Category — General Stuff

We were talking with Jeff and Lindsay last evening and they gave us a bad time about the lack of updates on our Web Blog. So, here’s what’s been happening.

Brenda – Exercise, exercise, exercise………. she is going to be “ripped” on the beach when we head off for our winter vacation. In addition she is working hard at getting the house ready for Christmas and the Kids and Grandkids coming home, plus baking up a storm.

Larry – Curling, curling and more curling. There is an old saying that goes: “be careful what you wish for it may come true”. Anyway, I was hoping to get a bit more time on the ice to practise the new sport of curling that I have taken up. So I took my broom and curling shoes down to the Kamloops Curling Club a few Mondays ago for Monday Seniors League and guess what I picked up a game as a spare. Since that time I have spared every single Monday for that team as one of the guys has a shoulder injury. That lead to another opportunity to spare on Wednesday and Friday for Mixed Seniors Curling and I have done that the past couple weeks, This is in addition to my regular Thursday Night Mens’ League at Mcarthur Island Curling Club. This week I curl at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Monday and then there is a mini-bonspiel and luncheon on Wednesday for the mixed seniors. I am really enjoying the camaraderie and I actually believe my game has improved.

Both of Us – Our volunteer work continues at Sagebrush Theatre. We have received a couple short notice calls to help out. We are so close to the theatre that it only takes us about 20 minutes to get dressed and walk over. Last Sunday we were sitting comfortably at home and got a short notice call to usher for the George Canyon Christmas Concert. George Canyon is an outstanding Canadian, a World Vision Humanitarian and he and his band put on a fantastic show. 

Today we are having a new front door installed. It’s part of our ongoing renovations. These renovation have been ongoing since we moved in to the house 20 years ago. Little by little and as we can afford and budget for it we have been fixing, changing, modernizing, etc. The company that is doing the installation is Anchor Door and Window. Now, some of you may say “Larry, why don’t you do it yourself”? Well there are many home renovation projects that I am willing to attempt and there are others that are best left to those with the knowledge and probably as important the tools. After watching the two guys this morning spend the better part of 2 hours removing the old door, frame, etc. I know I made the correct decision. They figured that the person(s) who built our home jacked up the front door and then built the rest of the house around it!!!!

 The finished door will look somewhat like this one, just not with the real fancy glass. We opted for pinstripe privacy panels on the sides.

So, here is what the finished door looks like…..

It’s Saturday night and we are off to dinner at our good friends Rick and Gayle. Gayle is an excellent cook so we always look forward to dinner at their house. Rick has been doing a lot of home renovations so it will be good to see all the work he has done. David L. (our corling skip) and his wife Elaine are also going to be there. I am sure after dinner we will play a card game or game of some sort. Rick and Gayle are the best gamers we know, they just love friendly fun competition and lots of laughs.

Last Friday we drove to Vancouver to attend a 60th Brithday Party for Fred S. A little more on how we met Fred and Barb later in this post.

To make a bit of a getaway weekend out of the trip we stayed on Friday night at the Blue Horizon Hotel. It’s our most favorite place to stay on Robson Street, close to shopping, restaurants, walking areas, etc. but the best part is the view from the rooms. We usually request an 07 room, it’s on the back side of the hotel so it does get a little less noise, but it still has fantastic views of English Bay, part of Stanley Park and a little tiny bit of Coal Harbour. We have been staying at this hotel for over 15 years and at one time the view of Coal Harbour was unobstructed and at Christmas time you could see the Carol Ships at night. We took along Gramma and Grampa so they could have a bit of a weekend away also. They got some Christmas shopping in, a walk down to the ocean and really enjoyed themselves. We left them at the hotel on Saturday night, we stayed with Fred and Barb then picked them up Sunday morning for the drive home.

So, here’s how we met Fred, Barb and their boys Ryan and Marshall. 1986 was the first year we, as a family, attended French Summer Camp at Kalamalka Lake. We were delayed one day because our vehicle broke down, however we arrived on Sunday, got set up and Jeff was off to his daily camp activities. I was running a fair bit at that time so I put up a notice to seeing if there was anyone interested in a morning jog. Fred showed up and off we went with another fellow. Now for those who know Fred, the word “JOG” is not in his vocabulary. I figured I was a pretty fair runner at that time, I was just around a 6:30 min/mile pace, just at the elusive 40 minute 10K time. Anyway after we had jogged about 5 km out and a were on our way back (we had lost the other guy by this time, he turned back long ago) Fred politely said “I think I’m going to stretch it out the last couple kilomters”. Well all I saw after that was very fast feet, speedy legs and Fred’s dust………. I think Fred had time to run back to the starting point and jog back to make sure I was still alive. It turns out Fred best 10K time was I believe under 35 minutes. We also discoverd that Ryan was in Jeff’s camp group so a family friendship was born. Near the end of the week Fred and Barb kindly offered their home as a base so we could attend Expo 86, we took them up on the offer and have been visiting each other on a somewhat regular basis. A great family and great friends.

