Congratulations!!!!!!! We Bought Ourselves A S##t Hole.

So our renters asked if they could stay in our home until April 2nd. No problem. We are hanging out at Carrie's lake house until then. I had a nice sit in the sun last night.

Brad was helping Ellie juice some veggies for a drink.

She is such a sweet kid.

Dinner time she had a Second helping of Ruth's home made noodles.

Jack gave them the thumb's up.

So while we were away this winter we bought a town house next to a rental that Carrie and Brad own.

The value of theirs was being brought down because of the one we ended up buying.

It was rented to a couple of druggies who were bringing down the value of the whole complex.

Easiest fix was to buy their unit , fix it up and get some decent renters into it.

On Sunday Carrie and I replaced all the interior doors on the second floor.

It's hard to believe how some people live. 

All the doors were trashed as well as all the floors and holes were in every room's drywall.

Monday I reframed all seven doors. 

It's a pain having to walk downstairs every time I need to do a cut.

Tuesday I replaced all of the baseboards on the second floor.

 Carrie mixed up some grout to finish off the tile floors she put into the laundry room as well as two bathrooms.

She spent most of all monday laying new floors.

Brad spent Monday and Tuesday redoing electrical problems.

It's handy having an electrician in the family.

Brad and Carrie are taking tomorrow off but I hope to finish the baseboards before Wednesday is over.

On The Island Back To Kelowna.

We just hung out the last night at Sharon's

The boys were all playing together in the lot next to their house. 

If you can call this playing.

The 10 year old next door has built this fire pit to do experiments with. There is a bike pump set up on the far side going into the flame to help increase the size of fire needed. Yikes.

These kids are all under 10.

Young Jax held the salute until I finally said I had a good picture of him.

He is my favourite of the neighbour kids. He's unfortunately in the middle of a Chemo session.

Fortunately he is doing fine.

Max was doing an experiment  with a collection of house hold items.

Marty had dug this hole about 6 feet down yesterday but Chris made him fill it half in.

These kids have cool toys in the yard. Chris hung this rope swing a few years ago.

Here his bucket of Salt , Food colouring and who knows what else started to boil.

Jax wanted to see how high he can jump.

Sharon didn't seem too concerned but when Chris saw what was going on he went over to stop them.

Friday morning was the usual rush at Sharon's place. 

They were all gone by 8:00 and we headed to the ferry by 9:00. 

We met out 3rd daughter at Van Dousen Gardens for lunch. Miann is expecting in September . 

We are all so excited for her and Lindsey.

I wish she lived closer to us.

 She has been like a daughter since Carrie and Miann were in high school together.

The mountains felt good to be back into. Such a nice ride thru the Rockies.

We pulled into Kelowna by 1:00 Saturday afternoon. 

Our home is across the lake from the highway as we got to town. It is in the trees just left of the grape orchard in the centre of this picture.

Our renters asked if they could stay until next Thursday so I guess we will be hanging out at Carrie and Brad's until then.

Time On The Island

Our trip over on the ferry was non eventful . I slept most of the way in the coach.

Going thru customs they tagged the windshield meaning they wanted to give us a detailed inspection.

They made us stand out here in the cold and rain for about 25 minutes while they looked for any illegal goods we were sneaking in to Canada. Being the criminals we are they confiscated 2 apples. Ah ha. We knew you two were up to something. Meanwhile I caught a chill from shivering so much. Bastards.

Anyways , It's nice to be hunkered down at Sharon and Chris's place.

Chris is Program Director plus he wears many more hats for Camp Imadine .
They live on site .

They are right on the lake. It is beautiful here when it's not raining.

So on Wednesday morning I drove down to Sooke to see my old friend Peter and his wife Shauna. 

I haven't seen him for at least 25 years. It was a terrific visit. They bought an empty acreage in down town Sooke and constructed this shop for their business near the front of the property with their home on the back half.

The house is a beautiful building with lots of interesting art on the walls. I especially liked these metal pieces.

It's easy to spot a racing buff when they have a simulator in their spare room. 

Peter use to race Formula Ford's when I knew him back in Winnipeg.

Now he is involved with The world Chump Car Racing Series. https://www.chumpcar.com/rules.php

I took the scenic route home along the ocean to Port Renfrew . 

It took and extra 20 minutes but well worth it.

Lot's of skinny bridges to cross.

Gorgeous ocean views.

Many streams and rivers along the west coast of the island.

I was making good time until I got stuck behind this guy.

The girls were doing up some Dolphin fish that we brought from Florida.
 Chris and I don't like fish so I picked up a couple of steaks for us.

Chris slipped out into the forest for 20 minutes and returned with some fresh mushrooms to go with the steaks.
They were delicious.

I slept in Thursday morning while the girls went to town to do some errands and Chris went to work.

Their house is very cool. Very west coast.

I wandered around the property for about an hour checking out the sites. 

This is the main building where Chris has his office.

He has built many games areas for the kids in his 14 years at the camp. 

This is sort of a dodge ball pit.

A mini climbing wall for the little one's.

A more serious climbing wall for the bigger kids.

This is a new challenge coarse he built last year.

Three years ago he built a regulation BMX track.

I saw him driving the tractor towards the back 40 so I wandered over in that direction to see what he was up to.

He is building a rustic fort and needs / wants rough cut boards for it's constriction. 

He says the best way to get what he wants is to make them himself.

I wasn't watching Daisy too carefully . She found a mud puddle that seemed to make her quite happy.

Here Chris is set up with his portable mill cutting his planks.

This is the beginning of his fort.