July 2 - 31 Is it possible to catch up?

July 2
We're so far behind on the blog we're not sure how to get caught up? We're thinking we'll just post some pics and a bit of commentary and see if we can get current. It was a busy summer with lots of miles driven and lots of yard maintenance and moving all our stuff from Bonnyville to PGR so we can rent our house. 

Let's see.... here is some of the highlights.

We took both vehicles and the trailer to Bonnyville so that Leslie can go to work a few days and we can go spend a weekend in Cold Lake for Taylor & Caitlyn's wedding. Really looking forward to going to the wedding and seeing some of the old work crew. So happy for Taylor & Caitlyn!

Our site in Cold Lake Provincial Park

A shot of the fantastic trail system in this park.

View through the trees to the lake.

Our site was a little narrow. It's an older provincial park but they are working on it. We only fit in one loop with 30 amp power. There is water and sewer at the entrance to the park.

Saturday was wedding day and it was awesome. Beautiful sunny day that was forecast to be rain and clouds. They got married in the church in Cold Lake and then we gathered at a hotel for the reception. The whole event was a blast! They did great putting it all together.

Dressed up for a great day.

A picture with the happy couple!

Me, Caitlyn, Taylor & Leslie

Some of my old crew from work and their significant others.

So fun to see them all again.

We had a really good time at the wedding. Thanks Taylor & Caitlyn for inviting us! It was a late night for us. We took a cab home to the rig after midnight! Margaret was very happy to see us, of course. Good thing we took a cab too; there was a Fish & Wildlife Officer patrolling the park and he stopped our cab. Good to know he was patrolling.

This weekend is another special occasion for us and that is Leslie's birthday! We don't get crazy about each others birthdays but I managed to get something for her to help celebrate a great day. We also went out for dinner at Mr. Mikes Steakhouse in B'ville.

Happy Birthday Leslie!

Another cool thing was that my brother John flew to England to visit his daughter Heather and her fella Sam. They have been in previous blog posts from Shannon's wedding. John is spending two weeks in the London area and doing some amazing hikes with Sam and Heather. One that really stood out for me was their hike to Stonehenge,  a place I would really like to see. Very cool.

John at Stonehenge...cooool!

Heather & Sam closer to the rocks. Maybe someday they will take us ;)

Leslie worked at the hospital a couple more days and I worked at the house. The lawn looks amazing with all the rain we have been getting here in Alberta this summer. Shout out to our neighbours girls for cutting our lawn when we can't get back enough. They did a great job for us again this summer. It's a big lawn and is sloped lots so it's not the easiest task but they did fantastic.

July 12 

We packed some stuff in the car and headed for Edmonton for the night. We are slowly emptying the contents of the house and dumping... I mean giving it to the kids etc. We still have stuff to sell and give away yet but we're making good progress.

Leslie's kids panned an evening out for her birthday and even though we are late it was fun to celebrate again. We went to a really good Thai food restaurant near downtown Edmonton called Syphay Restaurant. Absolutely stuffed when we left.

So delicious!!

Next up was a walk to an escape room called Escape Hour. Good to walk a few blocks to help shake all that food down lol. It's our first time trying an escape room but Ryan, Ashtyn & Sam have been to others before so we are counting on their expertise lol. It was fun to try and Leslie loves solving puzzles so she was in her glory. Together we solved the room and escaped in 52 minutes! Yay team.

They do a group pic after with a choice of props.

We spent the night at Ryan's house and had a couple more drinks and played another game and laughed a bunch. Thanks guys.

The four of us drove to Browns Social House for breakfast the next morning. We really like this chain of restaurants, very casual and always good food and drinks when we go. Plus it is real close to Ryan's so it's super convenient. With big hugs and handshakes we hopped back in the car and headed back to B'ville. We stopped briefly in Mundare at Stawnichy's Meats for some ribs etc. for back at the house.

July 14-21

More work at the hospital for Les and work on the yard/house to get some things off of our to do list. I am trying to get a run in a few times a week as well but not doing real well at being consistent. I'm getting lots of exercise walking around the yard! 

Now that's a nice lawn! Lotsa rain.

One other item I wanted to check off was getting our driveway fixed up. Here is another time when I wish I still had my Kubota tractor to help get this done. Since that's not an option I found out that our county grader is available to homeowners for limited amounts of time, cheap! You can purchase 15 minutes of grader time for $25. I figured a grader could do what I need in about 30 minutes so we bought 2 "flags" that the operator picks up when he is done at your place. It's a great benefit for us. So I phoned a gravel supplier and got a truckload delivered  to the yard then scheduled a grader for the next week for $50 !

What a deal !

Of course he showed up when I wasn't home so Leslie had to work with him but it worked really well. Leslie said he probably was there for closer to 45 minutes getting it spread out right. Awesome!

When I got the chance afterwards I hooked a section of harrows and a pallet behind the side X side and "floated" the driveway to smooth it out. Check that off.

Leslie has a course to complete and then she is done work for a little bit. She's getting more shifts than we thought this summer but like many organizations the hospital is running short staffed. More money for us but we just didn't plan on her being this busy. It's a good problem I guess. She did two days of Non-Violent Crisis Intervention where she learns to diffuse situations at work. Maybe she can use it with me too lol. 

We also found out some really good news. The couple that we have been discussing renting our house to are in fact interested to rent our place this winter but they want to honour their rental agreement to another property until January. That's fantastic news! We believe they will be fabulous renters and that frees us up for travel without worrying about the house.

