Little People Snuggles

Our youngest son and his family were here for four nights over the past weekend so hubby and I were treated to lots of little people snuggles from our two youngest grandchildren who are three and four. And as an added bonus our daughter and her family came out for Friday and Saturday night so we had some big people hugs from our four older grandchildren. The only thing that would have made the weekend better was if our oldest son and his family had been able to come, but I can’t be greedy 😀

There may have been a few pitchers of Sangria consumed 🙂

We came across an interesting sight during one of our evening walks. A group of campers in a double site had a sauna delivered for the duration of their visit and they gave us a tour. It is a pretty neat unit and costs $100.00 per day plus delivery. With our evenings cooling down a bit I’m sure they enjoyed it!

Last Wednesday we celebrated our 42^nd wedding anniversary the same way we have done many times before when we were still working … a glass of champagne around the campfire at Bear Creek Provincial Park. Things have changed a little, in past years I would be off on holidays but hubby would still go to work from the campsite and now we actually live here 🙂

We have had a bear in the park so I am now walking with my bear bells and bear spray and really wishing it would get lighter earlier. I have had to change the pattern of my walk because I don’t want to walk the beach and along the creek in the dark, but that means I miss seeing the sun rising 😦 Although we really haven’t seen the sun for the past week as we are smothered in smoke from the fires in Washington and Oregon.

But I did manage to get a few pictures last week 🙂

Oh and I had another highlight ths week as well … we are expecting our first great grandchild in November and our granddaughter invited me to her 3D ultrasound … it was so amazing to see our great granddaughter sucking her hand and sticking her feet in her face 😀 Yup we are young to be great grandparents but are so looking forward to having many years watching our great granddaughter grow up into a young lady.

Well that about sums up our last few weeks, I hope you are all staying healthy and safe!

Until next time …

Up Close And Personal With The Wild Animals

Guess what? No sunrise pictures this week 😀 Not that we didn’t have any sunrises, there just weren’t any spectacular sunrises this week.

So that of course raised the question of what to write about? It didn’t take more than a quick look through the pictures on my cell phone before I realized it was a week spent with wild animals.

Last Monday I spotted Barry Beaver on my morning walk, and while that isn’t unusual, that morning I was able to walk right up to him! I could hear him munching away on his tree branch and he wasn’t the least bit concerned that I was right in front of him taking pictures. The following pictures are grainy because I took them in very low light with my cell phone and had to play with them a bit to brighten them up.

A few days later we were visiting friends near by the park when the Mountain Sheep paid us all a visit, and they also came up nice and close.

Yesterday was another beach day and, since the park was filling up fast with visitors, we decided to go to a nearby beach about five minutes away.

While we were at the beach we were treated to a musical interlude by two Osprey. Again not a great picture because I took it with my cell phone … I really need to start taking my camera with me when we go out.

I hope you all have a great long weekend … and stay safe out there!

Until next time …

An Interesting RV Move

We had another stunning sunrise on Monday. As I was finishing my walk I noticed some pretty colours showing up over the lake.

So off I went back down to the lake and I sure wasn’t disappointed 🙂

I think I have mentioned the couple and their two children who lost their house in a fire last year. Well on Wednesday their new pre-fab home was delivered, but in order for them to unload the truck they had to move their RV off their property to make room. Hubby went over on Tuesday evening and moved them down to the park where they spent the night in the overflow parking lot. Then on Wednesday evening he moved them back up to their property … and that is were the fun began 😀

They have a very steep driveway but he managed that easily with the truck in four wheel drive, but once he got up to the flat area he wasn’t able to pull far enough forward to back the trailer into it’s new spot. Adding to the challenge was a very large hole that had to be left open for a sewer inspection.

But hubby is always up for a challenge and fortunately so is the owner of the RV! So RV owner hops into the zoom boom, which they had used to unload the house from the delivery truck, and between the two of them they were able to lift the rear end of the trailer up, move it over, and position is perfectly so that hubby was able to back it into it’s new home.

Once the foundation is done hubby will be helping them build their new house and we are so excited for them to finally have a house to live in again … it has been a long fifteen months for them but the end is in site.

And our week ended with fun time spent with friends of ours who were out at the park for three nights. We had a great time spending days on the beach and evenings chit chatting.

Until next time …

Baby Ogopogo

I have written a few times about Okanagan Lake’s legendary lake monster, Ogopogo, he is very famous and also pretty elusive. So imagine my surprise when I was walking along the lake early Wednesday morning enjoying another beautiful sunrise …

and I saw, what I was pretty sure was, baby Ogopogo!

I could see baby Ogo in the distance at the mouth of the creek … could it be I asked myself … no I must be seeing things … but it sure looks like a little Ogo … nah it can’t be …but maybe 🙂 So I took a picture and slowly ventured closer …

Okay maybe some very creative children fooled me but I’m happy going with my imagination and believing there is a future generation of Ogopogo living in Okangan Lake.

Yesterday I was once again walking along the beach early in the morning and guess what!!! Baby Ogo has really grown! At this rate we will have two full grown Ogopogo’s in Okanagan Lake 😀

And I will leave you with yesterday’s sunrise picture taken at the end of my morning walk.

Until next time …

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

I really have nothing to share this week. The last few weeks have been more of the same but I’m okay with that. We are healthy, safe, and have a nice little bubble of safe friends … life is good 🙂

A few weeks ago we rode our bikes up the hill to visit friends of ours who are rebuilding after a house fire last year. They have done a lot of work on their property getting it ready for their new house and took a much needed break for a little visit. We were all entertained by a baby Robin … mommy was close by watching over him.

