5C's Que Pasa

8:45 AM April 10th, 2021.

We were treated to a bt of snow this morning. Quite the surprise. Our temps are supposed to rise over the next five days.  However we need to get through tonight first. We are expecting 30% chance of snow flurries or rain showers. I guess it depends how high up the valley you are. It is gong to be a very cold night for the twins tonight, -7C/19F. Plus freezing overnight temps for the following three nights. Mind you last night they slept for seven hours:) So did we!!

It did not stay long but what a surprise.

Colin is slowly getting the garden ready. Doing a few repairs, cleaning up some of last seasons mess. Then of course he has to come up with a new fence and gate due to that tree falling into our site in February. Click here for that post.

The tomatoes plants are really growing. Some from the nursery which are getting big and some from seeds. Last year we started planting peas, beans, kale, carrots and beets on April 13th. Much too cold this year, we will wait a good week.

Their play time was interrupted. It is very apparent that Ciela’s tan dots over her eyes are fading. This is making it easier to tell them apart.

Here they are sharing a small puppy nylabone chew.

The Province of BC has been opening up more appointments for vaccine injections to various ages and Colin was eligible this past Tuesday. The first local ( Lake Country ) spot was April 27th. Yesterday I received an email that I was eligible to make an appointment. I would have had to wait until May 4th to get in. So I checked the Kelowna injection locations and we were both able to get in on April 18th. So I booked mine online and then called to cancel Colin’s appointment on the 27th and was able to book him on the 18th as well.  He could have had the slot five minutes behind mine but because of the dogs we made it a 30 minute interval. This way one of us will be with them in the car.  Soon it will be time to start leaving them on their own, ten minutes here and there and eventually longer each time.

We are trying to get them to eat out of their own dish. As puppies the three siblings ate out of one large dish and they keep wanting to eat what the other has. I am trying to keep track of how much each is eating. This set up did not work. As of a few days ago one is eating in this location and the other is directly to the right in the bathroom and we do keep the fence between them. Today they each went to their seperate area waiting for dinner to be served. Progress.

On April 3rd, we had our first beaver sighting this spring. It was a quick run out of the door, point and shoot photo. So nice to know that our beaver is still here.

They love to run around the yard. Fortunately they have no idea how to go down stairs, either here  down to the beach or from the house to the ground. We are not showing them how to do it. They already figured out how to climb up, it just happened. We prefer that they use the ramp, which they do very well and ever so quickly. Much better for their backs long term.

Is this ever going to end?

We have had really nice days but also cool times. We have had frost the last few mornings., -7C/19F. Pretty cold to take the girls out to do their business in the early hours of the day, such as 3:30AM. However yesterday they slept seven hours 😆 I can’t remember that last time I heard a chickadee. Yet one landed just a few feet from me the other day and we have one every morning in the big tree. We even have had a red wing blackbird a few times recently. So glad we got rid of the hedge  The Starlings nested there and took over our yard. They are bossy dominate birds. So happy to enjoy the songbirds including the robins. We were treated to a grand finale by the trumpeter swans the other day. Sad to say adios.

Love Carlie’s eyes.

We started to weigh the girls once we got back home. They were 1/2 lb apart six weeks ago and remain so. Carlie was first born and is the largest even though she was the runt of the litter. So many changes. It looks like Ciela is losing her tan headlight markings over her eyes and she is just a tad darker chocolate now. It will be interesting to see how they develop in the months to come.

Trying on their winter coats. Much too long to use now plus just getting them to walk on a leash with a harness is enough.

Everything is a game to them.

Today they opened our province up to those born in 1950 to get their vaccines.  I was able to register Colin and book a vaccine for him on April 27th. I could have got him in on the 20th but that was a 30 minute drive into Kelowna as opposed  to a 5 minute drive here in our area, Lake Country, which is only open two mornings per week.

With the new online register and book your appointment, this is all you need to take in now. I was able to register myself but have to wait until I get an email telling me it is my turn to make an appointment. My year of birth is 1953. Up until last week couples were going together no matter their age, but no longer

The love each other so much but I am happy to see them doing things on their own even in the same room.

Doxies really do love heat.

Ciela discovered the furnace vent the other day. Her ears are flopping from the hot air coming out of the vent. That is where she heads early in the morning. You can see how her tan marks above the eyes are not so visible.

Looks like Season Two isn’t going to win any awards either.

