July 15-20, On the road again

Sunday morning Dave was pretty sore after his 10km race the day before. I got up first, made coffee, took Margaret out to do her business and came back in to massage his calf's before he got up. We had a quick breakfast and I set Dave up writing a blog post with Margaret. I went out for my walk/run. I am trying out some new shoes and they seem very comfortable. I'm not likely to become a "runner" as my back won't tolerate much impact. I have started running on grassy areas though. I did 5km in 43 minutes today and that is enough. After showers we headed out to Spruce Grove for groceries, fuel etc. We also got some concrete sealer as we need to put a couple coats on the garage floor and parking apron before we start construction next week.  Around 6:00 pm there was enough shade so out we went with our rollers and got it done.
July16
   Monday morning Dave's legs felt a bit better so we took a slow walk with Margaret. We started cleaning and packing as we are heading back to Bonnyville tomorrow for a couple days. Around 2:30 Derek (Carter) came out for a visit. We took him on a walking tour of Pineridge and, of course, stopped at the Nine Iron Grill for a beverage.

Cheers!

Dave may not miss work but he does miss the people

Derek had a date so headed back to the city and Dave and I had a couple games of crib outside on the picnic table and then some supper. Afterwards Dave did a second coat of garage sealer on the apron while I cleaned up. 

July 17

    After breakfast and a short walk we got everything packed up in the truck. It's 31C today....so hot! We got on the road fairly early as we are stopping in St. Albert to do some shopping and have an appointment with our financial planner. It was too hot to leave Margaret in the truck so I ran in and out of stores while Dave stayed with her. Thankfully the staff at Investors let her join us for our meeting. They even brought her some water. That's service!! After that we were off to Bonnyville...again. We got home in time to unpack, make supper and head downstairs where it was cool.

Momma and triplets! Still have spots...so cute

July 18

   We discovered that the realtor (we think) had left all the exterior lights on the back of the house when he showed it June 28th. Uggghhh! The entire back of the house is covered in webs, bugs and bug poop. I have to run to town for groceries, pick up the mail and grab some Spider Ban. Dave got on the tractor and started mowing. When I got home I swept off the back of the house and then got at pressure washing it. Dave was done with the tractor by the time I finished the upper level so he helped out with the lower level. Then I had to clean all my windows...again. We have really hard water here and it leaves a real mess if you spray it and leave it. 

July 19

  Thursday we were up early to start again. This time Dave is roto-tilling my old vegetable garden and then spraying the entire driveway as it too is now covered with weeds. I set out to weeding both my big perennial gardens. Acreage living is a lifestyle choice and we loved it for many years. When you are there full-time it is easily manageable to keep up. Now that we are spending most of our time away it has become nothing but work and stress. I sure hope it sells soon. It would be lovely to come back to Bonnyville just for visits and fun! Screw it! Let's do that right now! I called up Tianna and she is home. It's about time I met her new baby, Indie :)

Two beautiful girls! I really miss my work family too 

Next stop is Paul and Di's. Di is still at work so we had a nice visit with Paul to start. Him and Dave loaded up a few tools that we are borrowing for our our garage build. When Di got home we drove down to the lake and had a visit. It was great but too short.

Paul and Dave

 I only took one picture of Di and it was terrible so I won't post it but it was great to see her beautiful face. I miss you every day! We got home shortly after 7:00 pm to have some supper, do a load of laundry and run the dishwasher.

July 20

   Friday morning Dave went for a short run (2km) as his knee has been bothering him. Margaret and I did a 3km walk. Home for showers and to pack up the truck. We did a quick run through town and then out to drop a compressor to Paul (we took his big one and brought him our smaller one). Now we are off to Pineridge. The weather is quite nice but they have severe weather warnings out for most of the province this afternoon. We made it all the way to Trailblazer RV (to pick up a pressure switch for our hot water heater) before we hit really bad weather.

This could get weird

Checking for rotation, nope. Let's hit the road.

Bad choice: Rain, hail, wind and lightning. Maybe we should pull over.

Much nicer inside O.J.'s in Stony Plain

While we were enjoying an appetizer and a beverage we got a text from Kent. The sailfish that our grandson, Nathan, caught last winter in Cancun had finally been delivered. Beautiful fish Nathan! I'm thinking it cost a lifetime worth of allowances to get it mounted though! lol

We finally arrived at PGR and unloaded the truck in the pouring rain. The storm was heading east towards Bonnyville. We hear they got 4 inches of rain there. Crazy!!

Paul texted this pic from their deck rain gauge!!