Well I tested our Chubb home security system the other day and it wasn’t working quite right. What I mean by that is that the alarm siren was kind of working but it sounded like someone had stuck a sock in the speaker. Normally it’s loud enough to hear on the other side of Kamloops. So, I opened up the control panel and got a high pitched screeching sound and the phone line to the house quit working so I ended up disconnecting the power supply. Anyway the technician arrived early on Tuesday morning and after checking things out he discovered that the siren was faulty and while he had the panel apart he replaced the back up battery and made some minor program improvements. So, our home security systems is back up and running. It’s great to have that peace of mind when we are away……. even with such great neighbors always keeping an eye out for us.

Renovations are continuing and we got a lot done earlier this week. The good news is that the bathtub we installed last week did not leak around any of the fittings when we water and pressure tested them, so that’s great. The ugly part this week was the drywall/gyproc mudding and pasting. Of all the stuff I have done with home renovations that is the one thing I hate the most. As amateurs we apply way too much mud and then sand like crazy, create a lot of dust and a real mess, then fill some more, sand some more, etc. etc. …….. and the finished job just never looks like the professionals.

Overall we (Kevin and I) have learned a lot about bathroom renovations and are more comfortable in tackling some pretty interesting projects after this one.

I went golfing today…….. OH! Gosh Darn, what a surpise! Shot an 83 which was pretty good and very consistent with my last few rounds. I am still taking those stupid double bogies somewhere in the game, as soon as I get rid of those my index will drop quickly.

Brenda worked on a quilting project. Not a lot more details since it would wreck a surprise if we told you anymore.

You will notice that on the left hand side bar are links to other Blogs. I added Bob and Susan White’s Blog, that’s Lindsay Dad and step mom; take a look and see what is happening in their busy life.

We went fishing on Sunday at Pinantan and basically got blown off the lake. Actually we got on the lake and drifted to the east end of the lake and as we were turning to head up wind I caught a fish; which we released. But at least I got a chance to use my new fishing rod and it’s going to be great. Then we paddled hard and worked our butts off to get back down the lake to the west end. After that we paddled back and forth across the lake which made it a lot more pleasant, plus the wind died down so it wasn’t too bad. We had a few bites but none of them were that hungry. So, we had a lunch on the water and then headed home.

On Saturday I golfed with Dave and Ley and shot a 83………. not too bad but those stupid doubles take the fun out of the round. Today (Monday) I golfed with Dave and Bart and had a career round going until the 17th and 18th hole. The foursome in front of us was “PAINFULLY SSSSLLLOOOWWW” and I got myself worked up. Anyway, I lost focus and ended us taking double bogies on both holes. I still finsihed with an 81; but it could have been a 77. My index factor is at an 11.7 which I am pretty happy with.

Today was my first official day of retirement. I am finished after 35 years with Weyerhaeuser. It’s been an exciting 35 years, lots of diffferent assignments and Weyerhaeuser has been very good to myself and my family. For that we are thankful.

So to celebrate my 1st day of retirement…….. You guessed it. I went golfing. After all why not, it was Seniors Day. I started off really bad with back to back double bogies and then got it back on track with a string of pars, 3 birdies a couple more bogies and I ended up with a 79. It was a great day.

A few days ago we hiked the hills behind our home. Actually we hiked down the street, across Peterson Creek Park, up the hills behind lower Sahali and ended up at the Save-On store in Sahali. Even though there are lots of trails in the hills behind Royal Inland Hospital it is a little difficult finding public access through the properties. We ended up going down the hills and then bactracking up to get to the lower Sahali elevation. In the picture below you can see R.I.H., not too bad for a photo taken with a cellphone!

At Save-On we bought some California and Cucumber Rolls and wrapped them up with an ice pack we had taken along in our MEC day hike bag. From there we headed to Riverside Park for a picnic. Now, if you know Kamloops; from Save-On in Sahali to Riverside Park is a bit of a trek; although it is all down hill. However because we had hiked all the way up hill we rewarded ourselves with a Slushy from the Mohawk gas station. It was a great way to cool off, an ice cold slushy and a easy walk downtown. So, we hiked down to Riverside Park had our picnic lunch and then headed back home by way of Pioneer Park. We were gone over 2 hours, the day was warm and it was a great hike.