This Raccoon dilemma turned into a full summer off fixing and renovations. The Ins Company, replaced the roof, decontaminated the attic, and replaced the contaminated insulation, they replaced soaked ceiling board, and re-stippled the ceiling in two rooms, and in the process, damaged the wall paper, and had to strip the whole kitchen, and ended in replaced one wall with wall paper as a feature wall. Just before all of this Hector had said the roof needed redoing, and had thought he should stipple the kitchen ceiling to match the other room, and I knew the wall paper needed to be removed, it was coming loose, and turning yellow and the floor desperately needed re-doing.... So, most of the work we needed to do got done for us. The Ins. Co. required the rooms to be empty to work in them, so they paid us to pack, move, and unpack. The floor wasn't part of their work, so we did that our self.
This shows the old and new flooring
Here Hector, (his brother) Fargo, Ronald, and Jadon were working on the new floor.
Big Helper Boy!!
The finished product, cupboard doors still to go back on.
A long trip for a little boy...
they drove from Nebraska to Alberta
where he got to meet some of his extended family.
Here he gets a big smooch from Great Auntie Violet.
(my mom's sister)
Here he meets Great Aunt Ebba, a cousin from my dad's side.
She turned 104 in October, Se doesn't see well,
but she was very thrilled that Jadon came to meet her,
and talked about it for the rest of the summer.
What else to do, on an Okanagan summer afternoon?
"Will someone please pass me the get out of jail free card?"
July 15 2012,
Jewel our second grandchild arrived!!
She weighed in at 4lbs 12oz
she was tiny, but healthy!!
she is the daughter of Edgar and Jaki Wolford
10 years ago when Edgar came from Uganda, for schooling,
he stayed with us, and has been part of our family ever since.
We attended Edgar and Jaki's wedding
in Fort Portal, Uganda, in 2011,
and are delighted to be Jewel's Canadian Grandparents.
Is that tiny little wiggly bundle really my cousin?
Mommy and Grandma went shopping at the fabric store,
and I get to unpack!!
Auntie Darla lives next door, but I am not sure I like her!!!
Darla's Birthday is 2 days after Ronald & Royce,
so we celebrated together. Notice the age....??? (thanks Mai)
When Auntie Mai got home from summer school she was looking forward to some Jadon time. So on August 1st, we double dated with Ronald and Tiffany, for a dinner cruse on Lake Okanagan, This is actually the historic "Fintry Queen" our cruse was on a large houseboat. The food was good, and we had a nice evening.
Jewel came for a visit, but we didn't disturb her sleep
to try on the doll sized dress that I had made for her.
She grew quickly so her mommy has saved
it for her future dolls.
Finally August 11, the whole family was able to be together,
Uncle Royce officiated at the dedication
of Ronald and Tiffany's hearts
to bring Jadon up to love and serve Jesus.
Ronald sang a special song to Jadon.
It was a very special event.
The last time my cousins from Holland were here they gave us a fondue set, and requested a picture when we used it, so here we are enjoying the occasion.
Royce's Friend Michelle from Florida
was able to join us for almost a week.
It was a pleasure for all of us to get acquainted.
Grandpa loves to find special items at the auction, and this summer he got a tractor and trailer for Jadon, next summer when he is able to walk he will really be able to have fun with it. And ov course Grandpa will have tractor work for him to do.
I think Grandpa wants to hide me, so when daddy packs the car to go back to Nebraska he can keep me in Kelowna!!
In September we added an elderly kitty to our family. Her name is Mesha, and needs a warm and loving place to live out her retirement years. She has an interesting personality.
Hector's oldest sister Ruth lives in Florida, for the past couple years her husband Bryan has been fighting cancer. In late summer, his health was slipping away. Uncertain of when we would need to make a trip to Florida, we booked tickets to Nebraska for Canadian Thanks Giving, for Jadon's 1st Birthday.
September 27, Bryan passed away. We made some changes to our tickets, and this is how it turned out. Hector and I drove to Spokane on Oct 1st flew overnight arriving in Ft. Lauderdale 7am Tues. Oct 2nd. That afternoon was the viewing, Wednesday afternoon was the funeral. There was a large number of family and friends at Ruth's house day and night. Thursday was a little more relaxing, mostly a family day.
Hector's family, Left to Right in order of age:
Wailu, Ivan, Art, Hector, Fargo, Charlie, Soljer,
Ruth, and Cindi,
with 2 cousins from NY.