Saturday we are celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary and Ashtyn's birthday! We're going to their house (Ryan & Ashtyn) this afternoon for some bevvies and supper. More on that next time. Look at this we are caught up and current on the blog !!!

July11 - 14 A couple small projects and 10k race

July 11
Leslie and I are both still a little sore from spreading gravel. Clint, our cement guy is sending the skid steer to level and pack the rest of the gravel. Leslie wants to continue putting Thompsons Water Seal on the picnic table. She did a bit yesterday to make sure it works alright and yes the test patch looks great.

Test section turned out good.

We set the table up on a sawhorse to make it easier to reach. This is Leslie's strength, I don't have the patience for this type of stuff and she excels at it.

Just about done.... love the colour.

All done, just needs to dry. Good work buddy!

I cleaned up the inside of the trailer while Leslie was outside working. I went for a shower but for some reason there is no hot water?? It worked earlier for Leslie. Hmmm? No matter what I tried it won't work so I grabbed a toonie and my towel and walked over to the showers here at PGR. That worked great actually, very nice showers and nobody there, perfect. I'll troubleshoot the water heater this afternoon. 

In the early afternoon the truck from CRC (cement guys) pulled up and 3 guys get out. I asked them "where's the skid steer?" "We are the skid steer", was their answer. Um, okay cool. They asked to borrow a shovel and our wheel barrow and they dug in with rakes they use for spreading concrete. I joined them because I just feel guilty standing around watching people work when I am capable of helping. In less than an hour we had the driveway levelled and sloped exactly the way I wanted it. Amazing what happens when you add younger strong backs and guys that do this work everyday, to a job like this. They will be back tomorrow with the plate tamper to pack it and that's it for the driveway for now.

Next up I want to tackle the problem with the water heater. I have the manual with trouble shooting tips and a wiring schematic. I used my multimeter and felt I found the problem. Everything seemed good until the ignition control module. A call to Rae-Ann at Trailblazer RV and I can pick one up tomorrow, perfect, I'm pretty confident. 

July 12

We started with a run/walk and then hopped in the car to go to Trailblazer for the module. Unfortunately that wasn't it and I'm not a happy camper! Well thanks to Steve & Diane and Rae-Ann, I know a mobile RV repair guy so I just admitted defeat and called Rob Stewart from Robs Mobile Repair. He'll be here tomorrow. A little more money for travel but we don't have to pack up and move. That's worth the money to us. More PGR showers but that's alright as they work great. Not much I can do right now so how about a happy hour at our neighbours place ? Great idea! Thanks Bert & Vera for hosting. We got home for supper around 7 and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

July13

I'm resting my calf before the 10K, so no run today but Leslie did her speed walk and snuck in a short run on the grass in front of PGR. She needs to be careful to not shock her back so she is "soft jogging" on grass. So proud of her and she's being smart about it, awesome! Rob the mobile repair guy came out and found my heater problem in minutes. I was so angry at myself. I had checked the same things but didn't measure voltage correctly on the pressure switch. I had replaced that same switch last summer (1year and 4 days ago, to be exact) so I didn't think that was the problem. Well Rob doesn't have the part and I am capable of changing it so I'll get a new one and do it myself. So mad! Education costs money and I just got schooled. I won't make that mistake again. So we need to drive into Edmonton anyway and I'll stop at Trailblazer and return the ignition module, with my head down lol. On our way into Edmonton there was an accident or something just outside Spruce Grove, 45 minutes to move less than 10k! I turned off on a range road and got on 16A finally and we got to Howard and Chris's place later than expected. We get to have a visit with Howard and Chris and then drive over to MEC downtown location to pick up my first ever race bib!!

All 1's really, pretty excited !

Rachelle and her Mom, Florence, are also there as well as Graham, Britt and the kids. Rachelle and Britt are also running the 10k tomorrow so we all are excited to do this. Britt has been in other races but this is Rachelle and my first one. MEC is the sponsor of this run so we all get a 10% discount on anything we buy today. Leslie found a great pair of runners on sale and I grabbed some compression sleeves for my legs and a smaller water bottle to carry. 

Graham and Britt headed home to Ft Sask as the kids are ready for supper and done following us around. Leslie and I talked with Rachelle and Florence and decided to go to Olive Garden near their hotel for supper. Pasta place should be perfect for a carb load before a race. Ah whateve, it's a pretty good choice anytime.  I like pasta. We had a nice dinner and a good visit and jumped back in the car for the drive back to PGR. It's raining and cool and the wind is really blowing but tomorrow morning is supposed to be nice. I hope so, don't want the first race in the rain.

