THE THUNDERBIRD IS BACK IN THE HARBOUR

With the help of many wonderful friends in the marina, the Thunderbird has been launched. 

All it needs now is to complete the spruce up that Dan was working on and some "For Sale" signs.  Thank you so much to Boyd and Gayle Halliwell,  John West and Ed Lawrie for getting it there for me.

There is no way I can keep our beloved boat without "Captain Dan".  

TICKING OFF OUR LIST OF CHORES

Every year the old girl needs a refresh on her bottom paint and that is the chore that Dan has accomplished this week. 

It's a big job as it has to be scraped first then masked off and the whole bottom painted and ours is not exactly a small boat.  So that is done for another year.  She is almost ready for the water.  Just a few more chores and we will book our launch date.  

Meanwhile, I have been puttering with some yard sale, lawn furniture I picked up along the way, plus I have been filling planters, etc.  Anything to keep my mind off of my daughter's illness. 

All reno and other plans are now on hold and we will be having a relaxing DO NOTHING except what the mood strikes us kind of summer.  And will be following Tracy Elizabeth's lead.  

SO THAT IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN UP TO THIS WEEK.  

DAMAGE FROM FRIDAYS STORM

 We took a drive through the Gimli Industrial Park this morning to survey the damage, from Friday's storm, that we had already heard about.

 One huge tree uprooted on our way in.  

But this is hangar 1, that we heard lost it's entire roof.  They are not letting anyone too near so I can't see the damage.  But the road is closed and they are cleaning up stuff strewn everywhere.  

 Moving on to hangar 2, which is where our boat is stored.  It lost part of it's roof and is locked down and no one is allowed in until they get the power restored.  We are told that our boat did not receive any damage and it will be moved outside so Dan can finish prepping it for launch. 

 Down at hangar 4, we are told a boat on a trailer was pushed by the wind right through the fence and into the ditch.  This shows the damage to the fence. 

And last but not least. 

 Look what hapened to the old KA-CHING

 This boat used to belong to Marj and Al Homenick, then it belonged to Gord and Ellie Gowie.  

I don't know who it belongs to now, but that's not going to be a simple fix.  

THAT WAS QUITE A STORM

IT'S A SCORCHER HERE TODAY.

I've been whining and complaining for weeks about how cold it is.  This spring has been an interminable stop and start and stop again.  Well, we have had a few hot days this past week and today it is very very hot.  

My daughter has come out for another visit.  Just a break and a distraction before her surgery on Wednesday.  

This is the kind of HOT that triggers a thunderstorm, and of course, it did.  All hell broke loose Friday night.  It was a noisy windy night.  We got some hail and lost power here for about 5 hours.  But apparently, Gimli got it worse.  The hangars that we all store our boats in sustained some serious damage.  Hangar 1 lost the whole roof and hangar 2 where our boat is, lost part of the roof. Some boats were damaged, but we got lucky ours is fine.  The last we heard, the power is still out in the area, as a few poles are down, so we will wait till tomorrow to take a look.  And I will add any photos then. 

  

Saturday was cool and damp it took a long time for all that water to seep in.  We had puddles all over our whole yard. I got my little stacked pots planted. 

Well today the sun broke through and I got some more bedding plants planted, in my urns and in my little wagon, so at least I accomplished something and the weekend wasn't a complete washout.   

MAYBE SPRING IS TURNING INTO SUMMER

OUR WEEKEND AT THE LAKE

Two of our children came out to the lake for a visit.  So that made for a really full weekend for us. Our oldest daughter Tracy Elisabeth and our oldest son Jim spent the weekend with us.  It was a little windy and cool on Friday night, but we huddled around the campfire and had a great visit anyway.  

Elizabeth has been diagnosed with stage 3-4 Ovarian Cancer and is still in the investigation stage with a CT scan planned for Monday and surgery planned for the following week, so she was in charge of what she wanted to do, and this was the first thing on her bucket list.  " I want to sit around a campfire out at the lake".  She was hoping for a swim this weekend because once she has her surgery she will not be allowed in the lake for weeks and weeks.  It was much too cold for that. 

But they did get to go for a long walk and wonder the beach and talk and talk.  We Bar-B-Qed Steaks on Saturday night and drank and talked and talked well into the night.  

We all have some serious stuff to go through in the next little while, and we are going to have to gather around and help each other through it and acquiesce to Tracy's wishes.  

Sunday was a little bit cooler, so it was another day of having a few drinks, listening to some tunes and sitting around and talking and talking, but this time it was done indoors.  

And look what I got.  My son Jim, brought me this very unique birdhouse for my new deck.  Isn't it cute?  I just love it.  

 

After a nice dinner, it was time for them to pack up and head home.  All in all, it was a really nice weekend although the sad news is never far from our minds.  

 I think we all felt a bonding and supportive attitude that we can lean on.  So that was our Sad/Happy weekend.