Deck the Halls, A Prime Rib Birthday Supper!

Park Place RV Park

On Saturday, Dec. 2^nd  it was another cool start to the day. The days have been cooler also but still, how bad can 67F/19C be under sunny skies in the winter? 😊 We’re not complaining. By Tuesday, we’ll be back up to 75F/24C for a few days. A note last night from my travelling sister said they were keeping warm with their propane heater and my daughter stayed warm dancing up a storm at a familiar Legion where Chris was playing!  ♥ Everyone is doing fine no matter the weather.

The day started like this.

When I got decorations and the tree out,
the Supervisor was quiet but watchful.

Back here, Bill went flying. Gibbs and I went for our walk and then I got out the Christmas decorations. Time to get festive! It didn’t take too long, with the holiday tunes playing on Sirius XM, I was finishing up by the time Bill got home around 11. I love getting all of our special things out and they all have a home in this small little house of ours. 😊 I was happy to let Giggles and Jolly out of the cupboard, they’ve been hibernating up there.

Before and after
We turn our coffee table at the end of the island
for obvious reasons.

A view inside the Suite all festive.

We had lunch and then around 1, I wandered over to see what puzzle the girls had started. Turns out it was one of the teeny piece ones so I sat and worked on it until the music jam folks were ready to begin. They have quite a group of interested musicians. Back home, Gibbs and I went for an early walk and I mixed together a cole slaw for supper. Bill and I packed a cooler of drinks and the salad and left Gibbs in charge around 4.

Last winter, I ordered these special ornaments.
My siblings and I, Bill's siblings and him

The Supervisor has approved, can't you tell
from the look? 😂

I worked on the teeny puzzle for an hour 
The pieces are 1/2" in size. I need magnifiers to look at the picture!
The other ladies are younger than I am, what a challenge!

Gary and Judy, our Alberta friends, are camped at La Posa South and Judy invited us out for Gary's birthday supper. Who could turn down prime rib but that isn’t the reason we wanted to go. Turns out (my memory was a blur) we haven’t seen them since the winter of 2020/21. 

The whole meal was awesome but that
prime rib was to die for! Yummy!
Judy also home made the rolls - no bread maker. Show off! ♥

Gary's birthday cake, no candles
but a cute heart in the icing. 

We enjoy their company and had a great meal and fun few hours with them, sitting outside on their covered patio. It was 7:30 when we left for home and we were VERY grateful for Black Beauty’s cookies to follow out. 😊

Happy Birthday, Gary!
Thanks for letting us share it with you both.

Judy helped us (me, mostly) with the final steps to get myself set up to watch my programs again. We ended the evening sitting around their propane fire. Sue got Bill set up but I needed to download Surfshark on my profile too, in order to have the same access. 😊 Thank you, Judy, I watched 2 episodes last night before bed. 

Nice and cozy under the awning and wind/sun screen.
The Albertans were in shorts. 😃

This was a wonderful day and now we’re ‘dressed’ for the season. This paragraph is for fellow desert campers. Mostly boondockers an update. We drove into Tyson Wash to see the 'new' water and dump station. It has been a discussion since last spring that they are closing the dump station at La Posa South LTVA because the tanks are beginning to leak. From our friends we've learned that the new stations will be opening in January, not December as previously rumoured. The delay is because of the required time in order to fill the in-ground tanks to be ready for 'customers'. There aren't 10 but at least more than La Posa South had. 

Top pix shows 4 dump stations
Bottom pix shows 8 taps available for water fills.

Good night!

Thank you for the pop in!

Wonderful Day for Selling, Lazy Times, Happy Hour in Town, Supper Treat

Home on the Ridge

When I woke on Sunday, June 23^rd I was closer to my ‘wake up’ alarm time than I’ve been recently. It was 5:58 am so I quickly and quietly reached up and turned it off. My bedmates were still sleeping. I know Bill moved and so did Clemson but it wasn’t to get up, just a roll over. I got dressed and slipped out of the bedroom to wash and brush my teeth. I was out the door on this absolutely beautiful morning by 6:15.

