down. It is the only time I ever gamble, so I didn't feel at all guilty about spending time at the slots.

We had a tonne of laughs, starting with our arrival at the airport here in Edmonton. Because Jen booked our trip, when we were checking in at the Edmonton International, I said that I had to check in with Jen as she was traveling with her 'Elderly Mother'. That went on for the whole trip. Jen and I both almost peed our pants as we were heading into the Las Vegas airport when Jill turned around and said, "Are you taking care of our Elderly Mother?" I was just a few feet behind Jen!!!

I will write more when we get back from the coast. We are heading out early tomorrow and I need to do a couple of more things tonight. We will be back on Monday night. Until then........

Finally.........

I finally got my new glasses today......Everyone says that they look good on me. It is going to take a while to get used to them though!!!! I am having a bit of a hard time focusing on the distance (or rather positioning my head to the proper place). For the first time in a looooooong time I didn't have to take my glasses off to do stats at the bowling centre. So that part seems to be relatively easy. The first couple of times I went down the escalator, I took them off just to be safe. I managed to go down a couple of times with them on at the end of the evening. They recommended that I NOT drive with them today, so I didn't!!!!!!!

Anyhooo, I'm exhausted tonight. The phone woke me from a DEEEEEEEEP sleep at 2 am this morning (I don't know how may times it rang before I figured out it was the phone though). It was Gateway's alarm company calling Bruce. No break-in, someone didn't close the door properly when they closed up last night.

I'm off to Lost Wages tomorrow evening!!!! I still have to pack tomorrow. Our trip to B.C. is a go. Ian's Mom passed away today, but he told Bruce to go ahead with his vacation!!

That's all for now. I will try and write a bit when I return from Vegas on Monday.