Another really awesome thing we need to mention is our friends Barry & Ailsa doing us a huge favor and helping out Leslie's sister Lorin when her sump pump failed. Barry actually just had his sump pump fail too so he knows the deal. Even though they were super busy with their own house and buying a condo in southern Alberta they stopped at Lorins and installed a new pump for her on their way home to St Albert. Now that is a great friend right there!! Thank you so much guys for lending a hand when you were so swamped too.  We knew you would know exactly how to handle that situation and you did like champs!! Thank you.

July 21st is our 13th wedding anniversary!! It's a lucky one right? Unfortunately we have some things we need to do so we just wished each other happy day and kept going. Now that we know we have a renter Leslie is "full on" purging and cleaning. Everything is getting boxed or marked for sale or dumped and the spot where it came from is getting cleaned. I know to just move aside when she starts that. I have an appointment to get the trailer slides looked at in Edmonton tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. so I'm driving in tonight and sleeping in their lot until morning. I stopped briefly in Ft. Saskatchewan and visited with Graham, Brittany and the kiddos for a pizza supper. So good! We don't order pizza anymore with Leslie being on the Keto meal plan. I miss them so I eat lots when I can. We also missed Ashtyn's birthday party yesterday because of stuff happening but happy birthday Ashtyn!!

Alberta grows lots of canola and it looks so awesome 

on a nice day.

Love getting to see these 2 ! We stopped at a school playground.

My overnight stop, the dealer we bought from.

I left Trailblazer and drove to Lorin's house for coffee and a snack from McDonalds and together we did a couple little upgrades to water drainage around her house. We extended the downspouts away from the house and garage and just made that a little better so the sump pump won't have so much to deal with. We went to a small pub for lunch and the dealership called to say the trailer was ready to go. Good timing! The slide works better now but they didn't fix what the real problem is. I won't go into it but for $290 they lubed my slide rails basically. They looked at stuff but that was the only "fix". I have another plan for the slide this fall.

Meanwhile back in B'ville Leslie spent our anniversary day packing boxes and cleaning. Woohoo she knows how to celebrate! She is working a couple more shifts this coming week and then she'll join me at PGR. She got some major storms while I was gone, it has been a crazy year for rain.

Looks like a baby tornado/ funnel cloud.

Looks nasty.

So Leslie is busy making money and I am back at our lot spending some. It's a great chance for us to get a load of gravel on our lot and get it spread out where we park. I did a minimum setup so I could pull the trailer out of the lot when the gravel truck arrived on the 24th. EGT gravel has been so good to deal with. They brought me a load of gravel within an hour of my call! We live close to their pit and they always fit us in between other loads.

Grab a rake and a shovel tough guy!

I moved some of the gravel by hand so I could get the trailer backed in again. I wanted to do the edge of the garage by hand so we don't have a little accident on the building. It's a good workout that's for sure phew! Thankfully Jeff, the owner of PGR is willing to lend me his Kubota tractor to spread this out. Thanks Jeff. The 35 horsepower tractor made short work of that small load of gravel. Spread and wheel packed in no time. Now just back the trailer in and get set up again. Leslie should be home tonight or tomorrow.

Leslie got home on the 25th and together we did the final touches to spread the gravel. We kept a small pile to one side for later. Our cement contractor from last year was working at another lot so I walked over and asked to borrow his plate tamper for a bit to pack our lot. Clint is a good guy. Not only did he send his guys over with the tamper but they did the work too! Thanks Clint, awesome job! Check that job off the list, boom! 

We took things easy on the 26th in the morning but I volunteered to help Graham in the afternoon setting up a ring for an MMA event he's working on with a buddy of his. They do these events a few times a year to promote the sport. I've never set up a ring before but I can carry stuff and I get an inside look at what's happening. Of course it was blazing hot outside and even hotter in the back of the 5 ton truck. He had lots of help so it didn't take long to load and unload. Now to help with the set up.

Strapping the mat to the frame.

Notice the solid steel frame, yep it's heavy.

I stayed in the truck passing to the young guys.

I stuck around with Graham to complete the set up of both rings and all the tables etc around the ring. They're all ready for the crowds tomorrow morning. I gave G a ride to his car on the west side of the city and he bought me a light supper at Tim Hortons for my labour. Good to hang out for a bit and see what he's up to. Now to see if he can get some sleep He works nights all week and now turn his sleep schedule around to get up at 8:00 in the morning. I remember those days. Not much fun. (His event went pretty good and he really didn't sleep for close to 36 hours) Slept pretty sound after it was over!

July 28

The weather is just too nice to be working all the time so we decided to take Margaret for a nice long walk at Wabuman Lake Provincial Park. We forgot bug spray and the mosquitos were feasting on us in the trails so we ended up walking the path by the beach and the edge of the road. Was still a nice walk.

Our original plan to walk some trails.

Non stop slapping mosquitos...bail out!

Hardly any bugs by the water in the wind.

We drove back home and had lunch and a nice lie down. Yes we actually laid down for a bit and relaxed. It was fabulous.

The afternoon was still just beautiful so we decided to pull out the Harley and go for a ride together. Wow look at us having fun!

The helmet selfie.

That's my happy face lol.

That was pretty much our July in a nutshell. We got back to work on the yard and cleaning up the garage so that we have things ready for the coming long weekend. This weekend Leslie's kids are coming out for an overnight stay and there is a pig roast and live music here at Pineridge that we have tickets for. Looking forward to some fun and maybe a couple adult beverages. We might even stay up past 10pm !!

Cheers everybody. Stay tuned for August we have some vacation time to show you.