Transferring water from the bladder
Bill could do with his eyes closed, I think

It was 57F/10C balmy degrees outside and the sun was turning this into another perfect day.  Driving to Durham was uneventful, which is always nice with so many critters around, and town was mostly still sleeping. I took care of business, literally, and was out of there in an hour. It was quite warm inside the closed doors and once more, I was alone the whole time. There is a small portable radio in the Mat and that is my company.

I can't get enough of my irises

When I returned home, our guests were still in their Journey and Bill was sitting at his laptop. He said he actually slept until 7 ish. Apparently, Clemson was up at 2 so no wonder they were both still sleeping when I left. I went to bed just after I posted my blog last night and Clemmy had been up there for a couple of hours already. Without taking him out to go piddle once more, Bill wasn’t too surprised that he was awake in the wee hours. Our fault.

Too soon they will all be drooping from the top heavy weight

I made my tea and took it outside but sitting in the King Chairs, I was soon cooking. No IP required! So, I moved to the shade and before too long, Kim and Ken came out to join me. Bill was down in the Hangar starting to measure and cut some of the inner door pieces. Around 11, Bill and Ken went to town, to the Home Hardware. One more small thing he needed and he came back with it plus his trim paint. That should look nice!

Because our buyer was generous in his offer, I gave the kayaks
and extra little bit of detailing before he arrived

We sat around and shot the breeze and after I went in for my shower, I made Bill his breakfast. I had a banana and yogourt myself, not feeling ready for the whole gamut yet. We decided to go get water from the Acreage so once Kim and Ken had their brunch, we all went over in Black Beauty. It is a nice piece of property too and we’d talked enough about it that were curious to see it for themselves. No one was around as Donna had gone into town to see Mom.

Dylan and Bill loading the kayaks in his vehicle

 We didn’t dally and we were soon on our way back home. In the meantime, I had communications plus *pings* going on on my phone. Remember that we are still trying to sell things. Once putting it on FB Marketplace, it has been a busy little hub. The fellow for the generator was supposed to be coming from London but we never heard from him. Figures, but I wasn’t counting on him 100% anyway. The good news is that the young fellow who responded about the kayaks a week ago, was still in touch with me.

He didn't even need to use the roof rack

Today, he arrived as scheduled, right on time and what a nice young man he was. Pleasant and courteous and grateful. We all agreed that he was the perfect customer. He almost tipped us $25 simply because he didn’t have the exact change. I’m happy that I had enough to reimburse him. 

Someone is happy for the food

After he left, my boss, Jamie, showed up with his wife and daughter and paid me for the week's work. Jamie admits to being a ‘flatliner’ (non-excitable person) but he had been celebrating his retirement all weekend.  It was a brief chat and they were off. When I said he could sleep in on Monday, Cheryl, his wife, said she has his 'list' all made out. Ha ha.

Cheese!

Our hosts, enjoying the company

 Bill, Ken, Kim and I were invited in to Rob and Pat’s for Happy Hour today so we loaded into Ptooties with our coolers and drove into Durham for 3 o’clock. It was beautiful sitting outside on their patio under their brilliant red umbrella. As usual, when we’re altogether, we had a great time until shortly after 5 when it was time to go.

Ken is a more serious Ken here
and Kim was being silly

Tonight, for our meal, we were being treated a bit like Royalty. Kim and Ken are cooking for us. When I offered assistance, I was told that I just needed to sit and relax. 😊

Eating outside, which Bill and I don't do often
It was nice for a change - bug-free

They prepared 2 racks of pork back ribs in their Instant Pot and served it with Caesar salad (our favourite salad) on the side. Wow! It was delicious! The ribs were exactly as we’d expect them to be, mouth-watering and fall off the bone yummy. Kim said she was a little nervous (as you are when feeding company) that they turn out. With no bugs around us and such a lovely day, we ate outside at my ‘free’ table. It was quite warm inside both of our units. Everything was very good.

Guess who is buying ribs more often?

We all agreed that it was a good night for a campfire, so while I was cleaning up inside, Bill started a fire in our pit. The wind had died, what little there was and then it was time for dessert. I decided on ice cream cones, save the dishes, and the boys had Black Cherry and us girls had Butter Pecan. That was a nice treat too. Clemson squirreled around at our feet hoping for hand-outs, which he didn’t get.

Chapman's ice cream!