My morning walks have been blessed with some beautiful sunrises. I know I bore you with a lot of sunrise pictures, but I just can’t get enough of them!

We did enjoy a great happy hour with Colin and Contessa of 5C’s Que Pasa. It was the only rainy wet day we have had in the last few weeks but it was still warm enough to sit outside and we managed to stay dry under our awning. The rain obviously didn’t put a damper on their visit as we talked for over four hours 😀

Not sure if this is Furb the owl but we did get to visit with him on one of our evening walks.

I often see people sitting here drinking their coffee early in the morning … not a bad place to sit 🙂

Last Monday we spent the afternoon on the beach near our old house with friends. Beach time was followed by a great dinner at their house.

I love my flip flop towel clips that another friend gave me. As I always say “life is better in flip flops”.

Those are hubby’s toes on the left 🙂

The next morning I was once again blessed with another beautiful sunrise.

Our Tuesday and Wednesday coffee groups have been meeting in a nice park near downtown Kelowna. It’s a great location with lots of shade, which we have definitely needed the last few weeks, lots of room to social distance, and we can ride our bikes there.

So that’s what we have been up to. I will leave you with this quote … Your not stuck at home, you’re safe at home. One word can change your attitude, one cough can change your life. Stay safe everyone!

Until next time …

Birds!

Well first it was the hummingbirds and now it is the Finch that are eating us out of house and home! Between the two sets of birds one of us might have to get a job 🙂

Along with our two hummingbird feeders we have always had a finch feeder hanging in the trees where we can see it from our outside chairs.

One morning we were watching the finch fly up to our windows beside the kitchen table. I think they were trying to get at the flowers on the table beside the window, hubby thinks they were picking bugs off the window. Either way we both thought we should put up a feeder in the tree beside the windows and see if they would come.

We had the feeder up for a least three weeks and never saw a single bird. We decided they must get scared off by us sitting at the table. But then one morning I noticed the food in the feeder was going down although we still hadn’t seen any birds. Eventually we noticed them at the feeder but they would fly away if we moved or got close to the window.

It didn’t take long though before they didn’t care if we were at the table or moving around, they happily munched away at the seed. Now along with filling our two hummingbird feeders every few days we are also filling this finch feeder every few days. They still eat from the other feeder hanging out front but not nearly as much as they do from the one by the kitchen windows.

Now they like to pose and show off while we eat our meals 🙂

Until next time …

Update

As of yesterday evening the fire remained at 3 hectares and is considered held. I’m glad all is right in our world however I do feel for others that are facing forest fires right now! You are in our prayers.

What’s a blog without a picture, I found this one that I took at Rotary Marsh when we were out for a bike ride a few weeks ago.

And what does it say about the wold we are living in when one of the essentials I packed was our supply of Lysol wipes 😀

Until next time …

Fire

So how do I follow a blog title “Sunrise” with pictures showing the beauty of an early morning sunrise in the Okanagan area of BC? Well I thought it was going to be with a blog called “Birds” but yesterday changed all of that.

Mid afternoon yesterday a forest fire broke out on the other side of the hill from our park. We were first alert by the sound of all the helicopters flying overhead and that was quickly confirmed by an article on our local on-line newspaper.

These pictures are of the scooper planes flying today, not yesterday’s helicopters.

Hubby, being the smart and concerned person he is quickly went over to the trail head parking lot to advise hikers of the fire and hopefully encourage them to find another place to hike. He was informed by a member of the BC Forestry Department that the fire was 600m from the end of the trail, so it seemed like he was doing the smart thing. Anyone who has been around forest fires, and we have been around our share, knows that all it takes is one tree to candle, the wind to shift, and the fire can jump or move a long way and in a total different direction.

I on the other hand, and because we have been evacuated before, packed up our most essential items just in case we were evacuated. If we had, notice I said had 🙂 , been evacuated I knew our time would be spent clearing campers out of the park and there would be no time to collect our important items.

Coming down to Okanagan Lake to scoop.

The wind continued to kick up all evening but overnight the crew was able to hold the fire and in fact was also able to take it down to 3 hectares from 5 hectares, although it is still considered out of control. It was a bit of sleepless night but things were looking good this morning.

Around 10:00 a.m. seven scooper planes flew across the campsite heading over the hill to continue fighting the blaze. After the 2003 forest fire that wiped out 239 homes in Kelowna, and when we were evacuated, they don’t mess around anymore!

The spray is the plane scooping and taking off again.

The fire is still to close for comfort in our opinion but they are working hard on it, so fingers crossed they will get it under control today.

Until next time …

Sunrise!

I couldn’t resist sharing our beautiful August 1^st sunrise with you. I took these pictures yesterday morning about 5:10 a.m.

Until next time …

A New Place To Walk

Hubby went up the hill to some friends of ours who live near the park. He was helping them out with something and I went along for the ride so I could see all the changes they had made. Since hubby was going to be there for a while I decided to walk back to the park. Now Westside Road is narrow and busy with traffic so I decided to walk down through some property owned by Tolko Forestry Products. This is just open land with a walk through gate providing access.

There were lot’s of wildflower in bloom and, although I didn’t get any pictures, the butterflies were everywhere!

While this is private property they have mowed some paths through the grass so that you can get up to the bluff that overlooks Okanagan Lake.

The flat area to the right on the lake is the campsite.

They have also cleared a narrower path down to what is left of the paved road which heads down the hill to the lake.

It was such a pretty walk back down to the lake where I ended up right at the beach beside the park. I am definitely going to do this walk again when the skies are bright blue.

At one time this property was for sale but I can no longer find a listing for it. We believe they were asking 12.5 million and it was only zoned for a single house.

Until next time …