Oregon Living 2023 – Blog #34 – A BBQ and a Birthday Picnic

 

 

Sunday, August 6^th., 2023…… We woke up after a great night’s sleep! Don’t know if we were relieved after the car deal or what, but we both felt great! We walked and fed the pups and Cathye made breakfast before heading off (in her new car!) to church. I hung around the house today and worked on my checkbook and the last blog and got that posted. Then I turned on my taped Nascar race and looked through the Buick owner’s manual while I relaxed. I think I figured out a few things. But boy – there are tons of features that I knew very little about!  More reading to come!     

Monday, August 7^th., 2023…… We headed off to the gym after feeding the dogs. We needed to go to the store to pick up a few things for later tonight. The job today was to clean up the deck and make sure everything was watered. Since the deck construction, we have areas now that water isn’t hitting. We lost the one main garden line around 50% of the house so I have tried to adjust the lawn sprinklers to reach those areas. But it’s not working out too well. We’ve hired the irrigation guy and we do have a date now when he is coming to install everything – not until Sept 11^th!  I just hope we have thought of everything and that he will be able to get it all done before fall. The deck cleanup is because we are having some guests over for a bbq tonight. Laurie, Melinda, & Teri and Ron are coming over. We got everything done and Cathye even had time to run into urgent care at her doctor’s office to have her knee checked out. She twisted it doing something she can’t remember doing!  She did only exercises today at the gym that didn’t put any strain on her knee. But, she’s been in a knee brace and wanted to make sure it was nothing serious. It wasn’t. Just needs time to recover. Laurie and Melinda came together. They and Teri all are or were health care providers. Ron and Teri just got married last week. Teri came a few minutes later. She was by herself. Ron has had some issues with dizziness lately and had another bout earlier today so he decided to stay home and rest. Cathye and I had put the boneless ribs in a water bath and had them in the oven at 250° for a few hours to pre-cook. They were then dumped in a bbq sauce mixture to marinate a bit and were ready to bbq. I had also gotten everything to make my ice cream sandwich dessert for after. We had an hour or so to have a few drinks and relax out on the deck. They each brought dishes to share and we certainly had a great meal!  It was a fun evening and I think everyone enjoyed the fun. We had so much fun we forgot to take pics! The only one…

Tuesday, August 8^th., 2023…… The weather is still hot. Mornings are perfect though for our walks. The girls perk up when it’s time to go. It’s not a long walk but it gives them a chance to get out and explore the sights and smells a bit. We got back and fed them and had breakfast before leaving to get our haircuts. Dianna schedules us together and we try to get the first appointments of the morning.  We were in and out pretty quickly and had the rest of the day. We had no plans so Cathye asked Judy if she wanted to go to Dietrich Farms again to check on the peaches. She went and picked her up in the new car and they had a nice outing. Meanwhile, I worked a little on the spa cover. We have discovered that there is a crack in the metal arm on the lift cover mechanism. I think I can add a piece to reinforce it. I have material and cut and fitted and painted up a couple of arms and got those installed. It works! At least so far.

We may need to come up with another plan or look into buying another complete system for the cover.  Later in the evening, Cathye headed up to meet with Judy at Academy Square for another concert in the park. I passed. When she got home she said it was pretty good and they had a good time. TV and spa and then bedtime.     

Wednesday, August 9^th., 2023……  Not much on the list today. Cat is waiting for mail order prescriptions that are slow in coming and was on the phone with them while I went online to see if I could find and order a few things for our ebikes. I looked into a communication system so we can talk to each other while we ride. Sena has them built into their helmets but also offers a unit that retro fits. Since we have helmets we like, I chose to order the aftermarket product, even though they are a bit pricey ($99.ea!). Reviews looks good so I sure hope they work as advertised! I also want a pannier bag for my ebike. We are planning on using them in a few weeks so we need quick delivery for both items. I found a bag I liked and ordered it. Both the headsets and the bag will be here tomorrow with Amazon Prime!   

Thursday, August 10^th., 2023…… We had nothing on the list for today. We walked and fed the dogs then headed off to the gym for our workouts. After that, we went over to Kristi’s for breakfast. After that, we spent most of the day inside. Cathye will make sliders for Misty’s  birthday party tomorrow but I wanted to make my death by chocolate for her as well and needed to do that today. Cathye made the brownies and the mousse and they needed to set. Once everything was together, it only took a few minutes to assemble.

Later, I went out and got the bicycles out and got the batteries charged up. We plan to take them when we go to Crater Lake in a couple of weeks. I needed to air up the tires but I think they are good to go. The items came in today and I struggled to get the radios paired up with Bluetooth and then to each other but I finally figured that out and we are good to go! The bag was a little smaller than I expected but I think it will work well (Cat already has a bag on her bike) for stuff we need when out on longer rides.

Tv and spa before calling it a night.      

Friday, August 11^th., 2023……  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISTY!  Today we are going to Misty’s 50^th birthday party at Foster Lake. They decided that since it’s still super hot, they would do a beach day at the lake. We brought out and loaded the truck with the sliders, the death by chocolate, our chairs, and some drinks and headed out. It wasn’t too crowded and we got good parking and got unloaded and helped others with their gear. I think there were a total of 4 kayaks and 4 float tubes. While others would use them, we would be content to just swim in the lake. They had a nice spot in the trees with the water only about 90 feet away. It was a fun day!  The food was really good and the water was a little cool but once you got in, it was great! Next time I might just bring the boat!  

 We left in time to get back and feed the girls. We needed to water since the sprinklers are goofed up right now. The weather is in the 90s. I think I saw it would be over 100 next week! Wow!    

Saturday, August 12^th., 2023……  Been watching the Lahaina fire the last couple of days. I feel so bad for everyone over there! Prayers being sent out! It is really hard because my whole family was there for our 50^th back in 2018. I revisited a few pictures of us in the town. One of my favorite spots was Cheeseburger in Paradise, right on the water.  We took pics of it and of us on the upper deck stairs.

 

 

We saw it when they panned the waterfront on one of the news show. It’s gone. So sad…

The old giant banyan tree

was hit hard.

 

But, they say it might come back. Sure hope so. Again, prayers to everyone there.

We had a few things to do this morning. I needed to clean the bbq. Cathye decided to clean the oven today. I got my job done while she read the directions for cleaning the oven. I helped get the racks out and we cleaned them in the sink while the stove was on auto clean. While that was going on, we decided to leave and head over to Stayton. We are looking to buy the material for the bar we want to build. This is going to be over 12’ long and will be installed across from the bbq. I had asked Russ a few days ago where he got the tongue and groove for the patio roof. We will use three of those for the build. He said from his supplier in Stayton, so we took the truck, along with my saw and headed out. They had what we needed and let us go through the pile to pick out what we wanted. We cut the boards down to 12’ 6” and that made them easier to load in the truck for the 20 minute drive home. 

When we got back home, we took one of them over to the deck and saw how it would look. I think we are both anxious to see this job get finished! I hope to start work on it on Monday. We finished up the day just kicking back around the house, watching tv and staying cool. I asked Cat if she would like to go out to dinner and we did. We decided to go look into Kento Hibachi Express.  Our friend Rick, from Kevin’s, left there and bought the place several months ago. But this was our first time. We will definitely go back! The food was really good and it was nice to see Rick again!  

We came back home and watched tv until it was time to go out to the spa. We forgot to put chemicals in so we did that tonight and so we decided to pass on the spa time. Definitely tomorrow!