Summer in Prince George

Our summer trip to Prince George was delayed this year due to Covid. When we were planning our summer in June there was still uncertainty on whether the province would allow travel between regions. By the time they opened up we found we needed to be in Oliver to help Reg remove some shrubs and we had a dentist appointment scheduled mid-month. This meant the ideal time to go was the third week of July instead of the first week. Our next issue to resolve was the fires that were happening in BC. It was another busy season and there was road closures between Lytton and Spences Bridge as well as near 100 Mile House. With those closures, the trip via Kamloops and Valemount was more appealing. Usually it's an extra two hours but with the road closures it was only really an hour longer. We planned our meals and stops and the kids wanted to try the Funky Goat which turned out to be a food truck. We were there at noon and had to wait until 1:00 for it to open. Surprisingly, Kerry and Callie ordered a sandwich that took longer than that to create so we actually ate before them.

My brother recently moved to Quesnel and had just purchased a house that we hadn't seen first. Since we didn't travel through Quesnel on our way up we had to make a special trip to go see him. He hosted an excellent breakfast and we spent some time exploring the renovations underway. It's an older home but they have big plans. Within a couple years they should have every room redone and a rental suite. The prices in Quesnel are much cheaper but lack of rental space means rental units are in high demand. A good place for anyone who wants to buy a second property to rent.

As per usual we spent much of our time out at my families lake property. Carter fished and got at least one which is always his goal. I spent much of the time canoeing back and forth to an area where I could gather some larger stones. The lake has been left fairly high for the past several years so beach erosion is an issue. We've installed some rock baskets and we needed rocks. Eric did the filling and I did the rock gathering. We also checked out the old cabin down the beach that was built by a friend of my Grandfather's. The roof has finally caved in so it doesn't have many years left. I really should try to save some of the furniture.

Our trip home was on our usual route. There was more rain up north and the fires near Lytton had burned everything up to the road so they were able to open the road again. You could clearly see how significant the fires near Lytton were. For several kilometers all of the trees had been impacted. Fires in this area come in quick and leave just as quick so they tend to leave the trees standing though it's clear they are likely dead. Lytton isn't usually a town we actually drive through but I think we will try next year. Hopefully they find funding to rebuild.

Daddy's Weekend of Fun

It's not often that Kerry is away and I'm left in charge of the kids. This weekend Kerry was headed to Kelowna to celebrate various birthday's including her friend Kathy's 50th. Leading up to the weekend, Carter was very worried that I was going to be in charge. He felt I wasn't going to feed him which in some ways was likely true. They are each going on 13 and 16 and should be able to handle a few meals for themselves. I also had plans to do something for them on the weekend but I wasn't about to tell them what that was until it was time to go. We started the weekend with some comical shots of the kids hitch hiking in front of our house though that wasn't going to be our mode of transportation. Kerry had gone up with Kathy so we had the vehicle available to us. Our plan was to drive to my work in Burnaby, park the car and then take the Skytrain and sea bus to the North Shore. There wasn't any specific point to the weekend other than to do something we wouldn't ordinarily do when Kerry was home. She isn't a fan of trips on the Skytrain.

The train ride and sea bus were uneventful and I think everyone enjoyed their time at the Lonsdale Quay. We went into the market and had lunch and desert and then wandered around. We found an art gallery that was accessible via donation. Carter isn't a fan of art galleries as he always find something very unusual that he just doesn't understand. Callie enjoys seeing what other artists are up to. The unique item for us was baby Yoda in a native baby snuggly. We also did a bit of shopping for Kerry as her birthday was on the following Monday. I think everyone enjoyed the trip.

On Sunday we started with a TikTok trend specifically aimed to irritate Kerry. She isn't a fan of Tiktok and doesn't understand that its really just the video social media site to compliment twitter as the text based social media site and Instagram as the picture focused social media site. I spend a portion of my day on it but I can really only watch for 15-20 minutes at most before I get bored. The trend we were replicating was pancake cereal which is just time pancakes cooked and added to a cereal bowl. Really no different than taking a regular pancake and cutting it up except that you get more edge pieces. It was labor intensive but good.

Kerry returned on Monday afternoon to two kids that were still breathing so I consider it a successful weekend.

 

Post COVID Trip to Oliver

Our last trip to Oliver was last summer. COVID was in full swing and the province had convinced itself that we could travel again. Since that time there have been multiple lockdowns that prevented anyone from travelling in the province. Now that 75% of adults have at least one shot, we may actually be reaching the end of this, assuming the US doesn't screw things up due to vaccine hesitancy. When we arrived in Oliver we were immediately put to work. Reg has a hedge that was getting hard to control and he needed our help to remove it and add some pavers in preparation for a new fence. It was hot work but the results were very obvious when we were done.

We took our traditional trip to Hester Creek. We picked up bread from Platinum Bench, made up some wine and cheese plates and brought the dogs. Things almost felt normal again. They had a check in so they could take your name but other than that most COVID protocols were gone. We still choose to wear our mask indoors when we can't social distance and the staff would wear masks for the tasting. It was good that we got there early because it was a hot weekend in Oliver with temperatures over 35 degrees. I think the only part of the tradition that didn't happen was Carter and Gampoo running on the grass. They might both be too old for that.