It was around 10:30 when Bill stirred the fire and we said goodnight. With expected rain tomorrow, we thought it wise to put our cloth chairs away. 

The sun began dropping during supper

I knew this post wouldn’t get finished at that time so I took my book up to bed instead and read a couple of chapters before sleepiness overtook me. Bill had dropped off almost immediately. What a wonderful day! We are really enjoying having our friends here for a few days and are in no hurry to see them leave.

It was another great day at the Ridge with friends

See you tomorrow!

Thank you for your visit too!

The Day is Looking Good! Hanover, Owen Sound, Chatsworth, Montana's

On Friday, Sept. 1^st I woke up at a few minutes before 8 and remembered why. Bill was already up and I assumed Clemson was too. When I got up and started making the bed, a little bump rose up from under the covers. I didn’t even see the little guy in the bed and Bill said he had crawled under at 1 and didn’t move all night. Once I finished yesterday’s posts we sat and enjoyed our morning indulgence of tea/coffee and reading blogs.

I was remiss in showing the other lovely haircut in the family
So here is Bill modelling his

I had prepared a Breakfast Casserole yesterday afternoon and since we were still plugged in from late yesterday, I put it in the oven around 9:15 for an hour. By the time our guests rose and were ready to eat, it would be ready to fulfill. 

Breakfast

Never made this one before so once again I hoped it turned out okay.

A nice walk down the lane before noon hour

At 10 I texted Brenda and Randy and informed them that breakfast would be ready at 10:30 and they soon arrived at our door. They’d had a bit of a chilly night but only because they were timid at turning the heater up too much. We advised them that it was there to use and to be sure to crank it tonight if necessary. The casserole turned out okay, and we cleaned it up all but a small dish.

I removed my garden sheets from the tomatoes and gathered today's fare

After much discussion about dishes, whether to put them in the dishwasher and add the supper dishes later or washing them up right away, Randy offered to take us out to supper. Voila! decision made, we took care of them right away. I have made up a dessert for later.

Brenda's van

We lazed around for a while, inside and out and around 1 we drove our guests into Hanover. Donna and Gerry hadn’t seen Brenda for a while and they had never met Randy so we stopped in at their house. After a tour and a nice visit we stepped outside to check out the scaffolding that was up at the side of their house. It was there to fix a problem with solar panels but was blocking their HDTV reception from the satellite dish.

Gerry doing pretty good on his crutches

Bill checking the location of the platform and bars of the scaffolding

Conclusion: satellite is blocked by the bars

We thought we could alleviate the problem one way or another but to no gain, we said our goodbyes and headed home. Again, with some nice relaxing time we were situated at our patio table for Happy Hour with new happy people! The wind was a bit on the cool side but the sun was gorgeous.

Brenda and I had some fun looking through my 1927 Eaton’s catalogue. Bill got his drone out to show Randy and took a few great photos. It was an awesome day and as always, we had lots of laughs. 

Taken from the drone

We cleaned up a bit and drove to Kettles, the north side of Chatsworth for supper. It didn’t take long after seeing the full parking lot and the lineup of patrons to know we wouldn’t wait. From there we carried on the short distance to Owen Sound and found a Montanas.

Do they look relaxed and happy or what? Even Clemson looks happy!

We walked right in and had a lovely meal in the dining area as opposed to the busy noisy bar side. Bill and I had pork ribs and they were very good. It didn’t take long to fill me with ribs, baked potato, cole slaw and cornbread so brought half home. My marguerita filled part of a belly hole too but it was delicious!

Flower in Donna's garden

Thank you, Randy for the surprise treat! We stopped in at my sister Gayle’s place on our way home.

sorry for the blurry photo

 Just a brief hello so Brenda could see their house too and introduce her boyfriend. By the time we were driving home on the country roads, it was dark with the exception of the bright moons glow.

Leaving Montanas as the sun was setting

I popped the strawberry rhubarb crisp in the oven and within an hour we were eating dessert with ice cream. At 10 o’clock! Oh well, we can do what we want. By 11:30 we were fading so said our goodnights and went off to our respective rooms. They had turned the heater up more so hopefully will have a better sleep.

Drone pictures 

Bill and Randy flying the drone

This was a great fun filled day and I hope yours was as well.

Thank you for stopping in!