Just the boys.
Friday morning by 5 a.m.
Hector and I were back at the airport.
Hector flew to Nebraska and as originally planned,
arrived within a few minutes of Mai-Rhea on Friday afternoon.
We tried to limit the amount of trips
Ronald had to make to the airport.
(1 hr drive Lincoln to Omaha)
Royce and Michelle arrived on Wednesday afternoon.
I flew back to Spokane, to take part in my (should I admit it?) 40th graduation reunion at Upper Columbia Academy. A class mate and her husband got me from the airport. We went out to the school for the evening. I arrived Sabbath morning, in flipflops (Florida attire) , to find there was frost on the grass in Spangle Washington!!
The campus had been blessed with
a new CHURCH, GYM, and AD BUILDING
since we graduated.
Below is the new Ad Building.
This is the Girl's Dorm,
which was only like a year old when I arrived on campus.
This is the School Icon,
it has been faithfully watching over the campus for many years.
Ground Breaking for a new cafeteria and student center.
About 25 of us made it to the reunion,
that is about 1/3 of the class.
In the evening our class went out for Pizza, and a nice visit.
Then off to Nebraska....
By 4 am I was back at the airport to use my original ticket to Omaha, arriving about noon.
Our crazy family schedule required some creative arrangements.
Tiffany had picked up Royce and Michelle,
Royce and Michelle, picked up Hector and Mai
Hector, Ronald and Jadon came for me.
When I got in the car, I got to sit in the back with Jadon,
and finish feeding him his lunch that Grandpa had started,
so we had a nice ride home.
Then Jadon had his nap, and about 4 pm we celebrated the
BIG #1 BIRTHDAY!!!
Blow Hard!!
Mommy and Jadon playing with the new bus.
Monday, Mai, Royce and Michelle had to leave, so Hector and I took them to the airport, and 2 miles out of town, Royce and Hector discovered that they had failed to exchange vehicle keys. Hector and I had driven Royce's truck with a trailer to Spokane and parked it at the conference office, to save paying for parking 2 items at the airport. He had followed us 2 days later with his car, which he parked at the airport, upon return he was going to switch the car for the truck and trailer and go buy building materials. But the truck keys were in Lincoln, and we were 17 miles toward Omaha. Frantically we called, and Tiffany came to meet us, but that caused us some stress, and some very fast driving. But in the end no one missed their flights.
Somebody seems pretty happy to have a girl on each arm!!
Hector and I stayed till Oct 10th, that time Jadon stayed home with his daddy, and Tiffany took us to the airport. We arrived in Spokane, about 6 pm, by the time we got the car from the conference office, and headed out it was 7pm, and we arrived home about midnight.
Canadian Thanks Giving weekend is usually when we do our grape juice. But this year we were 2 weeks late. Mai came home to help a little, I had picked grapes for a few hours about 3 days in a row. Sat night after sundown, we had a grape stemming party, we invited my aunt Violet from Alberta, and aunt Leatha and her granddaughter Kelley from next door. Because of the new floor upstairs, I didn't want to have a grape juice accident which is common, so we moved the stove downstairs, and made a very long extension cord to go to the stove plugin up stairs.
There it goes...
and there is the plugin!
November 3, we had another baby dedication, this time for Jewel, and her cousin Klohe who was born to Edna and Chris Regher (Edgar's sister) mid-September in Pentiction BC
(40 miles south of us).
Hector was asked by Edgar to officiate in the ceremony, and it turned out very nice. For the prayer, he held both babies, which amazed a number of people. Not sure why, we all had plenty of practice at holding 2 babies!!! (Unfortunately he didn't turn toward the audience enough to get a picture.)
Jaki's mom had come from Uganda for 6 weeks and went home Oct 1st, Edgar's mom came just before Klohe was born, so was here for the dedication of both her Canadian Grand-daughters.
a very precious picture of Jewel taken by Auntie Mai Aug 11th.
Ronald, Tiffany and Jadon, will fly into Vancouver on Dec 20th, and spend one night with Mai, then Friday after Mai is finished school they will drive up here for the Christmas Week. The next Friday they will all drive to Seattle to attend the Generation of Youth Conference, Dec 28-Jan 1st. Royce will then go with Michelle to Florida for a week at which time they will visit a lot of Hector's family before he comes back on January 8th.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
To each one of you!!
Stay Tuned, Christmas Pictures coming next.
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