Home Works and Play...

.........and we accomplished a bit of both this past week.  The home works included the last sizable project to completing our back yard renovation. And play....?  Well, read on to find out about that.

Filling the new planters with nice soil from a local supplier.

I built one of our large planters late last summer and the other one was completed only a few weeks back.  With our utility trailer in tow, I made two trips to a local soil supplier and ended up shoveling  one square metre of loam into the planters.

Brie offers to help me move these 6' Emerald cedar trees to the back yard.

I moved 15 cedars to the planter below and another 11 to the planter on the opposite side of the yard.

Ready for planting.

Early one evening, Jeanette and I spent several hours digging, planting and watering the new 6' Emerald cedar trees.

Nicely planted.....

With Brie and Easton over for Thursday and Friday (while their mom was still busy in Egypt), we organized a lot of fun activities.  One of their favourite is plying through the strawberry planter and collecting all of the ripe fruit.  Most of the fruit is ingested on the spot....LOL!

We know that if Owen were here, he too would be first in to the strawberry patch and picking a fair number of berries for himself.  But he does stay busy helping his mom and dad with their Edmonton, Alberta home based projects.  Here is a recent photo of him outside helping out.

"Hey.....have Brie and Easton save some of those strawberries for me.....!"

Jeanette in her kitchen

Easton is busy with a little project.

And Brie discovered this loud toy.......

Our little house guests kept us busy.  And once they were down for the night, Jeanette and I would realize just how tired we could be looking after those two all day long.  It is a pleasant and rewarding  tired though!  We do enjoy our little house guests.

Ginette (their mom) returned from an incredibly great business trip to the Luxor region of Egypt last (Sunday) evening.  Thrilled to be back, her two kids are even more thrilled.  Easton was with his dad to pick up mom at the airport.  Ginette laughed when she explained how she tackled Easton to the floor and overwhelmed him with hugs.  Brie was already asleep at home by the time the family returned from the Vancouver airport. She woke up on Monday morning to find her mom by her bedside. That moment would have been a golden photo.  She was so thrilled to see her mom.  She will not leave her side in the hours and days ahead, we imagine. 

Easton was up for a bicycle ride so off we went....

Easton also helped his Nana peel the shells on these hard boiled eggs.

Brie has just discovered and enjoys riding the little John Deere tractor around the house.

Yard works are very near completion

Other than a few smaller projects, the back yard renovation is pretty well finished.  

Saturday evening, Jeanette was off to join her nursing alumni friends at a house warming.  I, on the other hand, layed back in the early evening enjoying the quiet on our back yard deck.

I like this boot planter.

And the flowers in bloom add such nice colour

The privacy and greening afforded with these 6' Emerald cedars really completes our objectives.

Sunday was reserved for a well earned motorcycle ride.  We chose to head south of the 49th parallel and into Washington State.  Our goal was to ride up towards Mount Baker, Silver Lake, Mosquito Lake canopy road, Acme, along Whatcom Lake, along the seashore and up the truly nice Chuckanut Road that would lead us back into Bellingham, along the seashore.  And we did just that!  Scenic Drives | Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism

Heading towards Mount Baker.

Traveling the little  back roads towards Silver Lake.

At Silver Lake

Canada Geese enjoying their Sunday too.

Now....this is something we have not seen before.  We counted 19 goslings with the two parents.

The foot bridge over one part of the lake.

Checking out the scenery from the foot bridge.

Local flora

Another view from the Silver Lake lodge looking north towards the far end of the lake.

A lovely view of Mt. Baker along the route.

It was just past 1:00 pm when Jeanette and I emerged from the curvy and beautiful Mosquito Lake road.  Motorcycling though there is such a thrill.  The mostly canopied road offers nice cooling on a super hot day; such as it was on Sunday.  

We rolled into the tiny (and I mean really tiny) hamlet of Acme, along Highway 9 south.  It was here that we enjoyed a first class all day breakfast in this incredibly awesome diner.

Check out those omelets.  In fact, that is far too much food for us.  Next time, we'll order one meal and two plates.

Stuffed to the gills, we left Acme to continue further south on Highway 9 before turning west on a  road I well know from many years of motorcycling these parts.  Park road took us south of the city of  Bellingham and through beautiful mountain and lake countryside

Beautiful countryside.....so well enjoyed from the seat of our motorcycle.

This place, on Park Road, south from Bellingham, WA, brings back fond memories.

A little side bar story about the building in the photo above.  For many years, this building housed a motorcycle shop.  It was a go to place for motorcyclists who rode cruiser style bikes such as ours.  The owners, who had worked for NASA, bought this little place and converted the main floor area into a motorcycle clothing and accessories store while Bob, the engineer that he was, operated a Harley Davidson custom service in his shop at the back of the building.  This was a popular gathering spot for so many American and Canadian motorcycle enthusiasts.  The coffee was always fresh and the ice cream flowed non-stop.

A few years back, Bob, the co-owner, suffered a massive heart attack and died.  His wife tried so hard to maintain the business but without Bob's expertise on the motorcycle maintenance side, it proved difficult to continue operating.  She made the difficult decision to close the store and shop.  She continues to live there.

Losing Bob and the store - officially titled 'The Scooter Store' - was a sad thing for many of us.  Riding by here on Sunday brought back so many truly fine memories of a truly nice couple and a great hideaway location.

The one constant in life is CHANGE.  And change occurs all the time, whether we like it or not.

Riding the shoreline along the Chuckanut Drive - south from Bellingham, WA.
Scenic Drives | Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism

Having crossed back into Canada by 5:00 pm, we rolled into our garage only five minutes later.  It was a first class day, weather wise.....and riding wise.  Such a treat!

So....this week will see us return to our normal routine.  With Ginette back from Egypt, we know we will see the grand kids on occasion but we are now free of our previous Thursday and Friday babysitting duties (including a sleepover) going forward.

Checking out calendar, we find it is getting penciled in with a lot of commitments.  We will not be bored.

And that colours our past week.

Thanks for dropping in.