5C's Que Pasa

We have had some cool, windy and rainy conditions over the last week. Fortunately yesterday the weather has started heating up, finally. We have not had our normal Okanagan hot summer.

So I decided to make borscht with the end of our beets, left from last summer. Somehow the electric grater is in the slide out of the RV and we can’t get it out.  Fortunately Colin, my manual grater, was home.

It looked good going into the crockpot.

But was a bit pale when I put them in the jars while still very hot. This way, once the jars seal, the soup will keep for two weeks in the fridge.   I still have 2.5 jars left.

Our garden continues to be overrun by weeds. The supposed landscape cloth and gravel have yet to be put into place by the park. Meanwhile Colin shovelled out over 12 inches of weeds the entire length and behind the garden area and put a few boards down to try and keep them out of our garden.  As you can see we have finally put up our fencing all around again.

We found some screened covers in the community garden storage area and have covered most of our garden. After eating all the kale the quail started in on the Swiss chard so we are trying to protect our small seedings.

The newly planted kale seeds only took a few days to germinate.  The beets and carrots are also doing well.  We have had our second cucumber and two medium sized tomatoes.  Enough for a toasted cuke and tomato sandwich for lunch today.

Colin’s lunch for his 17 hour day to and from Vancouver.

Colin drove to Vancouver at 5AM Sunday to get his annual aerial photography done.  The weather conditions were perfect but the Vancouver Airport control tower would not give his helicopter permission to do the higher elevation shots as there was another aircraft in the area.  It is getting more and more difficult to do photography in the flight path.  He was disappointed but he did get most of the jobs completed.  He may try again in August based on the smoke situation, but again he may drive up there and be told no once he is in the air.  Extremely costly.

He had 16 maps like this to take photos of several specific sites. Many have arrows indicating photos from different directions.

This is an overall perspective of almost all the area he had to take aerial photos.  It was a vast area from Langley to Richmond and all the areas in between.

He got back late last night and was on the job at 10:00AM today.  It also happened to be his birthday today.  He did not want to go out tonight but rather come home and relax here. He has jobs right through to the end of Thursday.  And then today he got requests for aerial photography here in Kelowna for one of the major, if not the major developer in town.

He came back today from his job with two sheets of PVC lattice privacy fencing. He cut the 4′ x 8′ pieces in half. He built a temporary fence along our patio so that we no longer have to see the nieghbors weeds and also to keep the renter’s dog ( when he returns in September ) from coming into our yard to do its business.   Photo next post.

Colin has more stamina than anyone I know.  He is amazing.  It wasn’t until 6PM that we were able to sit down and sip some champagne and relax.  I even made some special appetizers for the two of us.  We no longer do gifts and cards but I felt like spoiling him this year and so he got a few fun gifts and a few needed items of clothing.  One of the fun gifts was a $2.00 scratch card to win money.  He was so close to winning $20,000.00.  He decided that if he won he would give it to me to plan us another wonderful vacation ;-).  So we are going to open a nice bottle of wine for his special request dinner and relax with our feet up.  Tomorrow morning he is on the job.

My anniversary roses opened perfectly and still smell so good.

We also had another outdoor reno project take place last Thursday/Friday.  More on that in the next post.

Almost ready to go. It was very cool last night. I wore long sleeves, a shawl and a scarf. It was chilly moving along in the golf cart. Maybe we should have taken the car.

There was a live band who were playing light jazz.  They were very good and we were one of the few who applauded.  Why do people ignore the band?

Thank you all for your lovely anniversary wishes.  Our plan is to live each day to the fullest.  That means doing as much as we can together including travel. We had each drawn up a list of ‘where to next’ destinations and we compared notes over the salad course.  So many of our choices overlap.  Living life to the fullest includes Colin indulging in his passions of music and of course photography.  At the moment my interests are sitting with my feet up and reading, some gardening and walking.  I need to just relax for a while.  I am known to change my interests often.  I do wish that I could distance myself from the computer but then how would I get things done and know what is happening in the world.

We found out that these are the second set of new owners of this restaurant since the original owners left a few years ago.  The original set were great and we dined there often.  I heard that the first set of new owners were not so great but these current owners are and the menu is extensive.  Tuesday is pasta night @ $13.00 per plate vs $21.00 and up.  However the wine menu is off the charts with the bottles starting at $38.00.   Per the glass is not much better with prices starting at $11.00 per 6oz glass and $15.00 – $17.00 per 9 oz glass.  I feel the urge to move to Portugal coming over me  😆

We had the lobster pasta special and every bite was right on.  The best thing is that as residents of the park we get 15% off the food.