For those who missed my recent ‘catch up’ post please click here.

Sharing a few random photos. Some are related to the last post.

In my puppy class with Ciela we have 3 small ‘white’ dogs. This is a Labernese – 5 month old puppy in Colin’s class with Carlie. It was like a 5 month old large Saint Bernard puppy. Yet here they are nose to nose. Carlie is 11 weeks here.  There are three large dogs and a very expressive beagle, not quite a puppy class if  you ask me.  A Labernese is a cross between a Bernese Mountain Dog and a Labrador Retriver.

There are two window washers, this one inside ( we were all masked ) and one outside.

I confined the girls to a tiny corner of their usual space but they still had the run of the kitchen. They never even made a peep.

The next day they were confined yet again but in an even smaller area. See all the soot on the glass panels and the logs that Colin had to clean.

So today as they have been behaving so well we allowed them to sit in the sunny living room with supervision.

Colin took Carlie for a walk and under my supervision Ciela wrecked the window screen.  I only turned my back for a moment.

Sigh!!!

Then later Colin discovered that they had pulled this carpet and spilled the entire water dish on it as well as the floor. Very mischievous tonight.

We hope that you had as good of an Easter as the girls did.

Well over a year later and things are not getting better. It is up to each one of us to wear our masks  ALL the time and to social distance as needed. The variants are here.

The twins are keeping us so busy that we have very little knowledge of what is happening in the world nor with Covid. Not 100% accurate but we have almost no free time.  They remember everything and trust me they know exactly where to go should we leave an area unblocked. I cannot believe how intelligent they are. They are like sponges soaking everything up. They are growing on a daily basis not only physically but also mentally.

This is their bed in the crate. Somehow they have burrowed under the yellow blanket which is tightly covering the dog bed ( this one belonged to our last two girls ).  Burrowing is a new thing.

So that in part is why I have not posted in over 7 days. Certainly a record for me as somehow I manage to get posts out while we traveled in Europe. I also am feeling my age. As most of you know I am still receiving massage and chiropractic treatments as a result of being rear ended November 2nd, 2019.  Just this past March 19th ( Friday ) I was given new exercises to help strengthen my back. After two days I was in pain and I couldn’t sleep due to the pain in my arms and shoulders. Fortunately  I was able to get in to see the chiropractor on the 24th ( Wednesday ) and she really did make a difference although I still had pain. I was told that the exercises I had been give were much too advanced for me. On Friday, March 26th I got what I thought was a great massage to soothe my joints and muscles. I could barely get off the table and drive home 😯 The intense pain returned.  So I was out of commission for twelve days.

They really love to snuggle for naps. As you can see their noses are slowly getting longer.

I could not do anything. I could not pick up the girls, nor make meals.  We ate a lot of take out. Colin took Ciela to puppy class on Wednesdays and Carlie on Thursdays.  I was only able to sit as typing set my shoulders and arms into spasms of pain. I felt better yesterday ( April 1st ) and went for a family walk. I managed that but suffered for it all evening. I couldn’t even let my bra straps touch my shoulders. Today I am a tad better.

We call this their patio bed. They sleep in the sun often and just watch the lake.

So there you have it folks, the reason I have not been posting. Zip as in nada energy. You can ask Colin, everyday I said that I had to do a post no matter what, but between my body and various things happening I was unable.

They taught themselves in one afternoon how to go up our outside stairs and hence to jump up onto my exercise machine. We are not teaching them how to go down. We are trying to avoid stairs re future back issues.

This has become an early morning sunbathing area.

As well we had to deal once again with no propane delivery on the 31st which meant a long weekend with only 34% propane in our tank. It took me an hour on the phone but I did get a delivery today. Otherwise I would have not been able to use the oven, too much hot water nor do laundry re the dryer. Fortunately it has warmed up enough that we are no longer using the fireplace for heat several hours per day ( the girls love to lay under it ). Oh and then we had a problem with the fireplace and the tech was here for awhile.  However as he directed Colin to do all the dirty work (clean up all the soot), his bill was a bit less. I almost forgot, we also had the window cleaner here for the first time since last September, the windows now sparkle. The girls really did well with all these different people in the house.  I penned them into a smaller area and they went with the flow.

Over the past few weeks Colin has been pulling things out and setting up our yard.

