It has been a busy week getting ready to return to Guanajuato.  Aimeé’s immigration file suddenly became active with requests for a medical and for a police certificate.  With only a week left in BC I was worried about getting it all done.  Fortunately all went well and was finished on Wednesday.

There were other tasks to get done such as taking the old windows to the transfer station, storing all my scrap wood, and tidying up the garden.  All my TODOs were completed as of yesterday.  Today is rainy and lazy.

Tomorrow afternoon we catch a bus to the ferry, then Skytrain to stay with friends in Coquitlam.  Our flight to Ottawa leaves Wednesday morning and our flight to Mexico leaves on October 21, giving us about 10 days visiting in Ontario.

Our Guanajuato rental starts on October 22 and we plan on staying five months, returning in March.  The Cervantino festival will be occurring when we arrive and we’ll be going to performances with Blair & Jennifer from Vancouver, who arrive the same week.

November and December are good months to be in Guanajuato.  I’m looking forward to sunny days and getting lots of exercise, walking everywhere and attending cultural events, not to mention the Mexican food.

new neighbourhood dock

We are having a heat wave and it hasn’t rained since July 9.  Our days are lazy as the big projects are done around the house (windows, deck, staining) and it’s too hot to be very active.  He try to run or bike in the mornings.

Today we used the new neighbourhood dock for the first time.  The old rotten, sinking dock was removed in May and the new one was built and installed this week.  You can see that it is fantastic and we hope that it doesn’t become a destination for the general public.

zucchini plants

tomatillo plant

Aimeé’s garden is feeding us well: snow peas, beans, zucchini, a few herbs, and tomatoes coming.  This tomatillo plant is impressive as are the zucchini plants.  The zucchini flowers add an interesting flavour to quesadillas.

It has taken the partners until now to be ready to order the roofing materials for the cabin.  The order will be placed tomorrow and materials will be delivered within two weeks.  The the next and final large project for 2018 will begin.  Sure hope it cools down and stays mostly dry.

That was fun!  None of the original structure was sound except for the front posts (which are not structural).  I decided to reuse the railings which maintains the original look & feel of the deck.  Below are a few pictures of the construction.

0ld deck gone, footings dug

beam, ledger, siding below

new and old deck boards

Front garden late afternoon May 15, 2018

Time is flying by and it’s great to be busy working around the house.  The weather in April was ugly enough so as to appreciate the gorgeous days we are having in May.  We swam in the lake a couple of days ago albeit with wetsuits.

My house was built in the early 60’s in Richmond and sometime in the early 90’s someone moved it to Garden Bay.  It’s fun to imagine the process.  Even stranger was that the neighbour across the street knew the house growing up in Richmond.

My first house project this year was to prepare to replace all the windows.  The 2nd generation windows are non-thermobroken aluminum.  There are leaky and they sweat in cold weather.  To measure the replacement windows I had to remove the current ones and cut away the concrete-like drywall.  This took the right tool and lots of time as I could only work in days without rain.  The new windows have been ordered so on to the next job.I’ve been staining the sides of the house one side at a time.  This year I’m doing the side where the electricity wires attach to the house.  I have prep’d and stained as much as I dare working around the live feed.  Next step is to schedule a day to turn off the power and finish the job.  I have also finished staining half of the back siding.The house came with a really nice back cedar deck but the house inspector told me that the joists were badly damaged by insects.  The repair/replacement job has been on the list since the beginning and yesterday I committed to getting it done.  First step is to dismantle, saving the cedar deck boards for possible reuse.  Once I can see exactly what’s there I’ll be able to design the repair.  If at all possible I don’t want to remove the exterior frame and railings.

Happy to be busy and to have the time to putter away, working a few hours every day while not ignoring Aimeé and other activities, such as gardening.  My garden is coming along nicely and a real joy.  I received 15 young rose plants in April and had to be creative to find good spots for all of them.  That’s a sign that the garden is quite full but I’m not done yet 🙂