July14

It's race day!! I actually slept really good until about 5:30 and then laid there waiting for the alarm. We both got up and got coffees and a bite to eat. Leslie is awesome as my crew She didn't sleep well and she is more nervous than me I think. It's really nice of her, she's treating this run more like Ailsa's race prep but it is only a 10k. It's my first race though so having her go through a list and bring everything is fantastic. I am driving to St Albert, just so I don't sit there over thinking this run. We arrived close to 8:30 and Rachelle parked right beside us, bonus. Race start is 9:20 so we have time to kill. We walked to Lions Park in St Albert and saw Graham and Britt coming in. Perfect, we're all here and ready to go! The weather is not bad for a run, about 12C/58F and cloudy but no rain in the forecast. It's still windy but the trail is right beside the Sturgeon River and slightly protected in the trees. It will be great.

My awesome crew! Margaret's cold.

Ready to run

Rachelle and her Mom (Florence) pinning on her bib

Rachelle, me, Britt and Rylan

Ryan, Ashtyn and Kirby came out to cheer, thanks guys!

We waited and watched while the folks in the 21.1k and the 15k started out and then it's our turn to line up for the start

I'm the tall one....

As you might expect we took off in a pack and bunched up on the first 2 turns but everyone quickly found their place. The three of us ran together off the start and for the first 5 km. We all said we wanted to pace ourselves and not go too fast but for the first 3km we ran way faster than normal! Race pace lol. We said more than once to slow up a little but that took a few km before it happened. Rachelle said that it's a good thing to start fast in case we want to walk a bit later. Of course that turned out very true.

Rachelle was getting warm with her jacket on. She managed to un-pin her bib from the jacket, pin it back on her shirt and remove and tie her coat around her waist and never broke her stride! That's a Mom move right there. I was impressed. We all stayed together until about 5k when Rachelle dropped back a little. Brittany and I were able to maintain the pace we had for a little further until she noticed her shoe had come un-done so she stopped for that. I kept going and Brittany caught up fairly soon and Rachelle was just behind us. There was a couple small hills on the course so we walked a little bit but we held a good pace for the whole race I think. When we had only 1km left Brittany said to walk for 30 seconds and I said I felt I had this last one in the tank so kept going. Well that turned out to be a bad decision. There was a little more uphill getting to the finish and I was totally gassed. I saw Britt coming up behind me and I saw Leslie and our gang waving at the finish but I had nothing left. Britt passed me in the last 50 or so meters and got in 3 seconds ahead of me. I pushed across the line and man that was awesome!! We did it!! I was in at 1:00:32 (Britt at 1:00:29!) and Rachelle came in at 1:02:08. All of us so close together and we made our goal time of 1 hour, or close enough for all of us.

The photo finish, Les running and taking pics lol

What a blast!

Rachelle right behind us.

That was a great time and, yes I will do it again. Would be fun to do another with Rachelle and Brittany to see if we can shave off a few seconds. Maybe "don't try to outrun your pacer" would work lol. Brittany has run a few races including half marathons but for Rachelle and I this is the first race. I know there will be more. Back in December we were happy to run for 3 minutes and then walk for 2 We just ran for an hour! Pretty damn happy :)

Post race and we still look good lol.

After the race Rachelle and her Mom went to the farmers market next door and to Costco before heading back to Bonnyville. The rest of us drove over to Cora's for breakfast. I'm starving.

Leslie, Ashtyn, Ryan, Graham,Rylan, Katelyn, Britt and me

We all did hugs and handshakes after breakfast and everyone was heading home. My legs are tightening up for sure and I would like a shower and a nap. We did just that back at PGR but we set a timer for 1 hour so we didn't over sleep. Boy that was a great nap but holy geezus my legs are tight!! Oh man there's stairs from the bedroom to the living room, down one...ow, down two....ow I'm not going outside, that's 4 stairs haha. I sat at the table and started to get caught up on blog posts. Finally I get my post race beer!! Yayy.

Ahhh tastes pretty darn good.

I had a fantastic time and thank you to everybody that helped out especially my crew, Leslie. Love you baby and thanks for your support. Of course thanks to Barry and Ailsa for the inspiration to even try this and all the advice to help me along the way. Love the run watch too btw. And of course Rachelle for running with me in Bonnyville and letting me use her treadmill in the winter. Now a few Advil and lather on the Voltaren and I should be walking normal in a couple days. Cheers everybody!