Carter made sure we made it to the lake every day. He purchased a new floatie from the Canadian Tire. I wanted to strap it to the back of the car for our trip back to Surrey but there wasn't a lot of places to attach to. Tuk-El-Nuit lake was very nice and it looks like Oliver is spending a bit of money on their public beaches. They were raking the beach every day and had permanently anchored some floaties off shore. The private campground usually does this so it was nice to see the same treatment for the public portion. 

The local native reserve has leased some land to a new experience just outside of Oliver. It's called the Hub and the plan is for 14 wineries, breweries and eateries to all be in one location. When I first heard about it, we thought it was more of a centralized tasting area which it is, but its more than that. They've got space for entertainment, misters to keep things cool and each location has their own patio. There seem to be rules about where you can drink each locations wine but that might loosen over time. I can see it being a nice place to be for an evening of dining and entertainment.

Our last day ended with ice cream and fire. We were on our way to OK Falls and noticed what appeared to be a relatively new fire. It turned out to be past where we were going so we still got our ice cream. They ordered evacuations later that day. We also almost had to deal with fires on our way there and our trip to Prince George will likely involve dodging road closures. Fire season is bad again this year which isn't surprising considering the heat we had so early in June. It's mid July with no rain for weeks and none on the horizon. This is a tradition that I don't look forward to each year.

 

Hottest Day Ever!

June 28 was an unusually hot day. It reached over 40 degrees in the shade at our house. This would have been a hot day for July or August and was even more unusual for June. Local temperature records were being beat by almost double digits. Things got progressively warmer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and them culminated in the 40 degree day for Surrey. It got to 36.5 degrees inside the house and even the next morning it was still 29 degrees inside. This is the final straw for us regarding air conditioning. We have a single unit that does a single room but its not enough. I'm not looking to cool things to 21 degrees but we have to be able to cut the edge at night and there are more and more of these hot days. It would be silly to try to get something now so we'll plan to do it later in the fall or early spring. 

It was hot across the province for this week with multiple cities breaking the Canada record. Lytton took top spot and was unceremoniously burnt to the ground the following day. Literally. Climate change is real. 

Last Day at Frost Road

June 25 was Carter's last day at Frost Road. Not only was it his last day, it was the last day of having a Schwab at the school. Kerry had started teaching there 18 years earlier and Callie and Carter both spent all of elementary school there. Kerry's not teaching there anymore so now that Carter is gone we will no longer have a presence at the school that is only about 500 feet from our house. Carter unfortunately got the short end of the stick for his grade 7 year. With Covid restrictions, he missed out on camp and a formal grade 7 graduation dinner. We did surprise him and his friends the following week with an event at one of his friends house. Just dinner and water guns but I think they were excited they got to do it. Some were suspicious but most had no idea it was happening. Hopefully Kerry ends up being a principal there at some point in the future. 

Dance Recital Weekend

For the past 10+ years Callie has had an end of year dance recital for her dance classes. We didn't get to do anything last year due to Covid as the year ended in May and there wasn't enough time to recover from the lock downs that started in March. They had managed to switch to dance at home before the end of the year however no one knew what kind of recital you could do considering you couldn't even get a single class in the same room, let alone a recital hall of dancers and parents. This year they were prepared and had arranged for a stage in Vancouver and they taped everyone's dance as individual classes. 

This was at the end of May and we haven't seen the results as of mid July but hopefully soon. Hopefully they were careful with all the recordings. I wouldn't want to have to redo any of the dances at this point. 

Although the weekend was not a normal recital weekend we still made the best of it. Since the dances were at different times in Vancouver, we drove down as a family and stayed for the day. We went to my old neighborhood of Kerrisdale for lunch and later to Greek Town for an early dinner. Kerry and Callie just happened to have been talking about how they wanted toone day eat at a restaurant that had been on 'You Gotta Eat here' and as we were walking around we found just such a place. Apparently they had filmed breakfast there and although we were having lunch/dinner we weren't disappointed. You really gotta eat there. 

The Marvel Puzzle

On March 23, towards the end of Spring Break, Carter and Kerry started on a new challenge. Carter had recently purchased a new 3000 puzzle. This blew past our typical puzzle size of 1000 pieces and apparently puzzles get exponentially more difficult as you add more pieces. It took more than a day just to find the outside pieces and get all the pieces flipped over. We had to expand the size of the dining room table and add a second and third table to the dining room just so we had enough space for to both lay out the pieces and have a place to build the puzzle. It didn't help that the color palette of this puzzle was somewhat limited with a lot of red, green and black.

Things started promising with the first 500 pieces or so put in place. This included the easy parts like the sky and the Marvel sign. After that there was a significant drop off in production. Kerry and Carter did the vast majority of the work. I did just enough pieces so they couldn't claim they did the whole thing themselves. After a large break of about a month things picked up again and they managed to finish it on May 11th. To get a sense of just how much effort it was, I tried to do a dismantling video and got bored after 2 minutes. We don't recommend doing a 3000 piece puzzle. 1000 pieces is where its at.