He had to take time out to solder our mini fence lights that Ciela managed to chew through. We can’t be  everywhere although we try. All is working again.  However I had to get after her the other day as she was trying again. They are responding to us better this week, especially the ‘off’ and ‘no’.

We have  been without a landline phone for over a month now. I’m sure I addressed this in past blogs but long story short, the phone lines which were laid in the dirt over 46 years ago, have disintegrated. I have to say that Telus has been able to keep us going for the past two years with a variety of repairs. We have lived here since 2003 with mostly no issues. It took many calls to Telus in the past month on my part and from Colin as well to come to a solution.  With the permission of the park here, we had a conduit installed through two sites onto  our property. We actually paid the park to do the work, hopefully they will keep to their $200.00 quote.  Colin moved all the rocks along the patio so that helped keep the cost on the low side. That was completed today so now we have to wait for Telus to come and install a brand new telephone line for us. Hopefully within the next seven days. This will be at no cost to us so we have been told. Don’t bother with suggesting this and that. We love the system we have because when we are traveling, even in Mexico or Europe, when our phone rings here ( both the business and the personal lines ) if the caller leaves a voice message it comes directly through to our online voicemail.  That is how we got through these past weeks by being aware of emails indicating a phone call. A special thank you to Rod for sharing his expertise with us.

You see this type of thing in cartoons and on TV a lot.

First time in twenty years that this had happened to us.

It has happened a few more times. We have been trained to not let the the toilet paper dangle even an inch:)

So as you can see it has been a frenzied past few weeks. I want to thank those that reached out gently to make sure that we are alright. My apologies to Gramma Katie who finally set a fire under me.  She emailed me yesterday and later Colin to remind me that we have not posted since March 25th. She is missing her daily “Chokolade  news”. We love you very much Katie and Louie. Please excuse my not replying to your email but instead writing this post for you. Katie has been Gramma to our previous four doxies.  And of course she is Gramma to the chocolate twins.  Surprise to you both, you will be meeting your new grandpups between June 20th and 23rd when we come to Vancouver 😀  We are coming in the RV and staying in Fort Langley for four nights.  So if any of our friends want to meet up send me an email. Gramma Katie gets first choice of date.

The latest chew toy is Colin’s shoes.

So back to March 29th. It was four years ago this past March 29th that we said goodbye to Carmeh and Caeli. I am still crying as I type this. We miss them so much. But also on March 26th our ‘chocolate stash’ turned 12 weeks.  They have been with us now just over five weeks. Our hearts have been opened to them and we love them so much. They are unique not just because of their colour and the fact that they are twins, having the same mother and father. There is something so very particular. Watching these siblings grow and interact with each other and ourselves is truly fascinating.  Hopefully in the weeks to come I will be able to describe some of the things we observe.

Our last photo on March 28th, 2017 with Carmeh and Caeli.

A lovely evening last Thursday the 25th.

Thanks for sticking with me and the girls.

Sent to me by a blog reader. I love this. Anyone know where I can find a few.

Another blog reader send me this as a suggestion to put under our RV steps in Mexico. I love the carpet but not the price. Don’t you think it is the cutest?

Please get your vaccine when you can.  And then please continue to stay safe until is it the right time to take off your mask.  We still are not able to get our shots, hopefully in a few weeks.

…we crossed into Canada after a very long driving day. We had rushed to Canada from Mexico because of Covid. You can read my post here of our arrival into Canada.Who would have thought that here we are a full year later still wearing masks and having to follow restrictions?  It was just a few weeks ago that we were finally allowed to have up to ten people in our yard as long as they were masked and socially distanced. We were all so very hopeful that the virus would be under control quickly. The majority of us are still waiting for the vaccine. What does the future hold for us? The Canadian/US border is still closed, that has never ever happened before, a full year 😯  Many say that it will not open until the fall but with the variants who knows? We remain hopeful that by the end of October we can cross the border and travel to Mexico. But how will the variants affect us and the world? All we can do is to continue to take it one day at a time.

I celebrated the one year anniversary by painting my toes. I have not painted them since we arrived home last year. I am hopeful, so today was the day.

We are so fortunate that these two have come into our lives, just flour weeks ago. Our spirits have lifted and we have a bright future ahead of us even if we have to stay in Canada.

Our chocolate stash is always entertaining us. Every time that Colin gets on his knees they climb up:)

A week ago today we were treated to this lovely sunset. To me it shows the promise of things to come.