We were surprised with a complimentary chocolate torte “Happy Anniversary”  dessert.   Oh my, so very rich and decadent and I want to have another.

This has been our RV travel card since 2012 or 2013.  We have run out of cards and needed a new one.  The print company controlled the set up and printing of this card.

Colin is just not ready to remove the girls from our card so here they are.  However after six hours of searching, he actually found the original photo in our 2012 files and did some photoshop.  The card is not so dark and I changed the wording.  I quite like it.

Which do you like better?

Hard to believe we have been married this long.  It doesn’t seem that long ago that we tied the knot.  We really did not start to celebrate until very late afternoon today.  Well I am enjoying a glass if wine but now at 5:45PM Colin is busy with clients. We are getting our first good weather in a long time and he is busy coordinating jobs.  Colin had a meeting with a client this morning and then did some errands.  Meanwhile I started doing some yard work with our landscaper.  More on that in one of the next posts.

Colin surprised me this afternoon with a lovely bouquet of roses.  They have a lovely aroma.

We are going out for a lovely meal at the Italian restaurant that is here in the park.  That way we can enjoy some wine and not have to worry about driving.  We will use the golf cart.  It has been an unusually cool day with rain storm after rain storm interspersed with downpours and the odd 15 minutes of blue sky and sunshine.

We are long past giving gifts and cards but I just wanted to this year.

In my opinion ( his opinion is yet to be decided ) Colin needed a dressier jacket to go see clients in ( like the rainy windy day we had today ).

I also decided that he needed a second jacket for travel or just outdoor whatever.  Both jackets are windproof and water repellent with sealed seams.  Plus I got both on sale and saved $100.00.

So we are off to dinner……..

Last Thursday I saw my doctor about a few issues and it has taken me until now to feel comfortable to talk about it.

I have to say that I was shocked to hear that this growth on my finger on my left hand was likely due to osteoarthritis.  That lump seems to have developed while we were in Europe. It is larger in real life than on the photo.  Perhaps I never noticed it before.  It only hurts if I squeeze it.  That finger is stiff to bend.

This finger on my right hand has been crooked with no pain for many years.

My doctor suggested that I wasn’t taking enough supplements and wants me to take 2000IU ( I was only taking in 1200IU per day ) of Vitamin D which is needed to help the body absorb calcium.  In addition to my normal calcium intake I am to make sure that I take in 1200mg of elemental  calcium. Elemental means calcium taken from food.  So I Googled elemental calcium and discovered that I am not taking in enough through the foods that I eat.  I might as well admit that I have been remiss since last fall in taking in any vitamins whatsoever, nothing, nada.  So it really is my own fault that I have come to this.  Bottom line, I was too lazy to pull out the 8 – 12 vitamins/supplements that we each need on a daily basis.  We have been doing this systematically  for years and years but I just stopped last September.  Often I would pull them out but neither of us would take them.  No other reason than laziness.

Colin recalled that our friend Jocelyn ( for the story of how we knew this couple from our Acapulco days way back, click here ) who we visited a year and a bit ago in Bucerias had trouble playing his guitar.  His fingers did not want to cooperate and now he is doing great.  He eventually discovered Genacol Bone and Joint and Colin was able to find that online today.  Have any of you tried this?  I Googled the product and read all the customer testimonials and it seems like the right thing for me to try.

We have not been out for a restaurant meal since June 19th and I felt the need to get out.  So last Sunday we headed to the local Greek restaurant.

The food was so good that I neglected to take a photo until more than halfway through the meal.   Everything including the Greek house wine was excellent.

Honestly the salad was so much better back in Athens and the wine prices were at least 4/5ths  less.  I think that it is difficult for local restaurants to have the tomatoes at the correct ripeness to serve so many people day after day.  Also an English cucumber was used opposed to field cucumbers back in Greece.  It still was a fabulous meal and we will be going back.

Thanks to a long time blog reader, Greytlady,  I have something special to share with you.  Truly appreciated and you are a great lady for sending this to me.  The following photo was taken by a 19 year old.  All sixteen of these doxies are his.

If you click here, it will take you to a link where at the bottom of the page you will be able to read a bit about how this photo came to be as well as the names of all sixteen dachshunds.  Such a sweet story and well done pups.  A very remarkable photo.  Once you click on the link, there is a next button at the top of the page to click next.  There are four photos in the series.

Mother Nature treated us after a brief shower late this afternoon.

It is a double rainbow with the top one barely visible.